Arcadians, metaphysicians, and all adorers of the past are cursing every day and every hour the modern mania of comparing human things to living beings and call for anathemas against this absurd and sacrilegious profanation of the man-God. Comparative anatomy, physiology and psychology are for these gentlemen nothing but different forms of a strange aberration of the human mind; something capricious and morbid which, by the continual comparison of man and beast, brutalizes us, prostitutes us, and sends us back with a new insanity to the bestial Olympus of men with animal members and of human grafts set on the flesh of the son of God. According to those most exalted and supercilious gentlemen, these are psychic maladies not to be discussed, but cured by contempt and ridicule; they are the hysterics of thought, which disappear with the generation that has seen them rise from the corrupt entrails of the human family. But man does not lower himself by comparing himself with beings that are the matrix from which he came; he does not degrade himself by scenting the earth from which you, also you, O super-gentlemen, say we have been moulded and which is ever the frame supporting us.

The true metaphysics, if this word has still any meaning, was created by modern science, which, by the boldest comparisons of the simplest things with the most complex, of the smallest with the greatest, extracts the subtile from the subtile, and under the motley appearance of the form reveals the only law that governs them. We are going to seek in the limbus of living beings the crepuscules of the highest human things. Bowing our head modestly before the simplicity of laws which govern and control such a wealth of forms, let us return to the reality of things, feeling neither dejected nor ashamed of ourselves, but satisfied with having known how to read the notes of harmony written in the world of dwarfs and giants. Our pride will find sufficient satisfaction, after so many comparisons, in realizing that we are first among all living beings.

No spectacle of nature is more splendid, more admirable than that of the loves of plants and of animals. Nature could not write more fascinating music with a less number of notes, and no other phenomenon of life can resemble that of generation in profusion of forms, lavishness of artifices, inexhaustible conception of mechanisms. One would say that where the reproductive gemmulÆ are attracted, where life reconcentrates its best part to renovate itself with a new impetus, there new and strange energies are developed, and the forces of nature appear with the most gigantic pomp, the most gorgeous luxury. In every other function, Nature, like an economical housewife, seeks the useful and often is satisfied with the necessary; she simplifies the mechanisms, removes the attritions and through the simplest ways attains her aim. But she is not content with the good and the true for generation, and, surrounding the nest of love with a large profusion of esthetic elements, she exhausts every resource to prepare a feast for the life which renews itself. It is around the flower that, nearly always, the most exquisite beauty of form, the most inebriating seductions of perfume, the most varied tints of the painter's palette are interwoven. How many treasures of esthetic force in a lily and in a rose! And all that luxury to do honor to the love of a day, the love of an hour; and all the splendor of a nuptial robe, a thousand times more beautiful than human industry could produce, to screen the virginal kiss of an anther and a pistil!

And jumping from the lily and the rose to the summits of the animal world, how many splendors of fancy, how many flashes of passion, what an interlacement of elements, to make a garland for the kiss of a man and a woman. Run, fly, on a spring day, among the blossoming beds of a garden, among the thousand amorous corollas of the flowers; shake the severe boughs of the cypress and of the pine; plunge your feet into the soft, wet carpet of vallisnerias; let your eyes penetrate into the humid recesses of the barks and the mossy labyrinths of the granite; and everywhere a warm circumfusion of pollen, spores and antheridia will tell your flaming heart that in the world of plants, among the perfumes of the corollas and the emeralds of the seaweeds, love exists in a thousand ways, and the atmosphere is all pervaded with the warm, inebriating sparks which, on the wings of the winds and of the insects and in the rays of the sun, diffuse everywhere an amorous, voluptuous wave.

The love of flowers is mute in the soft perfume of their corollas, but in many of them silence does not prevent tender blandishments and fervent embraces; many plants, always immovable, have convulsions in their flowers; always cold, they flame up in the calyx of their loves. Often they love only once a year; but what a profusion of embraces, what a fecundity of pollen and seed! Shake with your hand a single branch of the juniper or of the blossoming pine, and you will immediately see the air darken with a cloud of fruitful dust; entire forests love at one time, and for miles and miles they fill the air with voluptuous murmurs; more than once do the winds carry clouds of pollen, and the wanton rain washes and purifies the atmosphere, and tinges itself all with the amorous dust.

And without jealousy or rancors, in the shade of the blossoming pines, and among the stamens of the enamored flowers, in every clod of grass, in every cavern of mountain, in every fissure of rock, in every bed of seaweeds, in the deep waves of the ocean, and in the drops of water oozing from the glaciers, in the somberest darkness of mines and in the infinite sky, the animals interweave their loves; so that in every part of the globe, and in every hour of the day and of the night, every ray of the sun warms and contemplates millions of embraces, while every ray of the moon guides the nocturnal lovers to a thousand more intimate blandishments. If it is true that a leaf falls from the tree of life every second and dies, then at every moment a new gemma is born, and for every gemma how many embraces, for every new-born how many loves! The flowers planted in the ground of a cemetery appeal to me as the noblest form of the cult of the dead; for, if our planet is a vast cemetery, where every atom of time buries an atom that was living once, this earth is all a nest of love, in which every zephyr carries to our ear a sigh of voluptuousness, and the harmony of the ether, a dream of the ancient poets, is nothing, perhaps, but the sum of all the kisses exchanged among the living creatures.

If the anatomist and the physiologist discover in the study of generation in the various animals some precious materials to mark the highest laws of the morphology of the living beings, the psychologist finds in the loves of brutes sketched nearly all the elements that man has gathered under his robust wings. No function is more adapted than love to contemplate the unique type and the infinite legion of its forms, to admire a unique conception developed in a thousand different tongues.

No sooner has sex made its appearance than the male quickly distinguishes himself by his aggressive character. With few exceptions, it is the male that seeks, conquers, keeps the prey. Glance over the pages of Darwin's work on sexual selection and you will see how many weapons nature has given to males to conquer and keep their mates. Even in plants, it is the pollen that goes in search of the ovulum, the ovulum that awaits the spark that is to fecundate it. In the most simple of animal forms, where the male and female live and die fettered to the spot that saw their birth, it is the virile element that is always carried there, where the germ awaits it. This is the first dogma that governs the religion of love in the entire world of the living; and when all high races look with contempt upon the woman who attacks and the man who flees, they only protest against the violation of one of the most tyrannical laws which men and mollusks, women and pistils, cannot evade.

Man summarizes all the forms of the living nature; so that we are frequently tempted to affirm that whatever of human is in him is the greatest synthesis of all the minor forms of the living, and that he is precisely the first because under the bark of his individuality all the forces are gathered within him, from the secondary to the last; and the same phenomenon we observe in the psychical elements of his loves.

Pigeons, even when intermingled with the most varied breeds, are seldom unfaithful to their mates; and although the male, in a rare whim, may break the vow of fidelity, he quickly returns to the dear nuptial bed of his spouse. Darwin kept some pigeons of different breeds shut up in the same place for a long time, and there was never a bastard among them. Do we not also find among men splendid examples of the most faithful monogamy and do you not recognize it as the social basis in almost all the superior races?

The antelope of South Africa has up to a dozen mates, and the Antilope saiga of Asia more than a hundred. But have we not the small and hypocritical polygamies of modern society, and those, most splendid and impudent, of the Orientals? Have we not in man, as in very many animals, females who submit to love as to a duty, and males on whom love must be imposed? Have we not libertinism at the very side of chastity? Have we not in the world of man all the lasciviousness, all the ardors, all the possibilities of lewdness of the animals' world?

Several fulmineous forms of love which last no longer than the flash of the lightning not infrequently occur among men, as the cold, long-lasting kisses of many insects are an amorous practice of various human temperaments. And fiery, cruel jealousies and bloody battles are scenes common to men and brutes; nor is death for love an exclusive privilege of man. The few and coarse passions of animals are all carried as a holocaust to the altar of generation, while man carries to it all the ardors of his rich nature, all the infinite forces which he has drawn from the great womb of the living beings and which he has centuplicated with the accumulations of his hundred civilizations. The chaffinch, in the contests of amorous song, more than once falls from the tree on which he is singing his erotic hymn, smothered by pulmonary apoplexy; just as many a poet beholds the lyre of his genius and the chords of his life break at the feet of a woman. In the silence of the shady thickets, the nightingale, exhausted, swoons with love and fatigue, and dies for having been unable to vanquish a more fortunate rival in melody and strength of notes; and hundreds and hundreds of times, in the somber labyrinths of life, the human lover dies in the battles of an unhappy love, and he too dies because he could not sing louder and sweeter than his rival. Nor is coquetry peculiar to the human female only; no woman in the world will ever be the equal of a female canary in the wicked art with which she resists the impatient ardors of her companion; and the thousand travesties with which in the feminine world a "yes" is concealed under a "no" are but pallid imitations of the refined coquetry, the simulated flights, the amorous bitings and the hundred thousand cajoleries of the world of animals.

As to the esthetic elements which nature has lavished upon the loves of living beings, they are such and so many that the richest palette would be insufficient to depict them or the poet's words to describe them. Here are two pictures from my meager collection.

I

I am in the garden, lying down upon a wall so low that I can voluptuously scent the soft aroma of the earth damped by a storm; I have no rugs under my body or pillows under my head; a slate, furrowed and shining, is my bed. With one hand extended above the wall, I am nipping the petals of a lemon flower, while with the other I am frightening the ants which hustle about in the sandy path. All at once, two little shadows, two brown sprites, pass before my eyes and alight, facing me, in the middle of the path. They are two children of heaven, all wings and all beauty; the organs of terrestrial life are reduced to a thread, but a thread that sucks the nectar from the flowers, and four gigantic wings to conquer the skies. Their hours are numbered; they must love and die, and nature made them warm and swift for intense love: organs of sense greater than the venter, organs of beauty greater than the entrails. They are butterflies, but I know not their names, and I feel disappointed. I look around in vain for an entomologist to name them for me: man does not feel that he possesses a creature unless he has sprinkled it with the ink of his dictionaries. They will die, as far as I am concerned, nameless; and in vain will they knock at the gates of paradise, to enter the place where dear and beloved things are remembered. Can you imagine ever having loved a woman whose name you know not? As in religion, so it is in love: baptism is the first and holiest of sacraments.

But these butterflies love each other without baptism; they are frolicking on the pebbles of the path, and running after each other. They do not suspect that the greatest tiger of our planet is watching them, and that a great lizard is creeping down slowly from the little wall and turns its head to left and right sullenly, licking its own lips with its forked tongue and anticipating the savory taste of the delicate flesh of those pretty creatures. They are too happy to think of enemies that surround them; and life and love are flowers which are picked in the midst of hurricanes and battles. They have found a stalk of withered grass which, under the footsteps of many pedestrians and in the sand strewn by the gardener, has succeeded in living and blossoming. That microscopic bush is an entire world for those two lovers, and the little female resorts to it as to a defense against her sweet assailant and runs around it like a child who flees from blows by running around a table. But, after a few impatient circumvolutions, the lover jumps over that little tree and with his wings shakes those of his companion. A pinch of golden dust spreads through the air, and a slightly spiteful shrug, a rebuff and a voluptuous quiver close that first scene of love. At times the little female seems about to yield to the impatient embraces of her companion; and when he, with the trepid anxiety of him who is about to grasp happiness, is very close to her and on the point of touching with his pubescent and loving antennÆ the velvety body of his beloved one, she flies two yards away, and he after her and again and again is met with mockery and cajoleries. The heat increases and the surcharged desire has become as ardent as the sun. The coquette has turned her back to her pursuer and opens her wings slowly in order to show the splendor of her gems, her silver, her velvet, in all their pomp; and having shown them, she folds and raises her wings and instantly hides all the most splendid dress with which nature has made her so beautiful. Nor is the male less of a seducer, as with a little bound, which resembles a flight, he places himself in front of his companion, and in turn opens his wings, showing his thousand colors and the charm of his golden eyes. But too restless is the impatience of those two lovers who exchange their first kisses. Whoever has witnessed but once the caresses of two butterflies can certainly imagine how the angels love; but does any planet shelter a human creature that lives with wings also in heaven?

Now those two butterflies come near to each other, so near as to touch, to kiss with their antennÆ; then in a wink one bounds upon the other and with a leisurely, sweet, prolonged caress, fondly they kiss each other with their wings. And then they repose, as though they wished to relish the sweetness of that grand and voluptuous caress, in which the wing of the one softly and slowly kisses the silk and velvet of his companion. How sweet, how sensual must be the caress of two wings which with a thousand scintillating papillÆ touch each other in a perfect juxtaposition, and yet in this intermingling of nerves and velvet do not lose one single speck of that golden dust which adorns them!

Many and many a time I saw those happy creatures prance around and kiss each other; many a time I stood with beaming eye, envying that angelic kiss of two wings. Man may, indeed, envy the butterfly which in its rich loves of glittering inspiration puts to shame our corporeal embraces. Two creatures, nude yet clothed, passionate and chaste, that love but once and one creature only, that kiss on earth and unite in the skies; that, inebriated with the nectar of flowers and the rays of the sun, caress each other with their wings and fall in love with such beautiful hues as Titian and Rubens strove in vain to obtain from their art and their chemistry; two creatures that abandon life in a long love and from the spasms of a leisurely embrace return to nature their bodies extinguished by love!

After long kisses and many caresses, my two angels exchanged a last, more ardent rebuff, and then away in the sky to relight the torch of life which was soon to be extinguished in them. Sighing, I followed them, now united in a whirling flight, until they were lost in the azure of the skies. Why do we not also love in that way?

II

On my neighbor's roof the first rays of the sun have stirred up an infernal racket. Among the tiles, tawny and corroded by the black wartwort, there are some soft cushions of moss, and on the eaves, with edges frayed by rust and twisted by the alternating of sun and ice, grows some grass that, more frugal than an anchoret and happier than a king, lives on light and dew. On those tiles and on those eaves all the sparrows in the neighborhood have their rendezvous; and, sprightly, petulant, noisy, they pursue each other, intermingle with their wings, and clash, peck, play with their little feathered bodies. They speak a common and inharmonious language, but they seem to narrate the dreams of the night, and to have many and important things to tell each other. One shrieks, another warbles, a third is chirping; not one is still. Happy because they have slept well, having already forgotten yesterday, and unmindful of today, they are basking their feathers in the first rays of the sun, and, beaks hidden under their wings, waging war upon some importunate acarus. There are some small and some big. The gray, the coppery, and the black with slight variations of hues indicate, perhaps, to the naturalist age and sex, perhaps even varieties of species; but in this moment they are all kindred chattering and enjoying themselves together. No difference of caste seems to humiliate one and elate another; no infirmity produces pain in some of them and compassion in others; here is neither etiquette of rank nor hypocrisy of compliments. Have they, those dear and happy young sparrows, carried into effect the republic of Plato?

But, lo! in that crowd of thoughtless, happy creatures I behold a sparrow of a deeper black, a darker chestnut hue, and more high-chested than the others. Frequently he stands upright on his small legs, stretches his neck, his body, his head, like a child about to have his height measured, and, without moving from his place, he looks to the right and to the left with an air of indefinable, vain complacency. And, lo! among his neighbors he sees a female sparrow, of a plain gray color, with an elongated body, delicate and pretty. She seems to have been made for the ivory hand of a lady to hold, thrusting out her loving head from that nest of intelligent folds that is the hand of a woman. The impudent sparrow sees her and, without approaching, utters a cry of conquest which in force and petulance already seems to be a cry of victory. It appears to me that in the sparrow's dictionary that sound must be a word with great significance and important consequences, because the pretty little female with a short flight leaves the noisy crowd of her companions and draws near to the edge of the roof. But the bold lover impatiently flies after her and repeatedly renews his insistent, petulant cry; he is already very close to her, but the little female flies to the roof of the house on the opposite side of the street. She has hardly reached it when the male overtakes her, and at short distance they both face and defy each other; and, twittering in different voices, they hurl at each other a world of words which seem to me insolence and tenderness at the same time. The one whines, the other shrills; the one implores, the other commands, and frequently the prating is so closely intermingled that it seems like the sound of one instrument. But the bickering appears to have fatigued them, and the pretty little female withdraws, running to an eave, while the male looks up at the sun and awaits new strength. And strength seems to be restored to him very soon, for the warbling and shrieking begin anew. Nor is the insolent lover satisfied with his voice, but runs by leaps and flights to peck his companion; and a hasty retreat, a confused crying, a continual clashing succeed each other at brief intervals through the mossy labyrinths of that roof. Already many battles have been fought between the two lovers; the anxiety to escape and to defend herself from wanton desires seems so sincere in that winged little female that I almost begin to believe that she does not want to be loved that morning. But, if this be really so, why does she not open her wings and fly away into the infinite sky? And if she does not love that too obstinate persecutor, why does she call him when he, piqued, flies to the top of the roof, almost simulating indifference or vexation? But desire cannot stand that war any longer, and the male is now decided to seize the sweet prize of victory, and as if sliding down on those tiles, with short leaps that seem steps he pursues his companion, who withdraws to a corner of the roof where it projects over the street. Behind her she has not an inch of space left: she must either fly away and lose, perhaps, her lover, already tired of so many refusals, or capitulate. Fractions of an inch seem to have become infinite space, measured as they are by male and female with steps and leaps; and the female raises her voice louder and louder at intervals, but does not succeed in drowning the more robust and courageous voice of the lover who is now so close to her as to touch her with his beak and shake her with his wings. The two little warm bodies come into contact, clash, commingle. There, on the extreme brink of the eave, with her little body suspended over the abyss, the female concedes the crowning voluptuousness to her companion, and a sweet inspiration and a rebuff which seems like a flash of lightning attend an ardent, intimate, fulmineous love, a love caught over the abyss of space.

The two lovers fall in a swoon; they rise slowly and stare at each other, amazed and languid; then, with a shiver, they adjust their feathers, disarranged by the embrace; with a second shiver they absorb slowly, slowly the last quaver of the vanishing voluptuousness, and away they fly to hide in some hospitable tree their happy lassitude and to restore their strength for new battles and new loves.

These two pictures, which I have rapidly sketched from nature, are only poor specimens from an immense collection, rich in the warmest tints and in the most singular designs. In no function does life multiply its forces as in love, and the queerest phenomena are interlaced around the union of the sexes, which, unique in essence, assumes the most varied forms. The philosopher, the poet, the artist, should study with interest the thousand ways in which living beings exchange the germinative gemmulÆ, and they would find subjects for profound meditation and a strong incentive to inspiration. Only in the eyes of the hypocrite or of the idiot many loves of living beings may seem brutal battles or lascivious embraces. Nowhere does Nature manifest herself more powerful, more inexhaustible, more admirable than where she teaches the living how to perpetuate life. It is well to conceal, as far as possible, from the eyes of our children, especially from little girls, the too obscene intercourses of those domestic animals which most resemble us. However, the most rigorous morals in the world and the most puritanical modesty would be unable to hide the kisses of doves, the amorous duets of canaries, the sublime embraces of butterflies. More than one maiden had in these pictures of nature her first lesson of love; and many years before the lips of a lover taught her the life in two, doves, canaries, butterflies had caused her heart to throb, disclosing to her a corner in the realm of infinite and glowing mysteries.