  Why do the swallow and so many other birds place their habitation so near to that of man? Why do they make themselves our friends, mingling with our labours, and lightening them by their songs? Why is that happy spectacle of alliance and harmony, which is the end of nature, presented only in the climates of our temperate zone? For this reason, that here the two parties, man and the bird, are free from the burdensome fatalities which in the south separate them, and place them in antagonism to one another. That which enervates man, on the contrary, excites the bird, endows him with ardent activity, inquietude, and the vehemence which finds vents in harsh cries. Under the Tropics both are in complete divergence, slaves of a despotic nature, which weighs upon them differently. To pass from those climates to ours is to become free. Here we dominate over the nature which there subjugated us. I quit willingly, and without one wistful glance, the overwhelming paradise where, a feeble child, I have languished in the arms of the great nurse who, with a too potent draught, has intoxicated while thinking to suckle me. This milder nature was made for me, is my legitimate spouse—I recognize her. And, above all, she resembles me; like me, she is grave, she is laborious, she has the instinct of work and patience. Her renewed seasons share among themselves her great annual day, as the workman's day alternates between toil and repose. She gives no fruit gratuitously; she gives what is worth all the fruits of earth—industry, activity. With what rapture I find there to-day my image, the trace of my will, the creations of my exertions and my intelligence! Deeply laboured by me, by me metamorphosed, she relates to me my works, reproduces to me myself. I see her as she was before she underwent this human creative work, before she was made man. Monotonous at the first glance, and melancholy, she exhibited her forests and meadows; but both strangely different from those which are seen elsewhere. The meadow, the rich green carpet of England and Ireland, with its delicate soft sward constantly springing up afresh—not the rough fleece of the Asiatic steppes, not the spiny and hostile vegetation of Africa, not the bristling savagery of American savannahs, where the smallest plant is woody and harshly arborescent—the European meadow, through its annual and ephemeral vegetation, its lowly little flowers, with mild and gentle odours, wears a youthful aspect; nay, more, an aspect of innocence, which harmonizes with our thoughts and refreshes our hearts. On this first layer of humble yielding herbage, which has no pretensions to mount higher, stands out in bold contrast the strong individuality of the robust trees, so different from the confused vegetation of meridional forests. Who can single out, beneath such a mass of lianas, orchids, and parasitical plants, the trees, themselves herbaceous, which are there, so to speak, engulphed? In our ancient forests of Gaul and Germany stand, strong and serious, slowly and solidly built, the elm or the oak—that forest hero, with kindly arms and heart of steel, which has conquered eight or ten centuries, and which, when felled by man As the tree, so the man. May it be given us to resemble it—to resemble that mighty but pacific oak, whose powerful absorption has concentrated every element, and made of it the grave, useful, enduring individual—the solid personality—of which all men confidently demand a support, a shelter; which stretches forth its helpful arms to the divers animal tribes, and shelters them with its foliage! With a thousand voices they gratefully enchant, by day and night, the still majesty of this aged witness of the years. The birds thank it from their hearts, and delight its paternal shades with song, love, and youth. Indestructible vigour of the climates of the West? Why doth this oak live through a thousand years? Because it is ever young. It is the oak which chronicles the commencement of spring. For us the emotion of the new life does not begin when all nature clothes itself in the uniform verdure of the meaner vegetation. It commences only when we see the oak, from the woody foliage of the past, which it still retains, gathering its fresh leaves; when the elm, permitting itself to be outstripped by inferior trees, tints with a light green the severe delicacy of its airy branches, clearly defined against the sky. Then, then, Nature speaks to all—her potent voice troubles even the soul of sages. And why not? Is she not holy? And this surprising awakening, which has stirred life everywhere—from the hard dumb heart of the oaks, even to their lofty crest, where the bird pours out its gladness—is it not, as it were, a return of God? I have lived in climates where the olive and the orange preserve an eternal bloom. Without ignoring the beauty of these favoured trees, and their special distinction, I could never accustom myself to the monotonous permanency of their unchangeable garb, whose verdure responded to the heaven's unchangeable sapphire. I was ever in a state of expectancy, waiting for a renewal which never came. The days passed by, but were always identical. Not a leaf the less on the ground, not a cloudlet in the sky. Mercy, I exclaimed, O everlasting Nature! To the changeful heart which thou hast given me, grant a little change. Rain, mire, storm, I accept them all; so that from sky or earth the idea of movement may return to me—the idea of renovation; that every year the spectacle of a new creation may refresh my heart, may restore to me the hope that my soul shall enjoy a similar resurrection, and, by the alternations of sleep, of death, or of winter, create for itself a new spring! Man, bird, all nature, utter the same desire. We exist through change. To these forcible alternations of heat, cold, fog, and sun, melancholy In the morning a potent voice, of singular freshness and clearness, of keen metallic timbre, the voice of the mavis, rises aloft, and there is no heart so sick or so sour as to hear it without a smile. One spring, on my way to Lyons, among the intertangled vines which the peasants laboured to raise up again, I heard a poor, old, miserable, and blind woman singing, with an accent of extraordinary gaiety, this ancient village lay: "Nous quittons nos grands habits, Pour en prendre de plus petits." THE BIRD AS THE LABOURER OF MAN. |
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