. The bird . prodigious inquietude, themothers many cares, is beyond our province here; of the difficultiesof its education we have already spoken. It is only through time and tenderness that the bird receives itsinitiation. Superior by its powers of flight, it is so much the moreso through this, that it has had a home and has gained life throughits mother; fed by her, and by its father emancipated, the freest ofbeings is the favourite of love. If one wishes to admire the fertility of nature, the vigour of inven-tion, the charming, and in a certain sense, the terrifying richness, whichfrom one
. The bird . prodigious inquietude, themothers many cares, is beyond our province here; of the difficultiesof its education we have already spoken. It is only through time and tenderness that the bird receives itsinitiation. Superior by its powers of flight, it is so much the moreso through this, that it has had a home and has gained life throughits mother; fed by her, and by its father emancipated, the freest ofbeings is the favourite of love. If one wishes to admire the fertility of nature, the vigour of inven-tion, the charming, and in a certain sense, the terrifying richness, whichfrom one identical creation draws a million of opposite miracles, one 68 THE EGG. should regard this egg, so exactly like another, and yet the sourcewhence shall issue the innumerable tribes born to a life of wings onearth. From the obscure unity it pours out, it expands, in divergent rays, those winged flames which you name birds,glowing with ardour and life, with colour and song. From the. burning liand of God escapes continuously that vast fan of astound-ing diversity, where everything shines, where everything sings, whereeverything floods me with harmony and light. Dazzled, I lower myeyes. Melodious sparks of celestial fire, whither do ye not attain ?For ye exists nor height nor distance; the heaven, the abyss, it isall one. What cloud, what watery deep is inaccessible to ye ? Earth,in all its vast circuit, great as it is with its mountains, its seas, andits valleys, is whoUy yours. I hear ye under the Equator, ardent asthe arrows of the sun. I hear ye at the Pole, in the eternal lifelesssilence, where the last tuft of moss has faded; the very bear seesye afar, and slinks away growling. Ye, ye stiU remain; ye live, yelove, ye bear witness to God, ye reanimate death. In those terrestrialdeserts your touching loves invest with an atmosphere of innocencewhat man has designated the barbarism of nature. V*
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Keywords: ., bookauthormich, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubjectbirds
