Part 37

Plainly this elephant acted upon reflection, and upon a blind instinct; he acted against nature in the strength and enlightenment of his will.

Page 270. The master-nightingale.--I owe this anecdote to a lady well entitled to a judgment upon such questions--to Madame Garcia Viardot (the great singer). The Russian peasants, who possess a fine ear and a keen sensibility for Nature (compared with her harshness towards them), said, when they occasionally heard the Spanish cantatrice: "The nightingale does not sing so well."

Page 273. Still the little one hesitates, &c.--"One day I was walking with my son in the neighbourhood of Montier. We perceived towards the north, on the Little Salève, an eagle emerging from the windings of the rocks. When he was tolerably near the Great Salève he halted, and two eaglets, which he had carried on his back, attempted to fly, at first very close to their teacher, and in narrow circles; then, a few minutes afterwards, feeling fatigued, they returned to rest upon his back. Gradually their essays were protracted, and at the close of the lesson the eaglets effected some much more important flights, still under the eyes of their teacher of gymnastics. After about an hour's occupation the two scholars resumed their post on the paternal back, and the eagle returned to the rock from which he had started." (M. Chenvières, of Geneva.)

Page 304. The small Chili falcon (cernicula).--I extract this statement from a new, curious, but little known work, written in French by a Chilian: Le Chili, by B. Vicuna Mackenna (ed. 1855, p. 100). Chili I take to be a most interesting country, which, by the energy of its citizens, should considerably modify the unfavourable opinion entertained by the citizens of the United States in reference to South Americans. America will not exist as a world, so long as a common feeling shall be wanting between the two opposite poles which ought to create her majestic harmony.

Final Note on the Winged Life.--To appreciate beings so alien from the conditions of our prosaic existence, we must for a moment abandon earth, and become a sense apart. We get a glimpse of something inferior and superior, of something on this side and on that, the limbs of the animal life on the borders of the life of the angels. In proportion as we assume this sense, we lose the temptation of degrading the winged life--that strange, delicate, mighty dream of God--to the vulgarities of earth.

To-day even, in a place infinitely unpoetic, neglected, squalid, and obscure, among the black mud of Paris, and in the dank darkness of an apartment scarcely better than a cavern, I saw, and I heard chirping, in a subdued voice, a little creature which seemed not to belong to this low world. It was a warbler, and one of a common species--not the blackcap, which is prized so highly for his song. This one was not then singing; she chattered to herself, just a few notes, as monotonous as her situation. For winter, shadow, captivity, all were around her. The captive of a rough, rude man, of a speculator in birds, she heard on every side sounds which silenced her song; powerful voices were above her head, a mocking-bird among them, which rang out every moment their brilliant clarions. Generally, she would be condemned to silence. She was accustomed, one could perceive, to sing in a low tone. But in this limited flight, this habitual resignation and half lamentation, might be detected a charming delicacy, a more than feminine softness (morbidezza). Add to this the unique grace of her bosom and her motions, of her modest red and white attire, which sparkled, however, with a bright sheeny reflex.

I recalled to my mind the pictures in which Ingres and Delacroix have shown us the captives of Algiers or the East, and exactly depicted the dull resignation, the indifference, the weariness of their monotonous lives, and also the decline (must we say the extinction?) of the inner fire.

But, alas! it was wholly different here. The flame burned in all its strength. She was more and less than a woman. No comparison was of any use. Inferior by right of her animal nature, by her pretty bird-masquerade, she was lifted above by her wings, and by the winged soul which sang in that little body. An all-powerful alibi held her enthralled afar off, in her native grove, in the nest whence she had been stolen in her infancy, or in her future love-nest. She warbled five or six notes, and they kindled my very soul; I myself, for the moment armed with wings, accompanied her in her distant dream.

FOOTNOTES:

The book referred to was the "Études de la Nature."--Translator.

Dittany was formerly much used as a cordial and sedative.--Translator.

Jean Baptiste de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck, was born August 1, 1744; died December 20, 1829. His chief work is his "History of Invertebrate Animals."--Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire was born in 1772, and died in 1844. He expounds his theory of natural history in the "Philosophie Anatomique," 2 vols., 1818-20.--Translator.

Alphonse Toussenel, an illustrious French littérateur, born in 1803. The first edition of his "Le Monde des Oiseaux, Ornithologie Passionelle," was published in 1852.--Translator.

The frigate bird, or man-of-war bird (Trachypetes aquila).--Translator.

Alluding to a popular superstition, which Béranger has made the subject of a fine lyric:--

"What means the fall of yonder star, Which falls, falls, and fades away?... My son, whene'er a mortal dies, Earthward his star drops instantly."--Translator.

It was with this exordium Toussaint commenced his appeal to Napoleon Bonaparte.

Napoleon's treatment of Toussaint L'Ouverture is one of the darkest spots on his fame. He flung this son of the Tropics into a dungeon among the icy fastnesses of the Alps, where he died, slain by cold and undeserved ill-treatment, on the 27th of April 1803.--Translator.

There are two lights, of which the more elevated is 396 feet above the sea-level.--Translator.

La Hève is the ancient Caletorum Promontorium, and situated about three miles north-west of Havre.--Translator.

That the reader may feel the full force of this passage, I subjoin the original: "Nous n'en vivions pas moins d'un grand souffle d'âme, de la rajeunissante haleine de cette mère aimée, la Nature."

Compare the interesting descriptions of the huge dams erected by beavers across the American rivers, in Milton and Cheadle's valuable narrative of travel, "The North-West Passage by Land."--Translator.

The reader will hardly require to be reminded of the poet Cowper and his hares.--Translator.

Family Trochilidæ.

Felix de Azara was an eminent Spanish traveller, who died at Arragon in 1811. He acted as one of the commissioners appointed to trace the boundary-line between the Spanish and Portuguese possessions in the New World. His researches in Paraguay made many valuable contributions to natural history.--Translator.

Lesson was a French traveller of repute; but his works are little known beyond the limits of his own country.--Translator.

François Levaillant was born at Paramaribo in Dutch Guiana, in 1753. Passionately fond of natural history, and scarcely less fond of travel, he gratified both passions in 1780 by undertaking a series of explorations in Southern Africa. His last journey extended a little beyond the tropic of Capricorn. He returned to Europe in 1784, published several valuable works of travel and zoology, and died in 1824.--Translator.

The unfortunate navigator, Jean François de Calaup, Comte de La Perouse, was born in 1741. At an early age he entered the French navy, rose to a high grade, and distinguished himself by his services against the English in North America. In 1783 he was appointed to command an expedition of discovery, and on the 1st of August 1785, sailed from Brest with two frigates, the Boussole and the Astrolabe. He reached Botany Bay in January 1788, and thenceforward was no more heard of for years. Several vessels were despatched to ascertain his fate, but could obtain no clue to it. In 1826, however, Captain Dillon, while sailing amongst the Queen Charlotte Islands, discovered at Wanicoro the remains of the shipwrecked vessels. A mausoleum and obelisk to the memory of their unfortunate commander was erected on the island in 1828.--Translator.