AMONG civilized people those are the most cheerful and happy, if possessed of a benevolent heart and favored with the ordinary gifts of fortune, who have acquired by habit and education the power of deriving pleasure from the objects that lie immediately around them. But these sources of happiness are open to those only who are endowed with sensibility, and who have received a favorable intellectual training. The more ordinary the mental and moral organization and culture of the individual, the more far-fetched and dear-bought must be his enjoyments. Nature has given us in full development only those appetites which are necessary to our physical well-being. She has left our moral powers and affections in the germ, to be developed by education and reflection. Hence that serene delight that comes chiefly from the exercise of the imagination and the moral sentiments can be felt only by persons of superior and peculiar refinement of mind. The ignorant and rude are dazzled and delighted by the display of gorgeous splendor, and charmed by loud and stirring sounds. But the more simple melodies and less attractive colors and forms, that appeal to the imagination for their principal effect, are felt only by individuals of a poetic temperament.

In proportion as we have been trained to be agreeably affected by the outward forms of nature and the sounds that proceed from the animate and the inanimate world are we capable of being happy without resorting to vulgar and costly recreations. Then will the aspects of nature, continually changing with the progress of the seasons, and the songs that enliven their march, satisfy that craving for agreeable sensations which would otherwise lead us away from humble and healthful pursuits to those of an artificial and exciting life. The value of these pleasures of sentiment is derived not so much from their cheapness as from their favorable moral influences, that improve and pleasantly exercise the mind without tasking its powers. Those quiet emotions, half musical and half poetical, which are awakened by the songs of birds, belong to this class of refined enjoyments.

But the music of birds, though delightful to all, conveys active and durable pleasure only to those who have learned to associate with their notes, in connection with the scenes of nature, a crowd of interesting and romantic images. To many persons of this character it affords. more delight than the most brilliant music of the concert or the opera. In vain will it be said as an objection, that the notes of birds have no charm save that of association, and do not equal the melody of a simple reed or flageolet. It is sufficient to reply that the most delightful influences of nature proceed from sights and sounds that appeal to a poetic sentiment through the medium of slight and almost insensible impressions made upon the eye and the ear. At the moment when these physical impressions exceed a certain mean, the spell is broken, and the enjoyment, if it continues, becomes sensual, not intellectual. How soon, indeed, would the songs of birds pall upon the ear if they were loud and brilliant like a band of instruments. It is simplicity that gives them their charm.