so much even of the sense of individuality as is implied in the expectation of personal rewards and punishments, whether here or hereafter. For all this he professes himself ready. The man of great possessions and transcendent mental endowment, the practised magistrate, the trained soldier, the consummate artist, the whilom statesman, having found peace in the theoretic acceptance of unadulterated Christian doctrine as he conceives it, offers himself as an example of its perfect practicability. 66 Ma Religion" was given to the world as the literary testament of the author of "Guerre et Paix" and "Anna Karénine." From the hour of the date inscribed upon its final page-Moscow, February 22, 1884-he disappeared from the scene of his immense achievements and the company of his intellectual and social peers. He went away to his estates in Central Russia, to test in his own person his theories of lowly-mindedness, passivity, and universal equality. He undertook to live henceforth with and like the poorest of his own peasants, by the exercise of a humble handicraft. Those who know him best say that he will inevitably return some day; that this phase will pass, as so many others have passed with Tolstoï; and that we need by no means bemoan ourselves over the notion that he has said his last word at fifty-seven. Indeed, he seems to have foreshadowed such a return in his treatment of the characters of Bezouchof and Lenine, with both of whom we instinctively understand the author himself to be so closely identified. We are bound, I think, to hope that Turguéneff's last prayer may be granted; those of us, at least, who are still worldly-minded enough to lament the rarity of great talents in this last quarter of our century. And yet, there is a secret demurrer; there are counter-currents of sympathy. A suspicion will now and then arise of something divinely irrational, something-in all reverence be it said-remotely messianic, in the sacrifice of this extraordinary man. The seigneur would become as a slave, the towering intelligence as folly, if by any means the sufferer may be consoled, the needy assisted. Here, at any rate, is the consistency of the apostolic age. And is it not true that when all is said, when we have uttered our impatient protest against the unconditional surrender of the point of honor, and had our laugh out, it may be, at the flagrant absurdity of any doctrine of nonresistance, a quiet inner voice will sometimes make itself heard with inquiries like these: "Is there anything, after all, on which you yourself look back with less satisfaction than your own self-permitted resentments, your attempted reprisals for distinctly unmerited personal wrong? What is the feeling with which you are wont to find yourself regarding all public military pageants and spectacles of warlike preparation? Is it not one of sickening disgust at the ghastly folly, the impudent anachronism, of the whole thing?" In Europe, at all events, the strain of the counter-preparations for mutual destruction, the heaping of armaments on one side and the other, has been carried to so preposterous and oppressive a pitch that even plain, practical statesmen like Signor Bonghi, in Rome, are beginning seriously to discuss the alternative of general disarmament, the elimination altogether of the appeal to arms from the future international policy of the historic states. Maurice Thompson. BORN in Fairfield, Ind., 1844. THE DEATH OF THE WHITE HERON. [Songs of Fair Weather. 1883.] PULLED my boat with even sweep Tracking the currents of the lake Across a pool death-still and dim I saw a monster reptile swim, And caught, far off and quickly gone, The delicate outlines of a fawn. Above the marshy islands flew I saw the tufted wood-duck pass All round the gunwales and across And, lightly drawn from head to knee, Then, lurking like a savage thing I stood in motionless suspense Alert and vigilant, I stood And from the frondous pine did ring On old drift-logs the bitterns stood The water-turkey eyed my boat, The hideous snake-bird coiled its throat, And birds whose plumage shone like flame Wild things grown suddenly, strangely tame Lit near me; but I heeded not: Grown tired at length, I bent the oars I heard a whisper sweet and keen The water saying some light thing, The wind drew faintly from the south, And down its current sailing low Through graceful curves he swept above Half-turned he poised himself in air; I raised my bow, and steadily drew The silken string until I knew was My trusty arrow's barbed point Then from my fingers leapt the string Closed by a sibilant sound so shrill Like twenty serpents bound together, A thud, a puff, a feathery ring, A whirl, a headlong downward dash, Cypress Lake, Florida. And like white foam, or giant flake Of snow, he lay upon the lake! And of his death the rail was glad, Strutting upon a lily-pad; The jaunty wood-duck smiled and bowed; The belted kingfisher laughed aloud, Making the solemn bittern stir Like a half-wakened slumberer; And rasping notes of joy were heard From gallinule and crying-bird, The while with trebled noise did ring The hammer of the golden-wing! THE BLUEBIRD. HEN ice is thawed and snow is Dull tramp of Winter's sullen feet, WHI gone, And racy sweetness floods the trees; When snow-birds from the hedge have flown, And on the hive-porch swarm the bees, Drifting down the first warm wind That thrills the earliest days of spring, The bluebird seeks our maple groves, And charms them into tasselling. He sits among the delicate sprays, With mists of splendor round him drawn, And through the spring's prophetic veil Which thaws and runs when spring is Short is his song, but strangely sweet To ears aweary of the low, Sandalled in ice and muffed in snow: Short is his song, but through it runs A hint of dithyrambs yet to beA sweet suggestiveness that has The influence of prophecy. From childhood I have nursed a faith In bluebirds' songs and winds of spring: They tell me, after frost and death There comes a time of blossoming; And after snow and cutting sleet, The cold, stern mood of Nature yields To tender warmth, when bare pink feet Of children press her greening fields. Sing strong and clear, O bluebird dear! While all the land with splendor fills, While maples gladden in the vales And plum-trees blossom on the hills: Float down the wind on shining wings, And do thy will by grove and stream, While through my life spring's freshness runs Like music through a poet's dream. AL THE MOTIF OF BIRD-SONG. [Sylvan Secrets, in Bird-Songs and Books, 1887.] LL our birds use what we call their voices, just as we use ours, for the purposes of expression generally, and I am convinced that bird-song proper, though oftenest the expression of some phase of the tender passion, is not confined to such expression. In a limited way birds have their lyric and their dramatic moods, their serious and their comic songs, their recitative and their oratorical methods. They are conscious of any especial superiority of voice, just as they are keenly aware of any particular brilliancy of colors on their plumage. It may be noticed, in passing, that here again the birds and reptiles agree (many of the latter giving evidence of a taste for bright colors), while below man no other animals show much more than mere curiosity in this regard. A parrot having gay feathers in its wings and tail will display them to please your eye in return for the favor of a nut or a cracker, without ever having been taught to do it. It is conscious of the fact that brilliant colors are acceptable to the eye, and it instinctively seeks to thank you, so to say, by the delicate strut which uncovers all its hidden wealth of red, yellow, and blue. So the sweetest sounds at its command are instinctively flung out by the song-bird whenever it feels especially happy. The migratory song-birds, upon their spring arrival, are (no doubt) delighted at finding themselves once more in their breeding-haunts, and immediately they begin to give free vent to their feelings through their melodious throats. It would be interesting to know whether or not they do the same at the extreme southern end of their migration. I have noted that along the gulf-coast of Mississippi and Louisiana the non-resident mocking-birds, when they first come in from farther south, are noisily communicative of their ecstatic pleasure. For a few days they make the groves ring with their songs, then pass on farther north, many of them finally reaching Tennessee, some going over the mountains to Kentucky, and a few touching with a light spray of melody the southernmost knobs of Ohio and Indiana. I might easily mass a large sum of facts going to show that no one desire or instinctive emotion is the sole cause of bird-song. That the tender passion engenders lyrical fervor and makes a feathered troubadour of the gay sylvan lover there can be no doubt, but love is not always at the root of the lay. The song-bird is a gourmand of the most pronounced type, and we find him going into a rapture of sweet sounds over a feast of insects or fruit. He enjoys bright colors, too, so that he is always hilarious when he finds himself in the midst of green leaves and beautiful bloom-sprays. A haw-bush or wild appletree in full flower often is the inspiration of the brown thrush and the catbird. In a certain way, indeed, the birds are true poets, singing forth the influence of their environments-just as Burns sang his, just as Millet painted his. I do not mean to be fanciful in this regard. Call it instinct, as it is, and say that birds do not reason, which is true; but add, nevertheless, the indisputable fact that instinct is of kin to genius, in that it has its origin (as genius has its) in the simplest and purest elements of nature, and so you will get my meaning. It is impossible to know, with any degree of certainty, how clear or how dim may be the bird's conception of melody or of beauty; but we can know that its enjoyment of color and sweet sounds is most intense. The woodpecker, beating his unique call on a bit of hard, elastic wood, is making an effort, blind and crude enough, but still an effort, to express a musical mood vaguely floating in his nature. We may not laugh at him, so long as from the interior of Africa explorers bring forth the hideous caricatures of musical instruments that some tribes of our own genus delight themselves withal. Among the Southern negroes it was once common to see a dancer going through an intricate terpsichorean score to the music of a "pat," which was a rhythmical hand-clapping performed by a companion. I mention this in connection with the suggestion that the chief difference between the highest order of bird-music and the lowest order of man-music is expressed by the word rhythm. There is no such an element as the rhythmic beat in any bird-song that I have heard. Modulation and fine shades of "color," as the musical critic has it, together with melodious phrasing, take the place of rhythm. The meadow-lark, in its mellow fluting, comes very near to a measure of two rhythmic beats, and the mourning dove puts a throbbing cadence into its plaint; but the accent which the human ear demands is wholly wanting in each case. On the other hand, the mocking-bird, the cat-bird, and the brown thrush accentuate their songs, but not rhythmically; indeed, the cat-bird's utterance is an impetuous stream of glittering accents, as it were irregular, tricksy, flippant, and yet as symmetrical, in a certain sense, as the bird itself-and the mocking-bird's song is like a flashing stream of water flowing over stones in the sunlight and flinging ariose bubbles and tinkling spray in every direction. I have watched birds at their singing under many and widely differing circumstances, and I am sure that they express joyous anticipation, present content, and pleasant recollection, each as the mood moves, and all with equal ease. It is not so plain, however, that the avian nature is fitted to formulate hate, or sorrow, or anger in song, for any unpleasant mood seems to take expression in cries altogether unmusical. I have never heard one sweet note by any angry or in any way unhappy bird. The avian life is beset with every danger except, probably, that of epidemic disease, and yet so flexible and elastic is it that the moment any terrible ordeal is past the bird is quite ready for a new and energetic effort in song-singing. Among human beings a fine voice is the notable exception; among male mocking-birds in a wild state there is no exception-they all sing, and so nearly equally well that it requires close attention to discover any difference. So one wild bluebird's piping is practically identical, in volume, compass, and timbre, with that of every other wild male bluebird in the world. From this and a hundred kindred facts, it is safe to say that generation and the constant transmission of organic power and equipoise are very nearly perfect with birds of the highest order. Indeed, in song, as in so many other ways, the bird shows the operation of a nearly unerring heredity, and I have been forced to conclude, from all that I have been able to note in the lives and habits of song-birds, that a good part of bird-song is the mechanical response |