The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1890-02-12
INHABITANTS OF THE AIR.
Impressiona Of Two Beautifully and p
thetio stories About Birds.

ImpressionA Of Two Beautiful and Pa
thetio stories About Birds.
The marvellous powers by which
birds can guide themselves from the
mole TO the Mediterranean, from the
White Nile TO the Thuringian forests,
are the most inscrutable and pro-
foundry interesting Of all natural
wonders. The scalpel and the cruel
BILE OF the vivisectionist and the chem |
ist cannot penetrate its secrets, and
the evolutionist may fit his pet theo-
ries as he will to its mysteries; he will
fail TO explain it.
Tourgenicff, in 1.-THE Quail, sets the
problem before US, but can give no
solution; the small body OF the quail,
beating heart, her affection, her limo
cence, her full, sweet, happy life,
harming nothing under the grasses
and the dark leaves, and all its lovli-
ness looked on merely as an aim for
gun. as a toothsome morsel for an cpl
curel Oh, the pity of i'll the pity OF
it'll The cruel and senseless waste OF
love and painl Desdemona's death
was not half SO pitifuI as the death OF
the birds with ever day that dawns.
Tourpenieff. a child even when he
saw the quail, never forgot her. II
such lessons could oftener be given TO
boyhood, perhaps hearts less noble
than Tourgenieff's might be moved.
and the minds less lofty than his be
touched to some compassion and TO
comprehension -.
would have Tourgenieff's Quail"
and Dostoiefsky's printed and given,
to every Lad who can understand
beauty Of thought and style.
The eagle had been captured In the
snare and brought TO prison In 81
IBERIA; the prisoners keep it and see IN
its intense misery the reflection and
expression of their own. Then spring
comes - the late, harsh, Siberian
spring. Some among them wish Il
give t freedom, others demur. Why
should bird be set free when theil
own lives must drag on under chaln
until death brings insensibillty and
mockery of released -,
The debate is long, and for Will
the more selfish prevail. They suffer
let the eagle suffer with them. Blu
at last the nobler and more genel
GUS have their way. The eagle Is un
chained. For few moments, bt
wildered and incredulous, he canno
realize his liberty; then slowly he rise
and spreads his mighty wings an
sails above the parapet of the bastio
and passes away, soaring higher an
higher in the misty air until he is lo
from sight against the clouds:
The men to whom freedom ca
never come watch him with achin
eyes-giving to him that which deaf
alone can give to them. All the higl
est parts Of genius-its sympathy,
tenderness, its comprehension, its pa
sion of pity and freedom-are embo
led in these two bird stories OF the tv
great Russian writer's; and whoev
could read either without emotit
would indeed be cursed with tn
secheresse dc occur which modern
ucation has done so much to create.
Tourgenieff and Dostoieffsky wou
feel the heart beats Of that murder
quail, the overwhelming misery OF
Imprisoned eagle, because they we
men Of that evident genius which Is vi
versal comprehension; but some &c
of this comprehension, some hbers
it, may be aroused in all who stu
and love nature-not with the c.
inauisitiveness of so called naturalis
but with the warmth Of sympathy a
the reverence of pantheism.
It is not the naturalist, capable
killing every rare specimen that
SPIES by mere or brake, who 10
birds, but the poet who listens to
sad evening cry Of the agiale,
Shelley, or who translates
throstfe's strong March lyric into
man verse, like Austin, or who I
chant the glorious rapture Of the
gull fight, like Swinburne, who 10
both birds and nature. To be awak
ed in the soft gray Of earliest dawn
the Laus Dec of the merle, and Hal
thee, o, day of the nightingale, tt
ling shouting, echoing through
leaves beneath our chamber windo
is one of the sweetest and purest
of life.-Ouida in Cosmopolitan.