174 THE LIGHT. 



eye quite as much as on the wing. Among species gifted with a keen 

 and delicate vision, like the falcon, which from the loftiest heights of 

 heaven can espy the worm iji a thicket — Hke the swallow, which 

 from a distance of one thousand feet can perceive a gnat — flight is 

 sure, daring, and charming to look at in its infallible certainty. Far 

 otherwise is it with the myopes, the short-sighted, as you may see 

 by their gait ; they fly with caution, grope about, and are afraid of 

 falling. 



The eye and the wing — sight and flight — ^that exalted degree 

 of puissance which enables you incessantly to embrace in a glance, 

 and to overleap, immense landscapes, vast countries, kingdoms — which 

 permits you to see in complete detail, and not to contract, as in a 

 geographical chart, so grand a variety of objects — to possess and to 

 discern, almost as if you were the equal of God; — oh, what a source 

 of boundless enjoyment ! what a strange and mysterious happiness, 

 scarcely conceivable by man ! 



Observe, too, these perceptions are so strong and so vivid that 

 they grave themselves on the memory, and to such a degree that even 

 an inferior animal like a pigeon retraces and recognizes every little 

 accident in a road which he has only traversed once. How, then, 

 mil it be with the sage stork, the shrewd crow, the intelligent 

 swallow ? 



Let us confess this superiority. Let us regard without envy those 

 blisses of vision which may, perhaps, one day be ours in a happier 

 existence. This felicity of seeing so much — of seeing so far — of 

 seeing so clearly — of piercing the infinite with the eye and the 

 wing, almost at the same moment, — to what does it belong ? To that 

 life which is our distant ideal. A life in the fulness of light, and 

 vjithout shadoio ! 



Already the bird's existence is, as it were, a foretaste of it. It 

 would here prove to him a divine source of knowledge, if, in its 

 subhme freedom, it were not burdened by the two fjitalities wliich 

 chain our globe to a condition of barbarism, and render futile all our 

 aspirations. 



