WITH BUSKIN. 29 



volume of Ruskin and went slipping away 

 toward the thicket in a vain attempt to sur- 

 prise the singer at his song. Here is fame! 

 The greatest of living art critics is forgotten 

 in the presence of American song-birds ! For 

 one I am patriotic enough to be proud of the 

 bird's superiority. Whatever is good and at 

 the same time genuinely American, is Worth 

 honoring, if it is nothing but a song of free- 

 dom sung out of season by a free wild bird. 

 But the mocking-bird is far more typical of 

 America than is the eagle, for it is found only 

 in our country, and then its restless and en- 

 terprising disposition is the very counterpart 

 of that which has placed our nation in the 

 fore-front of progress within so short a period 

 of time. It is interesting to go back through 

 the writings of the naturalists and note how 

 they all have done homage to the mocking- 

 bird, le moqiieur as Buffon called it. Fer- 

 nandes, Nieremberg, Catesby, Bartram, Wil- 

 son, Audubon, Nuttall, Baird, and Coues have 

 built monuments of praise to it, poets have 

 sung to it, musicians have tried to imitate it, 

 and everybody has admii'ed it. No wonder 

 then if its song drove Ruskin from our minds. 

 The digression was short, however, for, like 

 every other true genius, the mocking-bird is 

 not overgenerous with song-giving, and al- 

 ways quits before he has quite satisfied jou. 



My reading friend began where he had left 

 off with a passage like this: "The guilty 

 thieves of Europe, the real sources of deadlj^ 

 war in it, are the capitalists." From a man 

 who was born a capitalist and who has never 

 known the need of a dollar, that is a strange 

 assertion, but if any rich man has or ever had 

 the right to make it John Ruskin is he. A 

 capitalist who gives $50,000 per annum to the 



