SOME MINOR SONG-BIRDS. 153 
gems fresh from the fabled fires of the em- 
pyrean. 
Reading the above sentence over, I feel its 
coarseness in the presence of a genuine blue- 
bird-sheen and blue-bird-warble reaching me 
as I write. How artificial and insincere are 
the verbal rhapsodies of the most natural of 
our poets when set in the searching light of 
unconscious nature! Why do not the blue- 
bird’s notes, arranged always in the same 
order and expressed always with precisely the 
same tone, accent, and emphasis, become 
stale? Why does not the bird’s manner grow 
perfunctory ? Who ever did get weary of hear- 
ing over and over, from day to day, spring 
after spring, those liquid bird-phrases that, 
pitched te a strange minor, have been the 
same since first an oscine throat was filled 
with music? We must all, even the most un. 
imaginative of us, acknowledge a little impulse 
to gush and get rid of a fine fury of sentiment 
about the time when a flash of green, a thrill 
of warmth and balm, and a gush of bird-song 
go across the fields and woods. 
The man who can look into a bird’s nest, 
well-set with tender-hued eggs, without feeling 
an inward smile, as if his soul were sweetly 
pleased, has lost something that is the chief 
ingredient of perfect sanity and simplicity. 
What is usually meant by the word sentiment- 
ality is an abomination; but our human na- 
ture, in a state of absolute health, is furnished 
with a myriad little well-springs of generous 
sympathy and sweet responsiveness, that 
should not be allowed to godry. If the fra- 
grant, essential elements of a healthy soul 
may be called sentiments, then let sentiment- 
