eae, See Le 
¢ 
PHILLIDA AND CORIDON. 107 
upon comfort, nor yet upon safety. The essen- 
tial matter is that the heart be engaged. Then, 
though we be toiling up the Matterhorn, or 
swept along in the rush of a bayonet charge, 
we may still find existence not only endurable, 
but in the highest degree exhilarating. On 
the other hand, if there is no longer anything 
we care for; if enthusiasm is dead, and hope 
also, then, though we have all that money can 
buy, suicide is perhaps the only fitting action 
that is left for us, — unless, perchance, we are 
still able to pass the time in writing treatises to 
prove that everybody else ought to be as un- 
happy as ourselves. 
Birds have many enemies and their full share 
of privation, but I do not believe that they of- 
ten suffer from ennui. Having “neither store- 
house nor barn,” ! they are never in want of 
something to do. From sunrise till noon there 
is the getting of breakfast, then from noon till 
sunset the getting of dinner, — both out-of- 
doors, and without any trouble of cookery or 
dishes, —a kind of perpetual picnic. What 
1 The shrike lays up grasshoppers and sparrows, and the Cali- 
fornia woodpecker hoards great numbers of acorns, but it is still 
in dispute, I believe, whether thrift is the motive with either of 
them. Considering what has often been done in similar cases, we 
may think it surprising that the Scripture text above quoted (to- 
gether with its exegetical parallel, Matthew vi. 26) has never been 
brought into court to settle the controversy; but to the best of my 
knowledge it never has been. 
