TANGLE-LEAF PAPERS. 41 



the most delicate shades of influence in order 

 to get the values of nature. Even the photo- 

 graph is to be caught on no plate save the most 

 sensitive. 



The other day, when I told a friend that I 

 had discovered that the mocking-bird never 

 tries to imitate the cooing of a dove, he said, 

 "Why, every one knew that long ago." 

 " Show me the record," I demanded ; but he 

 could not. " Well, what good can come of 

 your discovery, even if you are entitled to the 

 credit ? " he rather triumphantly asked. I 

 answered that the fact was suggestive ; that it 

 had an artistic value. A mournful, desponding 

 voice is never attractive to a vigorous, healthy 

 nature. Cheerfulness and enthusiasm are 

 what win followers for birds as well as men. 

 The mocking-bird is a genius who catches from 

 nature all its available notes, and combines 

 them so as to express the last possibility of 

 bird-song, rejecting the moaning of the dove 

 and the thumping notes of the yellow-billed 

 cuckoo, just as the true poet rejects thoughts 

 and words unworthy of his lay. 



It is true that, as the times go, the artist is 

 called upon to please a vitiated taste. The 

 poet and the novelist must meet the demands 

 of the schools and coteries. The precious 

 hints and suggestions caught from the provin- 

 cial lanes and wood-paths are not considered 

 favorable by the metropolitan, as a rule ; but 

 out of these must grow, as the plant from the 

 seed, the living, lasting values of all art. City 

 study is book study, through which the truths 

 and beauties of nature are seen at a distance, 

 as if through a very delusive atmosphere. To 

 test this take your books into the woods of 



