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 in a thicket like 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, 

 will 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 

 without shadow ! 



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 

 sublime freedom, it were not burdened by the two fatalities which 

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

 aspirations. 



