1 2>6 May — Reason and Sentiment 



of birds must necessarily be full of discords ; yet people 

 of musical taste endure it, and even delight in it. For 

 the birds are pets of ours, they have especially been pets 

 of the poets, and we regard their performances with 

 the most tender and affectionate indulgence. It has 

 occurred to me more than once to hear what I took for 

 birds' notes, and to think 'what delicious purity of tone, 

 what softness, what ravishing quality ! ' and immediately 

 afterwards to discover that these wondrous notes had 

 been simply whistled by some boy behind a hedge, after 

 which discovery all their fine qualities vanished. 



So much for the criticism of reason ; but when we 

 let sentiment have her way, as in this matter we may 

 and ought to do, then we fall at once under the old 

 charm and can listen enraptured, as Chaucer did. For 

 the songs of birds convey to us far more than the mere 

 sound ; they are voices of Nature speaking to us joy- 

 ously, tenderly, caressing the childish part of our being 

 with simple lullabies, and thus gently effacing the too sad 

 or awful impression which many other sounds of wild 

 things make upon us ; such as the screeching of church- 

 yard owls, the croak of the raven, the wild cry of plovers 

 toppling over in the wind on the ridges of desolate 

 moors. We love the little singing-birds because they so 

 prettily tell us that, notwithstanding the hard regularity 

 of the laws that govern the world, the Divine Mind 

 condescended to take pleasure in cheerful little, beings 

 that sing of gladness only, and know no other theme. 

 Who can tell what man himself may have gained from 

 the singing of the birds, how much his heart may have 



