18 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



of being. But these most intimate relations to the life below 



us express far more than is conveyed in mere consanguinity, 



for they are each separate and living types of our compounded 



selves. 



Thus we see in the bird the type of our intellect — of the 



soul. We feel that they address the imagination, appeal to 

 what is exulting and exalting in us — to "the aspiration in 

 our heels !" 



The beast, on the other hand, is the type of our sensuous 

 life — it appeals to our material and lower impulses. It pre- 

 figures and embodies individually those purely physical attri- 

 butes which we find expressed in man the Microcosm. In a 

 word, quadrupeds are the indices of our passions which belong 

 to sense; and birds, of our passions which belong to soul. 

 The bird has wings, and like thought, triumphs over time 

 and space. It lives in the pure ether, and all its modes and 

 associations are apparently those of the soul's life. 



»* As birds within the wind 



As fish within the wave, 

 As the thought of man's own mind 



Floats through all above the grave." 



Even the impulses of the bird are those of cold and clear 

 intellection. When it strikes it kills — the quick, fierce, 

 promptitude of appetite knows no pause. It never dallies 

 with the prey, to gloat upon its agonies and heat a hunger 

 on the struggles of fear in the efi"orts to escape, as do the 

 felines and many others of the quadrupeds. With it to feel 

 is to do, and to do quickly. Veni, vidi, vici ! is the accepted 

 motto of fiery, keen, victorious thought. They are the vicious 

 and ignoble sluggards of action that creep to conquer. The 

 beast is crushed by its grossness, and in its highest moods is 

 a crawler, with its belly in the dust. Even in the exultings 

 of its passion, in the murderous bound upon its prey, it must 

 shake the earth from its claws. It is indeed, " of the earth. 



