EAGLES AND ART. 255 



bird when in perfect repose emits a series of sounds resem- 

 bling considerably those produced by musical glasses under 

 the finger it is strange to find this trait in the harsh family of 

 Eaptorese but it is not the less consistent with the unity in 

 apparent discord prevailing throughout Nature. These savage 

 despots of the air have all a harmony of their own ! 



Aye, in his solitary wandering the Artist makes the discov- 

 ery, that in the fitness of things the Eagle even may be consid- 

 ered a musical bird. His estimate of harmonious sounds is 

 comparative by necessity. When standing beside Niagara, 

 or when amidst savage mountains he scales the slippery 

 rocks that tremble to the sullen thunder-bass of cataracts, 

 leaping down dark-mouthed, j agged- gorges ; then if he hear 

 the Eagle shout its shrill war-cry from out the spray-mist, 

 doth his heart leap up within him, for here those dissonant 

 notes best harmonize the dissonance ! 



Here, too, one glimpse of its warrior form as it comes forth 

 suddenly to view on steadied wings, cutting the span of the 

 perpetual iris in one imperial gleaming sweep of arrowy 

 flight, the Artist sees to be worth a life full of common 

 sights ! that the Old Mother has no grand show beyond this 

 one ! The creature seems the embodied spirit of the place 

 a winged desolation, born amidst the angry roar of mighty 

 forces, to spring forth glorious in fierce beauty from the mists 

 of their collision. 



Of the stern wildness of all pathless solitudes the Eagle is 

 a part, and the Artist knows that in painting such scenes his 

 highest and noblest effects are produced by its presence. 

 Hence, apart from the necessity he has found for studying it 

 as the antitype of grandeur in humanity, he must do so as 

 the most perfect consummation of the wild sublime in land- 

 scape in the moods, humors and conditions presented by 

 his mother. 



Now, therefore, has he at length learned of her to look 

 upon the Eagle, not as the mere object of a technical curi- 

 osity, as an ornithological specimen, to be measured, skinned, 



