A DISGUSTED BLACKBIRD 



sons who will sniff superior and say that my re- 

 marks about the blackbird coughing, spitting and 

 cussing are only nonsensical romancing. That is 

 the trouble with scientists. They observe things 

 in nature in so matter-of-fact a way that they never 

 get at the real truth. Moreover, I have long been 

 convinced that only the observations we make about 

 ourselves are of any use in trying to get at the 

 feelings of others. For instance, I can remember 

 a time when I would loaf along and observe a man 

 digging in a ditch. Seeing him at so excellent and 

 necessary a task I would imagine that he was full 

 of fine ideas about the nobility of labour and the 

 great virtue of the work he was doing, and I might 

 even try to write a song of ditching to express what 

 he felt but was unable to voice. Lately I did some 

 ditching, and I know that my earlier observations 

 were all wrong. If a man came along wearing sum- 

 mer flannels and paused to observe me and tried 

 to understand my emotions and thoughts while doing 

 a very necessary piece of ditching, my thoughts 

 would have run somewhat as follows : "I wonder 

 what that pop-eyed rabbit means by standing there 

 gaping at me. I wonder if I couldn't accidentally 

 splash him with some of this mud." And all the 



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