CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 69 



stoics in the world. Epictetus declared with an 

 oath that he should be glad to see one. 1 To 

 take everything as equally good, to know no 

 difference between bitter and sweet, penury and 

 plenty, slander and praise, this is a great 

 attainment, a Nirvana to which few can hope 

 to arrive. Some wise man has said (and the 

 remark has more meaning than may at once 

 appear) that dying is usually one of the last 

 things which men do in this world. 



Against the foil of the butcher-bird's stolid- 

 ity we may set the inquisitive, garrulous tem- 

 perament of the white-eyed vireo and the yel- 

 low-breasted chat. The vireo is hardly larger 

 than the goldfinch, but let him be in one of his 

 conversational moods, and he will fill a smilax 

 thicket with noise enough for two or three cat- 

 birds. Meanwhile he keeps his eye upon you, 

 and seems to be inviting your attention to his 

 loquacious abilities. The chat is perhaps even 

 more voluble. Staccato whistles and snarls 

 follow each other at most extraordinary inter- 

 vals of pitch, and the attempt at showing off is 

 sometimes unmistakable. Occasionally he takes 

 to the air, and flies from one tree to another; 

 teetering his body and jerking his tail, in an 



l This does not harmonize exactly with a statement which Em- 

 erson makes somewhere, to the effect that all the stoics were stoics 

 indeed. But Epictetus had never lived in Concord. 



