174 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



between his ideal and reality must be correspond- 

 ingly greater in his case* This was obvious almost 

 a truism; but the illustration by means of which 

 he brought it home to his hearers was certainly 

 born of poetic imagination* The life of the ordinary 

 person he likened to that of the canary in its cage* 

 And here, dropping his lofty didactic manner, and 

 if I may coin a word smalling his deep, sonorous 

 voice to a thin reedy treble, in imitation of the 

 tenuous fringilline pipe, he went on with lively 

 language, rapid utterance, and suitable brisk move- 

 ments and gestures, to describe the little lemon- 

 coloured housekeeper in her gilded cage. Oh, he cried, 

 what a bright, busy bustling life is hers, with so 

 many things to occupy her time ! how briskly she 

 hops from perch to perch, then to the floor, and 

 back from floor to perch again I how often she drops 

 down to taste the seed in her box, or scatter it about 

 her in a little shower ! how curiously, and turning 

 her bright eyes critically this way and that, she 

 listens to every new sound and regards every object 

 of sight ! She must chirp and sing, and hop from 

 place to place, and eat and drink, and preen her 

 wings, and do at least a dozen different things every 

 minute ; and her time is so fully taken up that the 

 narrow limits confining her are almost forgotten 

 the wires that separate her from the great world of 

 wind-tossed woods, and of blue fields of air, and the 



