18 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
lonely ocean-waters. Without waiting for human listeners, and with 
all the greater security, the nightingale had still chanted in the 
forest his sublime hymn. And for whom? For her whom he loves, 
for his offspring, for the woodlands, and, finally, for himself, his most 
fastidious auditor. 
Another difference between this book and that of Toussenel’s is, 
that, harmonious as he is, and a disciple of the gentle Fourier, he is 
not the less a sportsman. In every page the military calling of the 
Lorraine is clearly visible. 
My book, on the contrary, is a book of peace, written specifically 
in hatred of sport. 
Hunt the eagle and the lion, if you will; but do not hunt the 
weak, 
The devout faith which we cherish at heart, and which we teach 
in these pages, is, that man will peaceably subdue the whole earth, 
when he shall gradually perceive that every adopted animal, accus- 
tomed to a domesticated life, or at least to that degree of friendship 
or neighbourliness of which its nature is capable, will be a hundred 
times more useful to him than if he had simply cut its throat. 
Man will not be truly man—we return to this topic at the close 
of our volume—until he shall labour seriously to accomplish the 
mission which the earth expects of him : 
The pacification and harmonious communion of all living nature, 
