172 THE LIGHT. 
passion. I trembled at his song. He bent his head behind him, 
his swollen bosom; never singer or poet enjoyed so simple an ecstasy. 
It was not love, however (the season was past), it was clearly the 
glory of the day which raptured him—the charm of the gentle sun! 
“Barbarous is the science, the hard pride, which disparages to 
such an extent animated nature, and raises so impassable a barrier 
between man and his inferior brothers ! 
“With tears I said to him: ‘Poor child of light, which thou 
reflectest in thy song, truly thou hast good cause to hymn it! Night, 
replete with snares and dangers for thee, too closely resembles death. 
Would that thou mightst see the light of the morrow!’ Then, passing 
in spirit from his destiny to that of all living beings which, since the 
dim profundities of creation, have so slowly risen to the day, I said, 
like Goethe and the little bird: ‘Light, light, O Lord, more light!’ ” 
—(MIcHELET, The People, p. 62, edit. 1846.) 
The world of fishes is the world of silence. Men say, “Dumb as 
a fish.” 
The world of insects is the world of night. They are all light- 
shunners. Even those, which, like the bee, labour during the day- 
time, prefer the shades of obscurity. 
The world of birds is the world of light—of song. 
All of them live in the sun, fill themselves with it, or are inspired 
by it. Those of the South carry its reflected radiance on their wings; 
those of our colder climates in their songs; many of them follow it 
from land to land. 
“See,” says St. John, “how at morning time they hail the rising 
