192 
BIRDS IN A VILLAGE. 
not brought together and paraded in a herd before 
the reader ; they are in their places, widely scattered, 
and do not spoil the vivid picture of that far hot 
land and novel nature which shines on the mental 
eye in all its vastness. All the better, too, I will 
make bold to say, on account of a certain healthy 
hardness in the writer, which is apt to offend those 
who cannot love animals without being too much 
carried away by the feeling ; also those who bestow 
too large a share of their affections on a few chosen 
individuals and grieve excessively at their inevitable 
decay and death. What I have called hardness, 
quoting others, is really a very good quality, and, 
I believe, the condition of mind with regard to our 
dealings with the inferior animals which best suits 
us, and which we should strive to attain. For, 
after all, our " friends in ' fur and feathers " are not 
human and apprehensive of death, and so long as 
we refrain from pampering them and forcing them 
into unnatural conditions, they are always happy 
in their way, and, when they die, die quickly. At 
the same time, if this so-called hardness is due to 
something like insensibility to sufferings that are 
not preventable, better that than the intense feeling 
which tends to become morbid. 
One of our poets lately told the public how his 
soul was harrowed at the sight of a sick monkey's 
sufferings, and how he screeched at the Author of 
