Transcriber's note:
Some presumed printer's errors were corrected. The following is a list
of changes made from the original. The first line shows the original
text; the second line is the corrected text as it appears in this
e-book.
A. E (p. viii)
A. E.
and. thou (p. 105)
and, thou
resemblance (p. 126)
resemblance.
Page 14 (p. 315)
Page 74
Don Jean (Footnote 29)
Don Juan
Italics are surrounded with _ _ and Greek words are transliterated and
marked with # #. The oe ligature has been replaced in this version by
the letters oe.
[Illustration: THE BIRD.]
THE BIRD
BY
JULES MICHELET.
WITH 210 ILLUSTRATIONS BY GIACOMELLI.
[Illustration]
LONDON:
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW;
EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.
1868.
[Illustration]
To Madame Michelet.
_I dedicate to thee what is really thine own: three books of the
fireside, sprung from our sweet evening talk_,--
THE BIRD--THE INSECT--THE SEA.
_Thou alone didst inspire them. Without thee I should have pursued,
ever in my own track, the rude path of human history._
_Thou alone didst prepare them. I received from thy hands the rich
harvest of Nature._
_And thou alone didst crown them, placing on the accomplished work the
sacred flower which blesses them._
_J. MICHELET._
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Translator's Preface.
"L'Oiseau," or "The Bird," was first published in 1856. It has since
been followed by "L'Insecte" and "La Mer;" the three works forming a
trilogy which few writers have surpassed in grace of style, beauty of
description, and suggestiveness of sentiment. "L'Oiseau" may be briefly
described as an eloquent defence of the Bird in its relation to man,
and a poetical exposition of the attractiveness of Natural History. It
is animated by a fine and tender spirit, and written with an inimitable
charm of language.
In submitting the following translation to the English public, I
am conscious of an urgent need that I should apologize for its
shortcomings. It is no easy matter to do justice to Michelet in
English; yet, if I have failed to convey a just idea of his beauties
of expression, if I have suffered most of the undefinable _aroma_ of
his style to escape, I believe I have rendered his meaning faithfully,
without exaggeration or diminution. I have endeavoured to preserve,
as far as possible, his more characteristic peculiarities, and even
mannerisms, carrying the _literalness_ of my version to an extent which
some critics, perhaps, will be disposed to censure. But in copying the
masterpiece of a great artist, what we ask of the copyist is, that
he will reproduce every effect of light and shade with the severest
accuracy; and, in the translation of a noble work from one language to
another, the public have a right to demand the same exact adherence to
the original. They want to see as much of the author as they can, and
as little as may be of the translator.
The present version is from the eighth edition of "L'Oiseau," and is
adorned with all the original Illustrations.
A. E.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Contents.
INTRODUCTION.
Page
HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO THE STUDY OF NATURE, 13
PART FIRST.
THE EGG, 63
THE POLE--AQUATIC BIRDS, 71
THE WING, 81
THE FIRST FLUTTERINGS OF THE WING, 91
TRIUMPH OF THE WING--THE FRIGATE BIRD, 101
THE SHORES--DECAY OF CERTAIN SPECIES, 111
THE HERONRIES OF AMERICA--WILSON, THE ORNITHOLOGIST, 121
THE COMBAT--THE TROPICAL REGIONS, 131
PURIFICATION, 143
DEATH--BIRDS OF PREY (THE RAPTORES), 153
PART SECOND.
THE LIGHT--THE NIGHT, 171
STORM AND WINTER--MIGRATIONS, 181
MIGRATIONS, _Continued_--THE SWALLOW, 193
HARMONIES OF THE TEMPERATE ZONE, 205
THE BIRD AS THE LABOURER OF MAN, 213
LABOUR--THE WOODPECKER, 223
THE SONG, 235
THE NEST--ARCHITECTURE OF BIRDS, 247
THE COMMUNITIES OF BIRDS--ESSAYS AT A REPUBLIC, 257
EDUCATION, 265
THE NIGHTINGALE--ART AND THE INFINITE, 277
THE NIGHTINGALE, _Continued_, 287
CONCLUSION, 297
ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES, 311
[Illustration]
[Illustration: HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED
TO
THE STUDY OF NATURE.]
[Illustration]
THE BIRD.
How the Author was led to the Study of Nature.
To my faithful friend, the Public, who has listened to me for so
long a period without disfavour, I owe a confession of the peculiar
circumstances which, while not leading me altogether astray from
history, have induced me to devote myself to the natural sciences.
The book which I now publish may be described as the offspring of the
domestic circle and the home fireside. It is from our hours of rest,
our afternoon conversations, our winter readings, our summer gossips,
that this book, if it be a book, has been gradually evolved.
Two studious persons, naturally reunited after a day's toil, put
together their gleanings, and refreshed their hearts by this closing
evening feast.
Am I saying that we have had no other assistance? To make such a
statement would be unjust, ungrateful. The domesticated swallows which
lodged under our roof mingled in our conversation. The homely robin,
fluttering around me, interjected his tender notes, and sometimes the
nightingale suspended it by her solemn music.
[Illustration]
The burden of the time, life, labour, the violent fluctuations of our
era, the dispersion of a world of intelligence in which we lived, and
to which nothing has succeeded, weighed heavily upon me. The arduous
toils of history found occasional relaxation in friendly instruction.
These pauses, however, are only periods of silence. Where shall we seek
repose or moral invigoration, if not of nature?
The mighty eighteenth century, which included a thousand years of
struggle, rested at its setting on the amiable and consoling, though
scientifically feeble book of Bernardin de St. Pierre.[1] It ended with
that pathetic speech of Ramond's: "So many irreparable losses lamented
in the bosom of nature!"
We, whatever we had lost, asked of solitude something more than tears,
something more than the dittany[2] which softens wounded hearts.
We sought in it a panacea for continual progress, a draught from
inexhaustible fountains, a new strength, and--wings.
This work, whatever its character, possesses at least the distinction
of having entered upon life under the usual conditions of existence. It
results from the intimate communion of two souls; and is in all things
itself uniform and harmonious because the offspring of two different
principles.
[Illustration]
Of the two souls to which it owes its existence, one was the more
powerfully attracted to natural studies by the fact that, in a
certain sense, it had been born among them, and had ever preserved
their fragrance and sweet savour. The other was so much the more
strongly impelled towards them because it had always been separated by
circumstances, and detained in the rugged ways of human history.
History never releases its slave. He who has once drunk of its sharp
strong wine will drink thereof till his death. I could not wrench
myself from it even in days of suffering. When the sorrows of the
past blended with those of the present, and when on the ruins of our
fortunes I inscribed "ninety-three," my health might fail, but not
my soul, my will. All day I applied myself to this last duty, and
pressed forward among the thorns. In the evening I listened--at first
not without effort--to the peaceful narrative of some naturalist or
traveller. I listened and I admired, unable as yet to console myself,
or to escape from my thoughts, but, at all events, keeping them under
control, and preventing any anxieties and any mental storms from
disturbing this innocent tranquillity.
Not that I was insensible to the sublime legends of those heroic men
whose labours and enterprise have so largely benefited humanity. The
great national patriots whose history I was relating were the nearest
of kindred to these cosmopolitan patriots, these citizens of the world.
[Illustration]
For myself, I had long hailed, with all my heart, the great French
Revolution which had occurred in the Natural Sciences--the era of
Lamarck and of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire,[3] so fertile in method, the
mighty restorers of all science. With what happiness I traced their
features in their legitimate sons--those ingenious children who have
inherited their intellect!
[Illustration]
At their head let me name the amiable and original author of the "Monde
des Oiseaux,"[4] whom the world has long recognized as one of the most
solid, if not also the most amusing, of naturalists. I shall refer to
him more than once; but I hasten, on the threshold of my book, to pay
this preliminary homage to a truly great observer, who, in all that
concerns his own observations, is as weighty, as _special_, as Wilson
or Audubon.
He has wronged himself by saying that, in his noble work, "he has only
sought a pretext for a discourse on man." On the contrary, numerous
pages demonstrate that, apart from all analogy, he has loved and
studied the Bird for its own sake. And it is for this reason that he
has surrounded it with so many legends, with such vivid and profound
personifications. Each bird which Toussenel treats of is now, and will
for ever remain, a person.
[Illustration]
Nevertheless, the book now before the reader starts from a point of
view which differs in all things from that of our illustrious master.
A point of view by no means contrary, yet symmetrically opposed, to his.
For I, as much as possible, seeking only the bird _in_ the bird, avoid
the human analogy. With the exception of two chapters, I have written
as if only the bird existed, as if man had never been.
Man! we have already met with him sufficiently often in other places.
Here, on the contrary, we have sought an _alibi_ from the human world,
from the profound solitude and desolation of ancient days.
Man could not have lived without the bird, which alone could save him
from the insect and the reptile; but the bird had lived without man.
Man or no man, the eagle had reigned on his Alpine throne. The swallow
would not the less have performed her yearly migration. The frigate
bird,[5] unseen by human eyes, had still hovered over the 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.
[Illustration]
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, accustomed
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.
"A woman's dreams!" you exclaim. What matters that?
Since a woman's heart breathes in this book, I see no reason to reject
the reproach. We accept it as an eulogy. Patience and gentleness,
tenderness and pity, and maternal warmth--these are the things which
beget, preserve, develop a living creation.
May this, in due time, become not a book, but a reality! Then, haply,
it shall prove suggestive, and others derive from it their inspiration.
The reader, _au reste_, will better understand the character of the
work, if he will take the trouble to read the few pages which follow,
and which I transcribe word for word. [The succeeding section, as the
reader will perceive, is written by Madame Michelet.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
"I was born in the country, where I have passed two-thirds of my
life-time. I feel myself constantly recalled to it, both by the charm
of early habits, by natural sensibilities, and also, undoubtedly, by
the dear memories of my father, who bred me among its shades, and was
the object of my life's worship.
"Owing to my mother's illness, I was nursed for a considerable period
by some honest peasants, who loved me as their own child. I was, in
truth, their daughter; and my brothers, struck by my rustic ways,
called me _the Shepherdess_.
"My father resided at no great distance from the town, in a very
pleasant mansion, which he had purchased, built, and surrounded by
plantations, in the hope that the charms of the spot might console his
young wife for the sublime American nature she had recently quitted.
The house, well exposed on the east and south, saw the morning sun rise
on a vine-clad slope, and turn, before its meridian heats, towards the
remote summits of the Pyrenees, which were visible in clear weather.
The young elm-trees of our own France, mingled with American acacias,
rose-laurels, and young cypresses, interrupted its full flood of light,
and transmitted to us a softened radiance.
"On our right, a thicket of oaks, inclosed with a dense hedge,
sheltered us from the north, and from the keen wind of the Cantal. Far
away, on the left, swept the green meadows and the corn-fields. Through
the broom, and in the shade of some tall trees, flowed a brooklet--a
thin thread of limpid water, defined against the evening horizon by a
small belt of haze which ran along its border.
"The climate is intermediate. In the valley, which is that of the
Tarn, and which shares the mildness of the Garonne and the severity of
Auvergne, we find none of those southern products common everywhere
around Bordeaux. But the mulberry, and the melting perfumed peach, the
juicy grape, the sugared fig, and the melon, growing in the open air,
testify that we are in the south. Fruits superabounded with us; one
portion of the estate was an immense vineyard.
"Memory vividly recalls to me all the charms of this locality, and its
varied character. It was never otherwise than grave and melancholy in
itself, and it impressed these feelings on all about it. My father,
though lively and agreeable, was a man already aged, and of uncertain
health. My mother, young, beautiful, austere, had the queenly bearing
of the North American, with a prudence and an active economy very
rare in Creoles. The estate which we occupied formerly belonged to a
Protestant family, and after passing through many hands before it fell
into ours, still retained the graves of its ancient owners--simple
hillocks of turf, where the proscribed had enshrined their dead under
a thick grove of oaks. I need hardly say, that these trees and these
tombs, consecrated by their very oblivion, were religiously respected
by my father. Each grave was marked out by rose-bushes, which his own
hands had planted. These sweet odours, these bright blossoms, concealed
the gloom of death, while suffering, nevertheless, something of its
melancholy to remain. Thither, then, we were drawn, and as it were in
spite of ourselves, at evening time. Overcome by emotion, we often
mourned over the departed; and, at each falling star, exclaimed, 'It is
a soul which passes!'[6]
"In this living country-side, among alternate joys and pains, I lived
for ten years--from four to fourteen. I had no comrades. My sister,
five years older than myself, was the companion of my mother when I was
still but a little girl. My brothers, numerous enough to play among
themselves without my help, often left me all alone in the hours of
recreation. If they ran off to the fields, I could only follow them
with my eyes. I passed, then, many solitary hours in wandering near the
house, and in the long garden alleys. There I acquired, in spite of a
natural vivacity, habits of contemplation. At the bottom of my dreams
I began to feel the Infinite: I had glimpses of God, of the paternal
divinity of nature, which regards with equal tenderness the blade of
grass and the star. In this I found the chief source of consolation;
nay, more, let me say, of happiness.
"Our abode would have offered to an observant mind a very agreeable
field of study. All creatures under its benevolent protection seemed
to find an asylum. We had a fine fish-pond near the house, but no
dove-cot; for my parents could not endure the idea of dooming creatures
to slavery whose life is all movement and freedom. Dogs, cats, rabbits,
guinea-pigs, lived together in concord. The tame chickens, the pigeons,
followed my mother everywhere, and fed from her hand. The sparrows
built their nests among us; the swallows even brooded under our barns;
they flew into our very chambers, and returned with each succeeding
spring to the shelter of our roof.
"How often, too, have I found, in the goldfinches' nests torn from our
cypress-trees by rude autumnal winds, fragments of my summer-robes
buried in the sand! Beloved birds, which I then sheltered all
unwittingly in a fold of my vestment, ye have to-day a surer shelter in
my heart, but ye know it not!
"Our nightingales, less domesticated, wove their nests in the lonely
hedge-rows; but, confident of a generous welcome, they came to our
threshold a hundred times a-day, and besought from my mother, for
themselves and their family, the silk-worms which had perished.
"In the depths of the wood the woodpecker laboured obstinately at the
venerable trunks; one might hear him at his task when all other sounds
had ceased. We listened in trembling silence to the mysterious blows of
that indefatigable workman mingling with the owl's slow and lamentable
voice.
"It was my highest ambition to have a bird all to myself--a
turtle-dove. Those of my mother's--so familiar, so plaintive, so
tenderly resigned at breeding-time--attracted me strongly towards them.
If a young girl feels like a mother for the doll which she dresses, how
much more so for a living creature which responds to her caresses! I
would have given everything for this treasure. But it was not to be so;
and the dove was not my first love.
"The first was a flower, whose name I do not know.
"I had a small garden, situated under an enormous fig-tree, whose humid
shades rendered useless all my cultivation. Feeling very sad and sorely
discouraged, I descried one morning, on a pale-green stem, a beautiful
little golden blossom. Very little, trembling at the lightest breath,
its feeble stalk issued from a small basin excavated by the rains.
Seeing it there, and always trembling, I supposed it was cold, and
provided it with a canopy of leaves. How shall I express the transports
which this discovery awakened? I alone knew of its existence; I alone
possessed it. All day we could do nothing but gaze at each other. In
the evening I glided to its side, my heart full of emotion. We spoke
little, for fear of betraying ourselves. But ah! what tender kisses
before the last adieu! These joys endured but three days. One afternoon
my flower folded itself up slowly, never again to re-open. There was an
end to its love.
"I kept to myself my keen regret, as I had kept my happiness. No other
flower could have consoled me; a life more full of life was needed to
restore the freedom of my soul.
"Every year my good nurse came to see me, invariably bringing some
little present. On one occasion, with a mysterious air, she said to me,
'Put thy hand in my basket.' I did so, expecting to find some fruit,
but felt a silken fur, and something trembling. Ah! it is a rabbit!
Seizing it, I ran in all directions to announce the news. I hugged the
poor animal with a convulsive joy, which nearly proved fatal to it.
My head was troubled with giddiness. I could not eat. My sleep was
disturbed by painful dreams. I saw my rabbit dying; I was unable to
move a single step to succour it. Oh! how beautiful it was, my rabbit,
with its pink nose, and its fur as polished as a mirror! Its large
pearled ears, which were constantly in motion, its fantastic gambols,
had, I confess, a share of my admiration. As soon as the morning
dawned, I escaped from my mother's bed to visit my favourite, and carry
it a green leaf or two. There it sat, and gravely ate the leaves,
casting upon me protracted glances, which I thought full of affection;
then, erecting itself on its hind paws, it turned to the sun its
little snow-white belly, and sleeked its fine whiskers with marvellous
dexterity.
"Nevertheless, slander was busy in its detraction; its face was too
small, said its enemies, and it was very gluttonous. To-day, I might
subscribe to these assertions; but at seven years of age I fought
for the honour of my rabbit! Alas! there was no need to make it the
subject of dispute, it lived so short a time. One Sunday, my mother
having set out for the town with my sister and eldest brother, we were
wandering--we, the little ones--in the enclosure, when a sudden report
broke over our heads. A strange cry, like an infant's first moan,
followed it close at hand. My rabbit had been wounded by a flash of
fire. The unfortunate beast had transgressed beyond the vineyard-hedge,
and a neighbour, having nothing better to do, had amused himself with
shooting at it.
"I was in time to see it rise up, bleeding. So great was my grief that
I almost choked, utterly unable to sob out a single word. But for my
father, who received me in his arms, and by gentle words gave my full
heart relief, I should have fainted. My limbs yielded under me. Pardon
the tears which this recollection still calls forth.
"For the first time, and in early youth, I had a revelation of death,
abandonment, desolation. The house, the garden, appeared to me empty
and bare. Do not laugh: my grief was bitter, and all the deeper because
concentrated in myself.
"Thenceforth, having learned the meaning of death, I began to watch my
father with wistful eyes. I saw, not without terror, that his face was
very pale and his hair white. He would quit us; he would go 'whither
the village-bell summoned him,' to use his oft-repeated phrase. I had
not the strength to conceal my thoughts. Sometimes I flung my arms
around his neck, exclaiming: 'Papa, do not die! oh, never die!' He
embraced me, without replying; but his fine large black eyes were
troubled as they gazed on me.
"I was attached to him by a thousand ties, by a thousand intimate
relations. I was the daughter of his mature age, of his shattered
health, of his affections. I had not that happy equilibrium which his
other children derived from my mother. My father was transmitted in
me (_passé en moi_). He said so himself: 'How I feel that thou art my
daughter!'
"Years and life's trials had deprived him of nothing; to his last hour
he retained the vivacity, the aspirations, and even the charm of youth.
Every one felt it without being able to account for it, and all flocked
around him of their own accord--women, children, men. I still see him
in his little study, seated before his small black table, relating his
Odyssey, his long journeys in America, his life in the colonies; one
never grew weary of his stories. A maiden of twenty years, in the last
stage of a pulmonary disease, heard him shortly before her end: she
would fain have listened to him always; implored him to visit her, for
while he was discoursing she forgot her sufferings and her decay, even
the approach of death.
"This charm I speak of was not that of a clever talker only; it was due
to the great goodness so plainly visible in him. The trials, the life
of adventure and misfortune, which harden so many hearts, had, on the
contrary, but softened his. No man in this generation--a generation
so much agitated, tossed to and fro by so many waves--had undergone
such painful experiences. His father, an Auvergnat, the principal of a
college, then _juge consulaire_ in our most southern city, and finally
summoned to the Assembly of Notables in '88, had all the hard austerity
of his country and his functions, of the school and the tribunals. The
education of that era was cruel, a perpetual chastisement; the more
wit, the more character, the more strength, the more did this education
tend to shatter them, to break them down. My father, of a delicate
and tender nature, could never have survived it, and only escaped by
flying to America, where one of his brothers had previously established
himself. A change of linen was his only fortune, except his youth,
his confidence, his golden dreams of freedom. Thenceforth he always
cherished a peculiar tenderness for that land of liberty; he often
revisited it, and earnestly wished to die there.
"Called by the needs of business to St. Domingo, he was present in that
island at the great crisis of the reign of Toussaint L'Ouverture. This
truly extraordinary man, who up to his fiftieth year had been a slave,
who comprehended and foresaw everything, did not know how to write, or
to give expression to his ideas. His genius succeeded better in great
actions than in fine speeches. He lacked a hand, a pen, and more--the
young bold heart which shall teach the hero the heroic language, the
words in harmony with the moment and the situation. Toussaint, at his
age, could only utter this noble appeal: 'The First of the Blacks to
the First of the Whites!'[7] Permit me to doubt if it were his. At
least, if he conceived it, it was my father who gave expression to the
idea.
"He loved my father warmly; he perceived his frankness, and he trusted
him--he, so profoundly mistrustful, dumb with his long slavery, and
secret as the tomb! But who can die without having one day unlocked his
heart? It was my father's misfortune that at certain moments Toussaint
broke his silence, and made him the confidant of dangerous mysteries.
Thenceforth, all was over; he became afraid of the young man, and felt
himself dependent upon him--a new servitude, which could only end with
my father's death. Toussaint threw him into prison, and then, with
a fresh access of fear, would have sacrificed him. Fortunately, the
prisoner was guarded by gratitude; he had been bountiful to many of the
blacks; a negress whom he had protected, warned him of his peril, and
assisted him to escape from it. All his life long he sought that woman,
to show his gratitude towards her; he did not discover her until some
fourteen years afterwards, on his last voyage; she was then living in
the United States.
"To return: though out of prison, he was not saved. Wandering astray
in the forest, at night, without a guide, he had cause to dread the
Maroons, those implacable enemies of the whites, who would have
killed him, in ignorance that they were murdering the best friend of
their race. Fortune is the boon of youth; he escaped every danger.
Having discovered a good horse, whenever the blacks issued from
their hiding-places, one touch of the spear, a wave of the hat, a
cry: 'Advanced guard of General Toussaint!' and this was enough. At
that formidable name all took to flight, and disappeared as if by
enchantment.
"Such was the tenderness of my father's soul, that he did not withdraw
his regard from the great man who had misunderstood him. When, at
a later period, he saw him in France, abandoned by everybody, a
wretched prisoner in a fort of the Jura, where he perished of cold and
misery,[8] he alone was faithful to him. Despite his errors, despite
the deeds of violence inseparable from the grand and terrible part
which that man had played, he revered in him the daring pioneer of a
race, the creator of a world. He corresponded with him until his death,
and afterwards with his family.
"A singular chance ordained that my father should be engaged in the
isle of Elba when the First of the Whites, dethroned in his turn,
arrived to take possession of his miniature kingdom. Heart and
imagination, my father fell captive to this wonderful romance. An
American, and imbued with Republican ideas, he became on this occasion,
and for the second time, the courtier of misfortune. He was the most
intimate of the servants of the Emperor, of his children, of that
accomplished and adored lady who was the charm and happiness of his
exile. He undertook to convey her back to France in the perilous return
of March 1815. This attraction, had there been no obstacle, would
have led him even to St. Helena. As it was, he could not endure the
restoration of the Bourbons, and returned to his beloved America.
"The New World was not ungrateful, and made the happiness of his
life. He had resigned every official capacity in order to abandon
himself wholly to the more independent career of tuition. He taught
in Louisiana. That colonial France, isolated, sundered by the events
of her mother-land's history, and mingling so many diverse elements
of population, breathes ever the breath of France. Among my father's
pupils was an orphan, of English and German extraction. She came to
him when very young, to learn the first elements of knowledge; she
grew under his hands, and loved him more and more; she found a second
family, a second father; she sympathized with the paternal heart, with
a charm of youthful vivacity which our French of the south preserve in
their mature age. She had but three faults: wealth, beauty, extreme
youth--for she was at least thirty years younger than my father; but
neither of them perceived it, and they never reminded themselves of it.
My mother has been inconsolable for my father's death, and has ever
since worn mourning.
"My mother longed to see France, and my father, in his pride of her,
was delighted to show to the Old World the brilliant flower he had
gathered in the New. But anxious as he was to maintain this young
Creole lady in the position and with the fortune which she had always
enjoyed, he would not embark until he had accomplished, with her
consent, a religious and holy act. This was the manumission of his
slaves--of those, at least, above the age of twenty-one; the young,
whom he was prevented by the American law from setting free, received
from him their future liberty, and, on attaining their majority, were
to rejoin their parents. He never lost sight of them. They were always
before his eyes; he knew their names, their ages, and their appointed
hour of liberty. In his French home, he took note of these epochs, and
would say, with a glow of happiness, 'To-day, such an one becomes free!'
"See my father now in his native country, happy in a residence near
his birth-place--building, planting, bringing up his family, the
centre of a young world in which everything sprung from him: the
house, the garden, were his creation; even his wife, whom he had
reared and trained, and whom everybody thought to be his daughter. My
mother was so young that her eldest daughter seemed to be her sister.
Five other children followed, almost in as many successive years,
promptly enwreathing my father with a living garland, which was his
special pride. Few families exhibited a greater variety of tastes and
temperaments; the two worlds were distinctly represented in ours: the
French of the south with the sparkling vivacity of Languedoc--the grave
colonists of Louisiana marked from their birth with the phlegmatic
idiosyncrasies of the American character.
"It was ordered, however, that, with the exception of the eldest, who
was already my mother's companion and shared with her the management
of the household, the five youngest should receive their education
in common from one master--my father. Notwithstanding his age, he
undertook the duties of preceptor and schoolmaster. He gave up to us
his whole day, from six in the morning until six in the evening. He
reserved for his correspondence, his favourite studies, only the first
hours of morning, or, more truly speaking, the last hours of night.
Retiring to rest very early, he rose every day at three o'clock,
without taking any heed of his pulmonary weakness. First of all, he
threw wide his door, and there, before the stars or the dawn, according
to the season, he blessed God; and God also blessed that venerable
head, silvered by the experiences of life, not by the passions of
humanity. In summer time, after his devotions, he took a short walk in
the garden, and watched the insects and the plants awake. His knowledge
of them was wonderful; and very often, after breakfast, taking me by
the hand, he would describe the nature of each flower, would point out
where each little animal that he had surprised at dawn took refuge. One
of these was a snake, which the sight of my father did not in the least
disconcert; each time that he seated himself near its domicile, it
never failed to put forth its head and peer at him curiously. He alone
knew that it was there, and he told none but me of its retirement; it
remained a secret between us.
"In those morning-hours everything he met with became a fertile text
for his religious effusions. Without formal phrases, and inspired by
true feeling, he spoke to me of the goodness of God, for whom there is
neither great nor small, but all are brothers in His eyes, and all are
equals.
"Associated with my brothers in their labours, I also took a part in
those of my mother and my sister. When I put aside my grammar and
arithmetic, it was to take up the needle.
"Happily for me, our life, naturally blending with that of the fields,
was, whether we willed it or not, frequently varied by charming
incidents which broke the chains of habit. Study has commenced; we
apply ourselves with eagerness to our books; but what now? See, a
storm is coming! the hay will be spoiled. Quick, we must gather it in!
Everybody sets to work; the very children hasten thither; study is
adjourned; we toil courageously, and the day goes by. It is a pity, for
the rain does not fall; the storm has lingered on the Bordeaux side; it
will come to-morrow.
"At harvest-time we frequently diverted ourselves with gleaning. In
those grand moments of fruition, at once a labour and a festival, all
sedentary application is impossible; one's thoughts are in the fields.
We were constantly escaping out-of-doors, with the lark's swiftness;
we disappeared among the furrows--we little ones concealed by the tall
corn, hidden among the forest of ripe ears.
"It was well understood that during the vintage there was no time to
think of study: much needed labourers, we lived among the vines; it
was our right. But before the grape ripened, we had numerous other
vintages, those of the fruit-trees--cherries, apricots, peaches.
Even at a later period, the apples and the pears imposed upon us new
and severe labours, in which it was a matter of conscience that our
hands should be employed. And thus, even in winter, these necessities
returned--to act, to laugh, and to do nothing. The last tasks,
occurring in mid-November, were perhaps the most delightful; a light
mist then enfolded everything; I have seen nothing like it elsewhere;
it was a dream, an enchantment. All objects were transfigured under the
wavy folds of the vast pearl-gray canopy which, at the breath of the
warm autumn, lovingly alighted hither and thither, like a farewell kiss.
"The dignified hospitality of my mother, my father's charm of manner
and piquant conversation, drew upon us also the unforeseen distractions
of visitors from the town, constraining suspensions of our studies,
at which we did not weep. But the great and unceasing visit was from
the poor, who well knew the house and the hand inexhaustibly opened
by charity. All participated in its benefits, even the very animals;
and it was a curious and diverting thing to see the dogs of the
neighbourhood, patiently, silently seated on their hind legs, waiting
until my father should raise his eyes from his book: they felt assured
that he would not resist the mute eloquence of their prayer. My mother,
more reasonable, was inclined to drive away these indiscreet guests who
came at their own invitation. My father felt that he was wrong, and yet
he never failed to throw them stealthily some fragments, which sent
them away satisfied.
"This they knew perfectly well. One day, a new guest, lean, bristling,
unprepossessing, something between a dog and a wolf, arrived; he was,
in fact, a half-breed of the two species, born in the forests of the
Gresigne. He was very ferocious, very irascible, and bore much too
close a resemblance to his wolfish mother. But, besides this, he was
intelligent, and gifted with a very keen instinct. From the first he
gave himself wholly up to my father, and neither words nor rough usage
could induce him to quit his side. For us he had but little love; and
we repaid him in kind, seizing every opportunity of playing him a
hundred tricks. He ground and gnashed his teeth, though, out of regard
for my father, he abstained from devouring us. To the poor he was
furious, implacable, very dangerous; which decided us on suffering him
to be lost. But there was no such chance. He always came back again.
His new masters would chain him to a post; chains and post, he carried
them all off, and brought them into our house. It was too much for my
father; he would never forsake him.
"But the cats enjoyed even more of his good graces than the dogs.
This was due to his early education, to the cruel years spent at
college; his brother and himself, beaten and repulsed, between the
harshness of their home and the severities of their school, had found a
consolation in a couple of cats. This predilection was transmitted to
his family--each of us, in childhood, possessed our cat. The gathering
at the fireside was a beautiful spectacle; all the grimalkins, in
furred dignity, sitting majestically under the chairs of their young
masters. One alone was missing from the circle--a poor wretch, too
ugly to figure among the others; he knew his unworthiness, and held
himself aloof, in a wild timidity which nothing was able to conquer.
As in every assembly (such is the piteous malignity of our nature!)
there must be a butt, a scapegoat, who receives all the blows, he, in
ours, filled this unthankful rôle. If there were no blows, at least
there were abundant mockeries: we named him Moquo. Weak, and scantily
provided with fur, he stood in more need than the others of the genial
hearth; but we children filled him with fear: even his comrades, better
clothed in their warm ermine, appeared to esteem him but lightly,
and to look at him askant. Of course, therefore, my father turned to
him, and fondled him; the grateful animal lay down under that beloved
hand, and gained confidence. Wrapped up in his coat, and revived by
its warmth, he would frequently be brought, unseen, to the fireside.
We quickly caught sight of him; and if he showed a hair, or the tip of
an ear, our laughter and our glances threatened him, in spite of my
father. I can still see that shadow gathering itself up--_melting_,
so to speak--in its protector's bosom, closing its eyes, annihilating
itself, well content to see nothing.
"All that I have read of the Hindus, and their tenderness for nature,
reminds me of my father. He was a Brahmin. More even than the Brahmins
did he love every living thing. He had lived in a time of blood and
war--he had been an eye-witness of the most terrible slaughters of men
that had ever disgraced history; and it seemed as if that frightful
lavishness of the irrecoverable good, which is life, had given him a
respect for _all_ life, an insurmountable aversion to all destruction.
"This had in time arrived at such an extreme, that he would have
willingly lived upon vegetable food alone. He would have no viands of
blood; they excited his horror. A morsel of chicken, or, more often, an
egg or two, served for his dinner. And frequently he dined standing.
"Such a regimen, however, could not strengthen him. Nor did he
economize his strength, expending it largely in lessons, in
conversations, and in the habitual overflow of a too benevolent heart,
which lived in all things, interested itself in all. Age came, and
with it anxieties: family anxieties? no, but from jealous neighbours
or unfaithful debtors. The crisis of the American banks dealt a severe
blow to his fortune. He came to the extreme resolution, in spite of his
ill health and his years, of once more visiting America, in the belief
that his personal activity and his industry might re-establish affairs,
and secure the fortune of his wife and children.
"This departure was terrible. It was preceded for me by another
blow. I had quitted the mansion and the country; I had entered a
boarding-school in the town. Cruel servitude, which deprived me of
all that made my life--of air and respiration! Everywhere, walls! I
should have died, but for the frequent visits of my mother, and the
rarer visits of my father, to which I looked forward with a delirious
impatience that perhaps love has never known. But now that my father
himself was leaving us--heaven, earth, everything seemed undone. With
whatever hope of reunion he might endeavour to cheer me, an internal
voice, distinct and terrible, such as one hears in great trials, told
me that he would return no more.
"The house was sold, and the plantations laid out by our hands, the
trees which belonged to the family, were abandoned. Our animals were
plainly inconsolable at my father's departure. The dog--I forget for
how many successive days--seated himself on the road which he had
taken at his departure, howled, and returned. The most disinherited of
all, the cat Moquo, no longer confided in any person, though he still
came to regard with furtive glances the empty place. Then he took his
resolution, and fled to the woods, from which we could never call him
back; he resumed his early life, miserable and savage.
"And I, too, I quitted the paternal roof, the hearth of my young years,
with a heart for ever wounded. My mother, my sister, my brothers, the
sweet friendships of infancy, disappeared behind me. I entered upon
a life of trial and isolation. At Bayonne, however, where I first
resided, the sea of Biarritz spoke to me of my father; the waves which
break on its shore, from America to Europe, repeated the story of his
death; the snow-white ocean birds seemed to say, 'We have seen him.'
"What remained to me? My climate, my birth-land, my language. But
even these I lost. I was compelled to go to the North, to an unknown
tongue and a hostile sky, where the earth for half a year wears
mourning weeds. During these long seasons of frost, my failing health
extinguishing imagination, I could scarcely re-create for myself my
ideal South. A dog might have somewhat consoled me: in default, I made
two little friends, who resembled, I fancied, my mother's turtle-doves.
They knew me, loved me, sported by my fireside; I gave to them the
summer which my heart had not.
"Seriously affected, I fell very ill, and thought I should soon touch
the other shore. However studious and tender towards me might be the
hospitality of the stranger, it was needful I should return to France.
It was long before carefulness of affection, and a marriage in which I
found again a father's heart and arms, could restore my health. I had
seen death from so near a view-point--let us rather say, I had entered
so far upon it--that nature herself, living nature, that first love and
rapture of my young years, had for a long time little hold upon me, and
she alone had any. Nothing had supplied her place. History, and the
recital of the pathetic stirring human drama, moved me but lightly;
nothing seized firmly on my mind but the unchangeable, God and Nature.
"Nature is immovable and yet mobile; that is her eternal charm. Her
unwearied activity, her ever-shifting phantasmagoria, do not weary, do
not disturb; this harmonious motion bears in itself a profound repose.
"I was recalled to her by the flowers--by the cares which they demand,
and the species of maternity which they solicit. My imperceptible
garden of twelve trees and three beds did not fail to remind me of the
great fertile vineyard where I was born; and I found, too, some degree
of happiness, by the side of an ardent intellect, which toiled athirst
in the dreary ways and wastes of human history, in cherishing for him
these living waters and the charm of a few flowers."
[Illustration]
I resume.
See me now torn from the city by this loving inquietude, by my fears
for an invalid whom it was essential to restore to the conditions of
her early life and the free air of the country. I quitted Paris, my
city, which I had never left before; that city which comprises the
three worlds; that cradle of Art and Thought.
I returned there daily for my duties and occupations; but I hastened
to get quit of it. Its noise, its distant hum, the ebb and flow of
abortive revolutions, impelled me to wander afar. It was with much
pleasure that, in the spring of 1852, I broke through all the ties of
old habits; I closed my library with a bitter joy, I put under lock and
key my books, the companions of my life, which had assuredly thought to
hold me bound for ever. I travelled so long as earth supported me, and
only halted at Nantes, close to the sea, on a hill which overlooks the
yellow streams of Brittany as they flow onward to mingle, in the Loire,
with the gray waters of La Vendée.
We established ourselves in a large country mansion, completely
isolated, in the midst of the constant rains with which our western
fields are inundated at this season. At such a distance from the ocean,
one does not feel its briny influence; the rains are tempests of fresh
water. The house, in the Louis Quinze style, had been uninhabited for
a considerable period, and at first sight seemed a little gloomy.
Situated on elevated ground, it was rendered not the less sombre by
thick hedges on the one side, on the other by tall trees and by an
untold number of unpruned cherry-trees. The whole, on a greensward,
which the undrained waters preserved, even in summer, in a beautifully
fresh condition.
I adore neglected gardens, and this one reminded me of the great
abandoned vineyards of the Italian villas; but it possessed, what these
villas lack, a charming medley of vegetables and plants of a thousand
different species--all the herbs of the St. John, and each herb tall
and vigorous. The forest of cherry-trees, bending under their burden of
scarlet fruit, gave also the idea of inexhaustible abundance.
It was not the sweet austerity (_soave austero_) of Italy; it was a
soft and overflowing profusion, under a warm, mild, and moist sky.
[Illustration]
Nothing appeared in sight, though a large town was close at hand,
and a little river, the Erdre, wound under the hill, and from thence
dragged itself towards the Loire. But this vegetable prodigality,
this virgin forest of fruit trees, completely shut in the view. For a
prospect, one must mount into a species of turret, whence the landscape
began to reveal itself in a certain grandeur, with its woods and its
meadows, its distant monuments, its towers. Even from this observatory
the view was still limited, the city only appearing imperfectly, and
not allowing you to catch sight of its mighty river, its island, its
stir of commerce and navigation. A few paces from its great harbour,
of whose existence there was no sign, one might believe oneself in a
desert, in the _landes_ of Brittany, or the clearings of La Vendée.
Two things were of a lofty character, and detached themselves
from this sombre orchard. Penetrating the ancient hedges and
chestnut-alleys, you found yourself in a nook of barren argillaceous
soil, where, among thyme-laurels and other strong, rude trees, rose an
enormous cedar, a veritable leafy cathedral, of such stature that a
cypress already grown very tall was choked by it, and lost. This cedar,
bare and stripped below, was living and vigorous where it received
the light; its immense arms, at thirty feet from the ground, clothed
themselves with strange and pointed leaves; then the canopy thickened;
the trunk attained an elevation of eighty feet. You saw, about three
leagues distant, the fields opposite the banks of the Sèvre and the
woods of La Vendée. Our home, low and sheltered on the side of this
giant, was not less distinguished by it throughout an immense circuit,
and perhaps owed to it its name, the High Forest.
[Illustration]