Still the little one hesitates. And put yourself in his place. You have but to move a step in the nursery, between your nurse and your mother, where, if you fell, you would fall upon cushions. This bird of the church, which gives her first lesson in flying from the summit of the spire, can scarcely embolden her son, perhaps can scarcely embolden herself at the decisive moment. Both, I am sure of it, measure more than once with their glances the abyss beneath, and eye the ground. I, for one, declare to you, the spectacle is moving and sublime. It is an urgent need that he should trust his mother, that she should have confidence in the wing of the little one who is still a novice. From both does Heaven require an act of faith, of courage. A noble and a sublime starting-point! But he has trusted, he has made the leap, he will not fall. Trembling, he floats in air, supported by the paternal breath of heaven, by the reassuring voice of his mother. All is finished. Thenceforth he will fly regardless of the wind and the storm, strong in that first great trial wherein he flew in faith.
[Note.—The Swallow's Flight. According to Wilson, the swallow's ordinary flight averages one mile per minute. He is engaged in flying for ten hours daily. Now, as his life is usually extended to a space of ten years, he flies, in that period, 2,190,000 miles, or nearly eighty-eight times the circumference of the globe.
The swallow, as Sir Humphrey Davy observes, cheers the sense of sight as much as the nightingale does the sense of hearing. He is the glad prophet of the year, the harbinger of its brightest season, and lives a life of free enjoyment amongst the loveliest forms of nature.
There is something peculiarly beautiful in his rapid, steady, well-balanced flight,—
"Which, ere a double pulse can beat,
Is here and there with motion fleet,
As Ariel's wing could scarce exceed;
And, full of vigour as of speed,
Forestalls the dayspring's earliest gleam,
Nor fails with evening's latest beam."To all nations he is welcome, and by all the poets has been celebrated with fond eulogium.—Translator.]
THE NIGHTINGALE.