Observe, too, these perceptions are so strong and so vivid that they grave themselves on the memory, and to such a degree that even an inferior animal like a pigeon retraces and recognizes every little accident in a road which he has only traversed once. How, then, will it be with the sage stork, the shrewd crow, the intelligent swallow?
Let us confess this superiority. Let us regard without envy those blisses of vision which may, perhaps, one day be ours in a happier existence. This felicity of seeing so much—of seeing so far—of seeing so clearly—of piercing the infinite with the eye and the wing, almost at the same moment,—to what does it belong? To that life which is our distant ideal. A life in the fulness of light, and without shadow!
Already the bird's existence is, as it were, a foretaste of it. It would here prove to him a divine source of knowledge, if, in its sublime freedom, it were not burdened by the two fatalities which chain our globe to a condition of barbarism, and render futile all our aspirations.
First, the fatal need of the stomach, which shackles all of us, but which especially persecutes that living flame, that devouring fire, the bird, which is forced incessantly to renew itself, to seek, to wander, to forget, condemned, without hope of relief, to the barren mobility of its too changeful impressions.
The other fatal necessity is that of night, of slumber, hours of shadow and ambush, when his wing is broken or captured, or, while defenceless, he loses the power of flight, strength, and light.
When we speak of light, we mean safety for all creatures.
It is the guarantee of life for man and the animal; it is, as it were, the serene, calm, and reassuring smile, the privilege of Nature. It puts an end to the sombre terrors which pursue us in the shadows, to the not unfounded fears, and to the torment also of cruel dreams—to the troublous thoughts which agitate and overthrow the soul.
In the security of civil association which has existed for so long a period, man can scarcely comprehend the agonies of savage life during these hours that Nature leaves it defenceless, when her terrible impartiality opens the way to death no less legitimate than life. In vain you reproach her. She tells the bird that the owl also has a right to live. She replies to man: "I must feed my lions."