e thing, what with the moisture and the
sharp stones, he was already becoming jealous of his shoes, lest they
should not hold together till he could get back to the Crawford House.

PHILLIDA AND CORIDON.

Fierce warres and faithful loves shall moralize my song.

SPENSER.

Much ado there was, God wot:
He would love, and she would not.

NICHOLAS BRETON.

PHILLIDA AND CORIDON.

The happiness of birds, heretofore taken for granted, and long ago put
to service in a proverb, is in these last days made a matter of doubt.
It transpires that they are engaged without respite in a struggle for
existence,--a struggle so fierce that at least two of them perish every
year for one that survives.[14] How, then, can they be otherwise than
miserable?

There is no denying the struggle, of course; nor need we question some
real effect produced by it upon the cheerfulness of the participants.
The more rationalistic of the smaller species, we may be sure, find it
hard to reconcile the existence of hawks and owls with the doctrine of
an all-wise Providence; while even the most simple-minded of them can
scarcely fail to realize that a world in which one is liable any day to
be pursued by a boy with a shot-gun is not in any strict sense
paradisiacal.

And yet, who knows the heart of a bird? A child, possibly, or a poet;
certainly not a philosopher. And happiness, too,--is that something of
which the scientific mind can render us a quite adequate description? Or
is it, rather, a wayward, mysterious thing, coming often when least
expected, and going away again when, by all tokens, it ought to remain?
How is it with ourselves? Do we wait to weigh all the good and evil of
our state, to take an accurate account of it _pro_ and _con_, before we
allow ourselves to be glad or sorry? Not many of us, I think. Mortuary
tables may demonstrate that half the children born in this country fail
to reach the age of twenty years. But what then? Our "expectation of
life" is not based upon statistics. The tables may be correct, for aught
we know; but they deal with men in general and on the average; they have
no message for you and me individually. And it seems not unlikely that
birds may be equally illogical; always expecting to live, and not die,
and often giving themselves up to impulses of gladness without s