Chapter 12

Someone has said that every line in that incomparable poem brings at least one distinct picture vividly before the mind's eye. The picture the first line of the couplet I have quoted suggests to ray mind is not of crowing Chanticleer at all, but of a stalwart, bare-armed, blowsy-faced woman, vigorously beating on a tin pan with a stick; but for what purpose--whether to call down a passing swarm of bees, or to summon the chickens to be fed--I never know. It is only my mental picture of a "lively din." As to the second line, all attempts to see the thing described only bring before me clouds and shadows, confusedly rushing about in an impossible way; a chaos utterly unlike the serenity and imperceptible growth of morning, and not a picture at all.

By and by I found myself paying special attention to one cock, about a hundred yards away, or a little more perhaps, for by contrast all the other songs within hearing seemed strangely inferior. Its voice was singularly clear and pure, the last note greatly prolonged and with a slightly falling inflection, yet not collapsing at the finish as such long notes frequently do, ending with a little internal sound or croak, as if the singer had exhausted his breath; but it was perfect in its way, a finished performance, artistic, and, by comparison, brilliant. After once hearing this bird I paid little attention to the others, but after each resounding call I counted the seconds until its repetition. It was this bird's note, on this morning, and not the others, which seemed to bring round me that atmosphere of dreams and fancies I exist in at early cockcrow--dreams and memories, sweet or sorrowful, of old scenes and faces, and many eloquent passages in verse and prose, written by men in other and better days, who lived more with nature than we do now. Such a note as this was, perhaps, in Thoreau's mind when he regretted that there were no cocks to cheer him in the solitude of Walden. "I thought," he says, "that it might be worth while keeping a cockerel for his music merely, as a singing bird. The note of this once wild Indian pheasant is certainly the most remarkable of any bird's, and if they could be naturalized without being domesticated it would soon become the most famous sound in our woods. . . . To walk in a winter morning in a wood where these birds abounded, their native woods, and hear the wild cockerels crow on the trees, clear and shrill for miles over the surrounding country--think of it! It would put nations on the alert. Who would not be early to rise, and rise earlier and earlier on each successive morning of his life, till he became unspeakably healthy, wealthy, and wise?"

Soon I fell into thinking of one in some ways greater than Thoreau, so unlike the skyey-minded New England prophet and solitary, so much more genial and tolerant, more mundane and lovable; and yet like Thoreau in his nearness to nature. Not only a lover of generous wines--"That mark upon his lip is wine"--and books "clothed in black and red," all natural sights and sounds also "filled his herte with pleasure and solass," and the early crowing of the cock was a part of the minstrelsy he loved. Perhaps when lying awake during the dark quiet hours, and listening to just such a note as this, he conceived and composed that wonderful tale of the "Nun's Priest," in which the whole character of Chanticleer, his glory and his foibles, together with the homely virtues of Dame Partlett, are so admirably set forth.

And longer ago it was perhaps such a note as this, heard in imagination by the cock-loving Athenians, which all at once made them feel so unutterably weary of endless fighting with the Lacedaemonians, and inspired their hearts with such a passionate desire for the long untasted sweets of security and repose. Is it one of my morning fancies merely--for fact and fancy mingle strangely at this still, mysterious hour, and are scarcely distinguishable--or is it related in history that this strange thing happened when all the people of the violet-crowned city were gathered to witness a solemn tragedy, in which certain verses were spoken that had a strange meaning to their war-weary souls? "Those who sleep in the morning in the arms of peace do not start from them at the sound of the trumpet, and nothing interrupts their slumbers but the peaceful crowing of the cock." And at these words the whole concourse was electrified, and rose up like one man, and from thousands of lips went forth a great cry of "Peace! Peace! Let us make peace with Sparta!"

Hark! once more that long clarion call: it is the last time--the very last; for all the others have sung a dozen times apiece and have gone to sleep again. So would this one have done, but cocks, like minstrels among men, are vain creatures, and some kind officious fairy whispered in his ear that there was an appreciative listener hard by, and so to please me he sang, just one stave more.

Lying and listening in the dark, it seemed to me that there were two opposite qualities commingled in the sound, with an effect analogous to that of shadow mingling with and chastening light at eventide. First, it was strong and clear, full of assurance and freedom, qualities admirably suited to the song of a bird of Chanticleer's disposition; a lusty, ringing strain, not sung in the clouds or from a lofty perch midway between earth and heaven, but with feet firmly planted on the soil, and earthly; and compared with the notes of the grove like a versified utterance of Walt Whitman compared with the poems of the true inspired children of song--Blake, Shelley, Poe. Earthly, but not hostile and eager; on the contrary, leisurely, _peaceful_ even dreamy, with a touch of tenderness which brings it into relationship with the more aerial tones of the true singers; and this is the second quality I spoke of, which gave a charm to this note and made it seem better than the others. This is partly the effect of distance, which clarifies and softens sound, just as distance gives indistinctness of outline and ethereal blueness to things that meet the sight. To objects beautiful in themselves, in graceful lines and harmonious proportions and colouring, the haziness imparts an additional grace; but it does not make beautiful the objects which are ugly in themselves, as, for instance, an ugly square house. So in the etherealizing effect of distance on sound, when so loud a sound as the crowing of a strong-lunged cock becomes dreamy and tender at a distance of one hundred yards, there must be good musical elements in it to begin with. I do not remark this dreaminess in the notes of other birds, some crowing at an equal distance, others still further away. All natural music is heard best at a distance; like the chiming of bells, and the music of the flute, and the wild confused strains of the bagpipes, for among artificial sounds these come the nearest to those made by nature. The "shrill sharps" of the thrush must be softened by distance to charm; and the skylark, when close at hand, has both shrill and harsh sounds scarcely pleasing. He must mount high before you can appreciate his merit. I do not recommend any one to keep a caged cock in his study for the sake of its music, crow it never so well.

To return to the ten cockerels; they did not crow very much, and at first I paid little attention to them. After a few days I remarked that one individual among them was rapidly acquiring the clear vigorous strain of the adult bird. Compared with that fine note which I have described, it was still weak and shaky, but in shape it was similar, and the change had come while its brethren were still uttering brief and harsh screeches as at the beginning. Probably, where there is a great mixture of varieties, it is the same with the fowl as with man in the diversity of the young, different ancestral characters appearing in different members of the same family. This cockerel was apparently the musical member, and promised in a short time to rival his neighbour. Having heard that it was intended to keep one of the cockerels to be the parent of future broods, I began to wonder whether the prize in the lottery--to wit, life and a modest harem--would fall to this fine singer or not. The odds were that his musical career would be cut short by an early death, since the ten birds were very much alike in other respects, and I felt perfectly sure that his superior note would weigh nothing in the balance. For when has the character of the voice influenced a fancier in selecting? Never I believe, odd as it seems. I have read a very big book on the various breeds of the fowl, but the crowing of the cock was not mentioned in it. This would not seem so strange if fanciers had invariably looked solely to utility, and their highest ambition had ended at size, weight and quality of flesh, early maturity, hardihood, and the greatest number of eggs. This has not been the case. They possess, like others, the love of the beautiful, artificial as their standards sometimes appear; and there are breeds in which beauty seems to have been the principal object, as, for instance, in several of the gold and silver spangled and pencilled varieties. But, besides beauty of plumage, there are other things in the fowl worthy of being improved by selection. One of these has been cultivated by man for thousands of years, namely, the combative spirit and splendid courage of the male bird. But there is a spirit abroad now which condemns cock-fighting, and to continue selecting and breeding cocks solely for their game-points seems a mere futility. The energy and enthusiasm expended in this direction would be much better employed in improving the bird's vocal powers.

The morning song of the cock is a sound unique in nature, and of all natural sounds it is the most universal. "All climates agree with brave Chanticleer. He is more indigenous even than the natives. His health is ever good; his lungs are sound; his spirits never flag." He is a pet bird among tribes that have never seen the peacock, goose, and turkey. In tropical countries where the dog becomes dumb, or degenerates into a mere growler, his trumpet never rusts. It is true that he was cradled in the torrid zone, yet in all Western lands, where he "shakes off the powdery snow," with vigorous wings, his voice sounds as loud and inspiriting as in the hot jungle. Pale-faced Londoners, and blacks, and bronzed or painted barbarians, all men all the world over, wake at morn to the "peaceful crowing of the cock," just as the Athenians woke of old, and the nations older still. It is not, therefore, strange that this song has more associations for man than any other sound in nature. But, apart from any adventitious claims to our attention, the sound possesses intrinsic merits and pleases for its own sake. In our other domestic birds we have, with regard to this point, been unfortunate. We have the gobbling of turkeys, and the hoarse, monotonous come back of the guinea-fowl, screaming of peacocks and geese, and quacking, hissing, and rasping of mallard and mus-covy. Above all these sounds the ringing, lusty, triumphant call of Chanticleer, as the far-reaching toll of the bell-bird sounds above the screaming and chattering of parrots and toucans in the Brazilian forest. A fine sound, which in spite of many changes of climate and long centuries of domestication still preserves that forest-born character of wildness, which gives so great a charm to the language of many woodland gallinaceous birds. As we have seen, it is variable, and in some artificial varieties has been suffered to degenerate into sounds harsh and disagreeable; yet it is plain that an improved voice in a beautiful breed would double the bird's value from an aesthetic point of view. As things now are, the fine voices are in a very small minority. Some bad voices in artificial breeds, i.e., those which, like the Brahma and Cochin, diverge most widely from the original type--are perhaps incurable, like the carrion crow's voice; for that bird will probably always caw harshly in spite of the musical throat which anatomists find in it. We can only listen to our birds, and begin experimenting with those already possessed of shapely notes and voices of good quality.

I am not going to be so ill-mannered as to conclude without an apology to those among us who under no circumstances can tolerate the crowing of the cock. It is true that I have not been altogether unmindful of their prepossessions, and have freely acknowledged in divers places that Chanticleer does not always please, and that there is abundant room for improvement; but if they go further than that, if for them there exists not on this round globe a cock whose voice would fail to irritate, then I have not shown consideration enough, and something is still owing to their feelings, which are very acute. It is possible that one of these sensitive persons may take up my book, and, attracted by its title, dip into this paper, hoping to find in it a practical suggestion for the effectual muzzling of the obnoxious bird. The only improvement which would fall in with such a one's ideas on the subject of cock-crowing would be to improve this kind of natural music out of existence. Naturally the paper would disappoint him; he would be grieved at the writer's erroneous views. I hope that his feelings would take no acuter form. I have listened to a person, usually mild-mannered, denouncing a neighbour in the most unmeasured terms for the crime of keeping a crowing cock. If the cock had been a non-crower, a silent member, it would have been different: he would hardly have known that he had a neighbour. There is a very serious, even a sad, side to this question. Mr. Sully maintains that as civilization progresses, and as we grow more intellectual, all noise, which is pleasing to children and savages, and only exhilarates their coarse and juvenile brains, becomes increasingly intolerable to us. What unfortunate creatures we then are! We have got our pretty rattle and are now afraid that the noise it makes is going to be the death of us. But what is noise? Will any two highly intellectual beings agree as to the particular sound which produces the effect of rusty nails thrust in among the convolutions of the brain? Physicians are continually discovering new forms of nervous maladies, caused by the perpetual hurry and worry and excitement of our modern life; and perhaps there is one form in which natural sounds, which being natural should be agreeable, or at any rate innocent, become more and more abhorrent. This is a question which concerns the medical journals; also, to some extent, those who labour to forecast the future. Happily, all our maladies are thrown off, sooner or later, if they do not kill us; and we can cheerfully look forward to a time when the delicate chords in us shall no longer be made to vibrate "like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh" to any sound in nature, and when the peaceful crowing of the cock shall cease to madden the early waker. For, whatever may be the fate awaiting our city civilization, brave Chanticleer, improved as to his voice or not, will undoubtedly still be with us.

IN AN OLD GARDEN

A sunny morning in June--a golden day among days that have mostly a neutral tint; a large garden, with no visible houses beyond, but green fields and unkept hedges and great silent trees, oak and ash and elm--could I wish, just now, for a more congenial resting-place, or even imagine one that comes nearer to my conception of an earthly paradise? It is true that once I could not drink deeply enough from the sweet and bitter cup of wild nature, and loved nature best, and sought it gladly where it was most savage and solitary. But that was long ago. Now, after years of London life, during which I have laboured like many another "to get a wan pale face," with perhaps a wan pale mind to match, that past wildness would prove too potent and sharp a tonic; unadulterated nature would startle and oppress me with its rude desolate aspect, no longer familiar. This softness of a well-cultivated earth, and unbroken verdure of foliage in many shades, and harmonious grouping and blending of floral hues, best suit my present enervated condition. I had, I imagine, a swarter skin and firmer flesh when I could ride all day over great summer-parched plains, where there was not a bush that would have afforded shelter to a mannikin, and think that I was having a pleasant journey. The cloudless sky and vertical sun--how intolerable they would now seem, and scorch my brain and fill my shut eyes with dancing flames! At present even this mild June sun is strong enough to make the old mulberry tree on the lawn appear grateful. It is an ancient, rough-barked tree, with wide branches, that droop downwards all round, and rest their terminal leaves on the sward; underneath it is a natural tent, or pavilion, with plenty of space to move about and sling a hammock in. Here, then, I have elected to spend the hottest hours of my one golden day, reading, dreaming, listening at intervals to the fine bird-sounds that have a medicinal and restorative effect on the jarred and wounded sense.

From the elms hard by comes a subdued, airy prattle of a few sparrows. It is rather pleasant, something like a low accompaniment to the notes of the more tuneful birds; the murmurous music of a many-stringed instrument, forming the indistinct ground over which runs the bright embroidery of clear melodious singing.

This morning, while lying awake from four to five o'clock, I almost hated the sparrows, they were there in such multitudes, and so loud and persistent sounded their jangling through the open window. It set me thinking of the England of the future--of a time a hundred years hence, let us say--when there will remain with us only two representatives of feral life--the sparrow and the house-fly. Doubtless it will come, unless something happens; but, doubtless, it will not continue. It will still be necessary for a man to kill something in order to be happy; and the sportsmen of that time, like great Gambetta, in the past, will sit in the balconies, popping with pea-rifles at the sparrows until not one is left to twitter. Then will come the turn of the untamed and untamable fly; and he will afford good sport if hunted a la Domitain, with fine, needle-tipped paper javelins, thrown to impale him on the wall.

One of our savants has lately prophesied that the time will come when only the microscopic organisms will exist to satisfy the hunting instinct in man. How these small creatures will be taken he does not tell us. Perhaps the hunters will station themselves round a table with a drop of preserved water on its centre, made large and luminous by means of a ray of magnifying light. When that time comes the amoeba--that "wandering Jew," as an irreverent Quarterly Reviewer has called it--will lose its immortality, and the spry rotifer will fall a victim to the infinitesimal fine bright arrows of the chase. A strange quarry for men whose paeliolithic progenitors hunted the woolly mastodon and many-horned rhinoceros and sabre-toothed tiger!

That sad day of very small things for the sportsman is, however, not near, nor within measurable distance; or, so it seemed to me when, an hour ago, I strolled round the garden, curiously peering into every shrub, to find the visible and comparatively noble insect-life in great abundance. Beetles were there--hard, round, polished, and of various colours, like sea-worn pebbles on the beach; and some, called lady-birds in the vernacular, were bound like the books that Chaucer loved in black and red. And the small gilded fly, not less an insect light-headed, a votary of vain delights, than in the prehistoric days when a white-headed old king, discrowned and crazed, railed against sweet Nature's liberty. And ever waiting to welcome this inconstant lover (with falces) there sits the solitary geometric spider, an image and embodiment of patience, not on a monument, but a suspended wheel of which he is himself the hub; and so delicately fashioned are the silver spokes thereof, radiating from his round and gem-like body, and the rings, concentric tire within tire, that its exceeding fineness, like swift revolving motion, renders it almost invisible. Caterpillars, too, in great plenty--miniature porcupines with fretful quills on end, and some naked even as they came into the world. This one, called the earth-measurer, has drunk himself green with chlorophyll so as to escape detection. Vain precaution! since eccentric motion betrays him to keen avian eyes, when, like the traveller's snake, he erects himself on the tip of his tail and sways about in empty space, vaguely feeling for something, he knows not what. And the mechanical tortrix that rolls up a leaf for garment and food, and preys on his own case and shelter until he has literally eaten himself stark naked; after which he rolls up a second leaf, and so on progressively. Thus in his larval life does he symbolize some restless nation that makes itself many successive constitutions and forms of government, in none of which it abides long; but afterwards some higher thing, when he rests motionless, in form like a sarcophagus, whence the infolded life emerges to haunt the twilight--a grey ghost moth. There is no end to rolled-up leaves, and to the variety of creatures that are housed in them; for, just as the "insect tribes of human kind" in all places and in all ages, while seeking to improve their condition, independently hit on the same means and inventions, so it is with these small six-legged people; and many species in many places have found out the comfort and security of the green cylinder.