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'Nothing but to build a palace of ice wherein fires can burn that shall keep it so warm that the most delicate singing-birds can live in it! 'I thought it would be something much harder than that, exclaimed the young man. 'I will see about it at once. And leaving his mother, he went into the country and took the stone from his turban.
Let us not mistake the nature of a real civilization, nor suppose we have it because we can convert crude iron into the most delicate mechanism, or transport ourselves sixty miles an hour, or even if we shall refine our carnal tastes so as to be satisfied at dinner with the tongues of ortolans and the breasts of singing-birds.
Now, on the first marble step of the palace there sat an old white-headed man dressed like a dervish, who held out at arm's length a branch of gold with golden singing-birds between its leaves, saying, 'This for the strongest of ye! Abarak exclaimed, 'I am that one'; and he held forth his hand for the branch. But Shibli Bagarag cried, 'Nay, 'tis mine.
But at the first trills of the nightingale a flood of tender feeling filled my heart. I felt myself soothed, grateful, melted; a mood of serenity and contemplation took possession of me. A certain little path, a very kingdom of green, with fountain, thickets, gentle ups and downs, and an abundance of singing-birds, delighted me, and did me inexpressible good.
It is pleasant to say that the young man, though favored by nature with this rarest of talents, did not forget the humbler duties that Heaven, which dresses few singing-birds in the golden plumes of fortune, had laid upon him.
"Madam," answered the devout woman, "if you will give me leave to speak my mind freely, I will take the liberty to tell you that this house would be incomparable if it had three things which are wanting to complete it. The first of these three things is the speaking-bird, so singular a creature that it draws around it all the singing-birds in the neighborhood, which come to accompany his song.
He utters his usual notes at all times of the year; but in the early part of summer he is addicted to a very low but pleasant kind of warbling, considerably varied, and wanting only more loudness and precision to entitle him to a rank with the singing-birds. This warbling does not seem intended to cheer his partner, but it is rather a sort of soliloquizing for his own amusement.
The notes of the Song-Sparrow would not entitle him to be ranked among our principal singing-birds, were it not for the remarkable variations of his song, in which respect he is equalled, I think, by no other bird. Of these variations there are seven or eight which may be distinctly recognized, and differing enough to be considered separate tunes.
So, too, his voice, and the topics he chose in talking, gave us the feeling of out-door existence always connected with him: of singing-birds, and the breeze of mountain-tops, of great walnut- and chesnut-trees, and children gathering nuts beneath; never of the solemn hush of pines, or twilight, or anything "sough"-ing or whispering: no, all about him sounded like the free, dashing, rushing water.
"He asked me if the singing-birds will gladden his ears and cause his heart to thrill." "What means he by that?" "He only refers to a fact well known among the Indians," replied the hunter, with a quiet smile, "that Trueheart and Goodred have such sweet voices that they are known everywhere by the name of the singing-birds.
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