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But, shades of Buffon and Linnæus! we must not thus rattle on, but proceed to describe the nuptial couch of the delicious bird under our consideration. The woodcock, like all those of the feathered tribe that do not perch, makes its nest on the ground, which is composed of leaves, fern, and dry grass, intermixed with little bits of stick, and strengthened by larger pieces placed across it. This nest, made without much art or care, in form like a large brown ball, is generally placed under, and sheltered by the root of some old tree. Four or five eggs, a little larger than those of the common pigeon, of a dirty gray and yellow colour, and marked with little black spots, are the proofs of its maternity. The woodcock, as I have before remarked, has only the gift of talking in the spring season, when soft breezes fan the air, and they educate their young. Nevertheless, it is in this season that woodcock-shooting is the most amusing. Then is the time for gentlemen to shoot; the braconnier despises it. From the middle of April to that of May is the important epoch at which the generality of animals marry, and the woodcocks are not behindhand in this respect; they leave their well-concealed retreats, become humanized, solicit the attentions of their feathered ladies, and fly with gay inspirations amongst the neighbouring bushes. But though as much in love as a widow, the woodcock does not on that account forget its habitual prudence; like the usurer who lends his money, and takes every precaution, the woodcock is equally careful, and does not leave its nest till twilight has draped the earth in the gray mantle of evening. When the humid atmosphere descends slowly on the trees, when the cool breezes of night ascend the valleys, when distant objects begin to assume a fantastic shape, when the branches of the oak near you, like the arms of a giant, wave to and fro, and seem to ask you to approach; when the withered tree, devoid of leaves, looks like a brigand on the watch, or your comrade, ensconced against it, seems to form a portion of it at a hundred yards off; when, in short, the sportsman can see only a few yards before him, then is the moment that the circumspect and wily woodcock leaves its abode, and pays a nocturnal visit to his friends; and man, his enemy, and still more cunning, is on the alert. The sport which we are about to describe, and which does not last longer than from thirty to forty minutes, has something particularly taking in it. At the close of day a universal silence reigns in the forest, and every sportsman is at his post with bated breath, and eyes dilated as wide as a woman's listening to a neighbouring gossip's tale, when, all at once pray note this well, reader a little fly, which plays a prominent part in all sport
The popular interest can only be efficiently expressed in a national policy and organization. The national interest is merely a more coherent and ameliorating expression of the popular interest. Its consistency, so far as it is consistent, is the reflection of a more humanized condition of human nature.
Certainly in domestic life there is no man so exquisitely affectionate and humanized as the Irishman. The national imagination is active and the national heart warm, and it follows very naturally that he should be, and is, tender and strong in all his domestic relations.
It broadened, humanized them. It made him enter with still truer sympathy into other people's misfortune. And his trust in God was so strong, his faith so unshaken, he knew that in all these bitter experiences of life's school was a lesson. He learned it and used it to get a broader outlook. His friends rallied to his aid.
She was very pretty when I first knew her, with the sweet straight nose and short upper lip of the cameo-brooch divinity, humanized by a dimple that flowered in her cheek whenever anything was said possessing the outward attributes of humor without its intrinsic quality.
Jack and his mates, hearing the English speech, glanced at each other meaningly. Nevertheless, speech humanized her, and they relaxed. There was no leaping up of the unholy fires of the night before. They regarded her with great, new respect. They remained sitting motionless, absorbed in her every move, like the spectators of a play.
A few days ago he would have seen only the sordid side of it, the crudeness and coarseness; but the search he was on had humanized what hitherto had only seemed a disagreeable and objectionable side of life, and the people before him were of an odd kinship. In their faces was hunger. There were so many kinds of hunger in the world. He got up, and with a nod to the boy paid his bill and went out.
He who is undetected only gets worse, whereas he who is detected and punished has the brutal part of his nature silenced and humanized; the gentler element in him is liberated, and his whole soul is perfected and ennobled by the acquirement of justice and temperance and wisdom, more than the body ever is by receiving gifts of beauty, strength and health, in proportion as the soul is more honourable than the body.
And there was the unexpected stoop of the powerful shoulders, the occasional unavoidable trembling of the hands, and in his face, which repeated the livid tone of the hair, were graven lines, many and deep, born of the repressed disappointment and increasing loneliness that had insensibly humanized the harsh visage.
"We aren't through yet with the little boy who won out with his fighting chance." "When you knew him your hills had done something for him. They had humanized him. He went as one goes to exile, full of bitterness. Your hills were a miracle of wholesomeness. They cleansed and restored him with the song of their high-riding winds and the whispers of their pines.
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