“Ah, sir,” they said, nearly choking me with their embraces, “you are indeed a noble bird. How admirably you have painted in your immortal lines the profound sufferings of an unknown genius! If we are not already thoroughly misunderstood, we should become so after reading you. How deeply we sympathise with your griefs and your sublime scorn of vulgar opinion. Our own experience, sire, has made us familiar with all the troubles of which you sing. Here are two sonnets we humbly pray you to accept as a token of our worship.” {256} “Here is besides,” added the Chinese, “a song composed by my wife on a passage in your preface. She seems to have caught wonderfully the inspiration which it breathes.” “Gentlemen,” I replied, “you seem to be gifted persons endowed with sentiments that are a credit to your nations, but permit me to inquire the reason of your manifest melancholy?” “Ah, sir, see how I am formed. My plumage, it is true, is pleasant to behold; it is not without the tinge of emerald green, the glory of Ducks and dupes. For all that, my beak is too short and my claws too long, and whoever saw such a frightful tail as mine? I am nearly all tail. Is it not enough to give one the blues?” “As for me, sir,” said John Chinaman, “my misfortune is a still more painful one. My comrade’s tail sweeps the streets, while the vulgar point the finger of scorn at me because I have only a stump.” “Gentlemen,” I replied, “I pity you with all my heart. It is always painful to have too much or too little of anything, no matter what it is. But allow me to tell you that in our museums there are many examples of your class who have been stuffed and preserved in peace for years. My own case is infinitely worse than yours put together. I have the misfortune to be a lettered bird, a genius, and the only bird of my kind. In spite of my resolution to remain single, the return of spring-time caused me much uneasiness, and an event as unexpected as it was welcome decided my future. I received a letter from a young white Merle in London. It ran thus:— “ ‘I have read your poem, and the devotion it inspired has constrained me to offer you my hand and fortune. God created us for each other. I am like you, for I am a white Merle.’ “My surprise and joy may be imagined. A white Merle! Is it possible? I hastened to reply to the charming note—equal in terseness and fathomless sentiment to a love message in the second column of the _Times_. I besought the fair unknown to come at once to Paris, the refuge of romance-stricken young ladies. My reply had the desired effect; she came at once, or rather soon after her second letter, which informed me that she would not bother her parents with details. It was better to tell them nothing, as they might deem it necessary to send an old carrion Crow to look into my character. [Illustration]