It is curious how deeply we are sometimes affected by a very trifling occurrence. I have remembered many times a slight scene in which three purple finches were the actors. Of the two males, one was in full adult plumage of bright crimson, while the other still wore his youthful suit of brown. First, the older bird suspended himself in mid air, and sang most beautifully; dropping, as he concluded, to a perch beside the female. Then the younger candidate, who was already sitting near by, took his turn, singing nearly or quite as well as his rival, but without quitting the branch, though his wings quivered. I saw no more. Yet, as I say, I have often since thought of the three birds, and wondered whether the bright feathers and the flying song carried the day against the younger suitor. I fear they did. Sometimes, too, I have queried whether young birds (who none the less are of age to marry) can be so very meek or so very dull as never to rebel against the fashion that only the old fellows shall dress handsomely; and I have tried in vain to imagine the mutterings, deep and loud, which such a law would excite in certain other quarters. It pains me to say it, but I suspect that taxation without representation would seem a small injustice, in comparison.
Like these linnets in the exceptional interest they excited were two large seabirds, who suddenly appeared circling about over the woods, as I was taking a solitary walk on a Sunday morning in April. One of them was closely pursuing the other; not as though he were trying to overtake her, but rather as though he were determined to keep her company. They swept now this way, now that,--now lost to sight, and now reappearing; and once they passed straight over my head, so that I heard the whistling of their wings. Then they were off, and I saw them no more. They came from far, and by night they were perhaps a hundred leagues away. But I followed them with my blessing, and to this day I feel toward them a little as I suppose we all do toward a certain few strangers whom we have met here and there in our journeyings, and chatted with for an hour or two. We had never seen them before; if we learned their names we have long ago forgotten them; but somehow the persons themselves keep a place in our memory, and even in our affection.