Various - The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 32, June, 1860

You remember that little, old, withered man who used to bring us eggs; the boys, you know, called him Egg Pop. When the thrifty housewife complained of the small size of his ware, he always said,—

"Yes, Marm, they be small; but they be monstrous full."

Yes, the packing of the nest is close; but closer is the packing of the egg. "As full as an egg of meat" is a wise proverb.

Let us look at these first-fruits which the bountiful Spring hangs on our trees.

"To break the eggshell after the meat is out we are taught in our childhood, and practise it all our lives; which, nevertheless, is but a superstitious relict, according to the judgment of Pliny, and the intent hereof was to prevent witch-craft [to keep the fairies out]; for lest witches should draw or prick their names therein, and veneficiously mischief their persons, they broke the shell, as Dalecampius hath observed." This is what Sir Thomas Browne tells us about eggshells. And Dr. Wren adds, "Least they [the witches] perchance might use them for boates to sayle in by night." But I, who have no fear of witches, would not break them,—rather use them, try what an untold variety of forms we may make out of this delicate oval.

By a little skilful turning and reversing, putting on a handle, a lip here, a foot there, always following the sacred oval, we shall get a countless array of pitchers and vases, of perfect finished form, handsome enough to be the oval for a king's name. Should they attempt to copy our rare vases in finest Parian, alabaster, or jasper, their art would fail to hit the delicate tints and smoothness of this fine shell; and then those dots and dashes, careless as put on by a master's hand!

Are not these rare lines? They look to me as wise as hieroglyphics. Who knows what rhyme and reason are written there,—what subtile wisdom rounded into this small curve,—repeated on the breasts and backs of the birds,—their own notes, it may be, photographed on their swelling breasts like the musical notes on the harp-shell,—written in bright, almost audible colors on the petals of flowers,—harmonies, melodies, for ear and eye? Has this language, older than Erse, older than Sanscrit, ever got translated? I am afraid, dear, the key has been turned in the lock, and thrown into the well.

The ornithologists tell us that some birds build nicer nests, sing sweeter songs, than their companions of the same species. Can experience add wisdom to instinct? or is it the right of the elder-born,—the birthright of the young robin who first breaks the shell? Who has rightly looked into these things?

I half remember the story of a beautiful princess who had all imaginable wealth in her stately palace, itself builded up of rare and costly jewels. She had everything that heart could desire,—everything but a roc's egg. Her mind was contracted with sorrow, till she could procure this one ornament more to her splendors. I think it turned out that the palace itself was built within the roc's egg. These birds are immense, and take up three elephants at a time in their powerful talons, (almost as many as Gordon Cumming himself, on a good day's hunt,) and their eggs are like domes.

Now, do not you be like the foolish princess, and desire a roc's egg; it will prove a stone, the egg of a rock, indeed. Be content rather with this ostrich-egg I send you; with your own slender fingers lift the lid;—pretty, is it not, the tea-service I send you? The tidy warblers threw out the emptied shells; one by one I picked them up, and have made cups and saucers, bowls and pitchers for you: a roc's egg never held anything one-half so fine.

You will say I am a fairy, as brother Evelyn says, when I relate to him the fine sights and sounds I have seen and heard in the woods. No, but the little silent people are very good to me.

Let me, then, go on my bird's-egging and tell you one more fact about our fairy, our Humming-Bird. Audubon says "that an all-wise Providence has made this little hero an exception to a rule which prevails almost universally through Nature,—namely, that the smallest species of a tribe are the most prolific. The eagle lays one, sometimes two eggs; the small European wren fifteen; the humming-bird two: and yet this latter is abundantly more numerous in America than the wren in Europe." All on account of his wonderful courage, admirable instinct, or whatever it is that guards and guides him so unerringly.

"Ce que Dieu garde est bien gardé."

Ah, Estelle! your bonnie birdie, with his wild whirr, darting back and forth like a weaver's shuttle weaving fine wefts, has got into my head; not "bee-bonneted," but bird-bonneted, I go. Yes, this day shall be given to the king, as our country-folk say, when they go a-pleasuring. I am off with the little wool-gatherers, to see what thorn and brier and fern-stalk and willow-catkin will give me. Good-day! good-day!

Your own

SUSAN, SUSY, SUE.

P. S. "May our friendship never moult a feather!"

Schatrenschar, the Persian, who could count the stars one by one, who is known to have been borne, (by the Simorg, the Eternal Fowl,) at midnight, first to the evening star, and then to the moon, and then set down safely in his home,—and Al Kahlminar, the Arabian, who was a mystic seer, and had conversed face to face with the Demons of the Seven Planets, approaching also, on one occasion, so nigh unto Uriel that his beard was singed by the sun, wherein that angel resideth,—these, ten million years ago, lived in their palaces on adjoining estates and lands. But about the boundary-line atwixt them they could not agree: Schatrenschar maintaining that he had lived there longest, and had a right to choose where the wall should be built between himself and a later comer; Al Kahlminar declaring that the world was not made for Schatrenschar,—furthermore, that the Astronomer had paid nothing for the land, and had already more than he could attend to, since his chief devotion was manifestly to the estates he was reputed to own in Venus and the moon. They came to no decision; and it was beneath the dignity of these men, who prided themselves on being confidants elect of invisible and superior worlds, publicly to wrangle about the gross soil of this. Nevertheless, Schatrenschar, at last, losing patience, cried,—

"Al Kahlminar, 'tis but by the grace of Yezdan, who hath commissioned me to watch the sacred stars, which reveal not themselves to the violent, that I am saved this day from flogging thee!"

To this the Seer: "O Schatrenschar, thou must have left in some of thy other worlds, mayhap in Venus, the limbs which can cope with these."

"Nay," replied the Astronomer, discerning some truth in that remark, "but I am not alone, Al Kahlminar; I have within my palace two valiant knights, skilled with the steed and the spear, who are ready to go forth in my stead at a word."

"And I," answered the Mystic, warming, "have two godly priests, men skilled by the orthodox beheading of heretics into the aim and valor of Arjoon himself. Your knights cannot stand before these messengers of Heaven; they will tremble like aspen-leaves, lest Allah be wroth, if they receive harm."

"If thou shouldst bring forth thy priests, Al Kahlminar, then would I confront them and thee with the two elephants which my brother sent me lately from Geestan, on each of which I can place a rook with a slave cunning with the javelin, before which thy priests will flee; for the animals see no difference between priests and other mortals;—the elephant is sagacious, neighbor!"

"And I," said the other, "haye riches, which thou hast not. Whatever thou hast wherewith to extend thy line into my lot, I can oppose with an equal force,—nay, with a stronger."