supplied them by their industry; necessity has sharpened their
understanding, endurance awakened their foresight. While elsewhere man,
warmed by an ever brilliant sun, and loaded with the bounties of the
earth, was remaining poor, ignorant, and naked, in the midst of gifts he
did not attempt to explore, here he was forced by necessity to wrest his
food from the ground, to build habitations to defend himself from the
intemperance of the weather, and to warm his body by clothing himself
with the wool of animals. Work makes him both more intelligent and more
robust: disciplined by it, he seems to mount higher on the ladder of
creation, while those more favored by nature remain on the step nearest
to the brutes.

I made these reflections while looking at the bird, whose instinct seemed
to have become more acute since she had been occupied in work. At last
the nest was finished; she set up her household there, and I followed her
through all the phases of her new existence.

When she had sat on the eggs, and the young ones were hatched, she fed
them with the most attentive care. The corner of my window had become a
stage of moral action, which fathers and mothers might come to take
lessons from. The little ones soon became large, and this morning I have
seen them take their first flight. One of them, weaker than the others,
was not able to clear the edge of the roof, and fell into the gutter. I
caught him with some difficulty, and placed him again on the tile in
front of his house, but the mother has not noticed him. Once freed from
the cares of a family, she has resumed her wandering life among the trees
and along the roofs. In vain I have kept away from my window, to take
from her every excuse for fear; in vain the feeble little bird has called
to her with plaintive cries; his bad mother has passed by, singing and
fluttering with a thousand airs and graces. Once only the father came