Accordingly,
when one warps the truth to suit his purpose, especially in the
realm of nature, he must expect this hater of shams to raise a
warning voice--"Beware the wolf in sheep's clothing!" But he never
cries "Wolf!" when there is no wolf, and he gives warm and generous
praise to deserving ones.
It has surprised some of his readers, who know how kindly he is
by nature, and how he shrinks from witnessing pain, in beast or
man, much less inflicting it, to see his severity when nature is
traduced--for he shows all the fight and fury and all the defense of
the mother bird when her young are attacked. He won't suffer even a
porcupine to be misrepresented without bristling up in its defense.
I have said that he never preaches, never seeks to give a moral
twist to his observations of nature, but I recall a few instances
where he does do a bit of moralizing; for example, when he speaks
of the calmness and dignity of the hawk when attacked by crows
or kingbirds: "He seldom deigns to notice his noisy and furious
antagonist, but deliberately wheels about in that aerial spiral,
and mounts and mounts till his pursuers grow dizzy and return to
earth again. It is quite original, this mode of getting rid of an
unworthy opponent--rising to heights where the braggart is dazed and
bewildered and loses his reckoning! I'm not sure but it is worthy
of imitation.
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