Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LESSON IV WEALTH OF ELOQUENCE AND OPULENCE OF WIT "there is," says Xanthes, "a very capricious bird. "They are few who know how to keep him in a cage. "However, he allows himself to be easily caught; he comes quickly at the sound of the pastoral flute, for he is far from being wild. "He allows himself willingly to be attracted by the sounds which escape from an open window. "He enters, listens for a moment to the trills of some musical instrument, then, as quickly as he came, he flies away to some other habitation in order to listen to the song of the lute. "But there also his stay is momentary, and the sound of the human voice ringing out in a simple and sweet melody soon urges him toward a different place. "He does not take flight, however, without the intention of returning. "It is not unusual to see him reappear after these various migrations; but his presence is only evanescent, and he departs on the wing, from the moment he imagines he will be captured. "At times, also, his flight will lead him very far from his native haunts; a very long time elapses before he comes back to the point of departure. "But, most of the time, he does not soar away definitely, and makes brief appearances, fol- owed by more or less prolonged absences. "However, it happens sometimes that an air or a song will seem particularly agreeable to him; then he does not fly away from the grasp of one who seizes him gently and shuts him up in a cage, from which he does not try to escape. '' The reason for this is that this person knew how to unite all charms with (most important of all) all variety, which attract the bird Attention. "This bird-fancier knew how, by the diversity of his songs, to compete successfully with the attraction of the neighboring lute or with...