Even frogs and toads
and fishes may be tamed, provided they have the uniform sympathy of
one person, with whom they become intimately acquainted without the
distracting and varying attentions of strangers. And surely all God's
people, however serious and savage, great or small, like to play.
Whales and elephants, dancing, humming gnats, and invisibly small
mischievous microbes,--all are warm with divine radium and must have
lots of fun in them.
As far as I know, all wild creatures keep themselves clean. Birds, it
seems to me, take more pains to bathe and dress themselves than any
other animals. Even ducks, though living so much in water, dip and
scatter cleansing showers over their backs, and shake and preen their
feathers as carefully as land-birds. Watching small singers taking
their morning baths is very interesting, particularly when the weather
is cold. Alighting in a shallow pool, they oftentimes show a sort of
dread of dipping into it, like children hesitating about taking a
plunge, as if they felt the same kind of shock, and this makes it easy
for us to sympathize with the little feathered people.
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