Because in sober fact the nightingale sings with a ringing, punching vividness and a pristine assertiveness that makes a mere man stand still. A kind of brilliant calling and interweaving of glittering exclamation such as must have been heard on the first day of creation, when the angels suddenly found themselves created, and shouting aloud before they knew it. Then there must have been a to-do of angels in the thickets of heaven! Hello! Hello! Behold! Behold! Behold! It is I! It is I! What a mar-mar-marvellous occurrence! What·
For the pure splendidness of vocal assertion: Lo! It is I!—you have to listen to the nightingale. Perhaps for the visual perfection of the same assertion, you have to look at a peacock shaking all his eyes. Among all the creatures created in final splendour, these two are perhaps the most finally perfect: the one is invisible, triumphing sound, the other is voiceless visibility. The nightingale is a quite undistinguished grey-brown bird, if you do see him: although he’s got that tender, hopping mystery about him, of a thing that is rich alive inside. Just as the peacock, when he does make himself heard, is awful, but still impressive: such a fearful shout from out of the menacing jungle. You can actually see him, in Ceylon, yell from a high bough, then stream away past the monkeys, into the impenetrable jungle that seethes and is dark.
And perhaps, for this reason: the reason, that is, of pure angel-keen or demon-keen assertion of true self; the nightingale makes a man feel sad, and the peacock often makes him angry. It is a sadness that is half envy. The birds are so triumphantly positive in their created selves, eternally new from the hand of the rich bright God, and perfect. The nightingale ripples with his own perfection. And the peacock arches all his bronze and purple eyes with assuredness.
This—this rippling assertion of a perfect bit of creation—this green shimmer of a perfect beauty in a bird, makes men angry or melancholy, according as it assails the eye or the ear. The ear is much less cunning than the eye. You can say to somebody: I like you awfully: you look so beautiful this morning! and she will believe it utterly, though your voice may really be vibrating with mortal hatred. The ear is so stupid, it will accept any amount of false money in words. But let one tiny gleam of the mortal hatred come into your eye, or across your face, and it is detected immediately. The eye is so shrewd and rapid.
For this reason, we get the peacock at once, in all his showy male self-assertion: and we say, rather sneeringly: Fine feathers make fine birds! But when we hear the nightingale, we don’t know what we hear, we only know we feel sad: forlorn! And so we say it is the nightingale that is sad.
