Concerning Animals and Other Matters | Page 5

if a man has any taste, it
will show itself in his dress and in his dwelling. No doubt, through
indolence and slovenly habits, a man may allow his surroundings to fall
far below what he is capable of approving; but every one who does so
pays the penalty in the gradual deterioration of his perceptions.
"How many times more true is all this in the case of the moral sense?
When the heart is still young and tender, how spontaneously and
sweetly and urgently does every vision of goodness and nobleness in
the conduct of another awaken the impulse to go and do likewise! And
if that impulse is not obeyed, how certainly does the first approving
perception of the beauty of goodness become duller, until at last we
may even come to hate it where we find it, for its discordance with the
'motions of sins in our members'!
"But not less certainly will every earnest effort to bring the life into
unison with what we perceive to be right bring its own reward in a
clearer and more joyful perception of what is right, and a keener
sensitiveness to every discord in ourselves. How all such discord may
be removed, how the chords of the heart may be tuned and the life
become music,--these are questions of religion, which are quite beyond
our scope. But I take it that every religion which has prevailed among
the children of Adam is in itself an evidence that, however debased and
perverted the moral sense may have become, the painful consciousness
that his heart is 'like sweet bells jangled' still presses everywhere and
always on the spirit of man; and it is also a conscious or unconscious
admission that there is no blessedness for him until his life shall march
in step with the music of the 'Eternal Righteousness.'"

Mr. Aitken's name will be kept green among Anglo-Indians by the
well-known series of books published by Messrs. Thacker & Co., of
London and Calcutta. They are _The Tribes on my Frontier, An Indian
Naturalist's Foreign Policy_, which was published in 1883, and of
which a seventh edition appeared in 1910. This book deals with the
common birds, beasts, and insects in and around an Indian bungalow,
and it should be put into the hands of every one whose lot is cast in
India. It will open their eyes to the beauty and interests of their
surroundings in a truly wonderful way, and may be read again and
again with increasing pleasure as one's experience of Indian life
increases.
This was followed in 1889 by Behind the Bungalow, which describes
with charming insight the strange manners and customs of our Indian
domestic servants. The witty and yet kindly way in which their
excellencies and defects are touched off is delightful, and many a
harassed mem-sahib must bless Eha for showing her the humorous and
human side of her life surrounded as it is by those necessary but
annoying inhabitants of the Godowns behind the bungalow. A tenth
edition of this book was published in 1911.
The Naturalist on the Prowl was brought out in 1894, and a third
edition was published in 1905. It contains sketches on the same lines as
those in The Tribes, but deals more with the jungles, and not so much
with the immediate surroundings of the bungalow. The very smell of
the country is in these chapters, and will vividly recall memories to
those who know the country along the West Coast of India southward
of Bombay.
In 1900 was published The Common Birds of Bombay, which contains
descriptions of the ordinary birds one sees about the bungalow or in the
country. As is well said by the writer of the obituary notice in the
Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, Eha "had a special
genius for seizing the striking and characteristic points in the
appearance and behaviour of individual species and a happy knack of
translating them into print so as to render his descriptions unmistakable.
He looked upon all creatures in the proper way, as if each had a soul

and character of its own. He loved them all, and was unwilling to hurt
any of them." These characteristics are well shown in this book, for one
is able to recognise the birds easily from some prominent feature
described therein.[1]
The Five Windows of the Soul, published by John Murray in 1898, is of
quite another character from the above, and was regarded by its author
with great affection as the best of his books. It is certainly a
wonderfully self-revealing book, and full of the most beautiful thoughts.
A second impression appeared in the following year, and a new and
cheaper edition has just been published. The portrait of Eha is
reproduced from one