LIFE IS MORE BEAUTIFUL TO ALL
The great Russian novelist, Turgenieff, relates a most touching incident from his own life, which awakened in him feelings that coloured all his writings with a deep and tender feeling.
When Turgenieff was a boy of ten, his father took him out one day for bird shooting. As they tramped across the brown stubble, a golden pheasant rose with a low whirr from the ground at his feet. With the joy of a sportsman throbbing through his veins, the young boy raised his gun and fired, wild with excitement. The creature instantly fell, fluttering at his side.
Life was ebbing fast, but the instinct of heroic mother was stronger than death itself. With a feeble flutter of her wings, the mother bird reached the nest where her young broods were huddled, unconscious of danger. Then she gave a look of pleading and reproach at the boy that his heart stood still at the ruin he had wrought. The little brown head slowly toppled over, and only the dead body of the mother shielded her nestlings. And never to his last days did he forget the feeling of cruelty and guilt that came upon him at that moment.
"Father, father, what have I done?" Turgenieff cried out, turning his horror stricken face to his father.
But not to his father's eye had this little tragedy been enacted, and he said, "Well done, my son; that was well done for your first shoot. You will soon be a fine sportsman."
"Never, father, never again shall I ever destroy any living creature. If that is sport, I will have none of it. Life is more beautiful to me than death, and since I cannot give life, I will not take it."
