About anthropomorphism

Jan Lipert of Jersey City sent in the following comment, quoting from one of my favorite writers:


John Blakeman's commentary on this year's nesting experience was very reassuring to me. I love watching and reading about these glorious hawks. At times, I cannot resist the urge to
anthropomorphize; I am human and observe them through the filter of my human emotions, just as they view me through their own hawk filters. This self-indulgence, however, is always kept in check by the wise words of Henry Beston:

"In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and more complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth."

Every time I look at Lincoln's wonderful pictures of Pale Male and Lola, I think of these lines. They are surely the ambassadors of their nation.