Liberty

We have somewhere read of a traveler who stood one day beside the cages of some birds, that, exposed for sale, ruffled their sunny plumage on the wires, and struggled to be free. A way-worn and sun-browned man, like one returned from foreign lands, he looked wistfully and sadly on these captives, till tears started in his eye, and turning round on their owner, he asked the price of one, paid it in strange gold, and opening the cage set the prisoner free; and thus and thus he did with captive after captive, till every bird was away, soaring to the skies and singing on the wings of liberty. The crowd stared and stood amazed; they thought him mad, till to the question of their curiosity he replied—“I was once myself a captive; I know the sweets of liberty.”

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