Katherine Mansfield, Dove’s Nest/The Canary 1923

"Death of the Canary:
. . . You see that big nail to the right of the front door? I can scarcely look at it even now and yet I could not bear to take it out. I should like to think it was there always even after my time. I sometimes hear the next people saying, "There must have been a cage hanging from there." And it comforts me; I feel he is not quite forgotten.
You cannot imagine how wonderfully he sang. It was not like the singing of other canaries. And that isn’t just my fancy. Often from the window, I used to see people stop at my gate and listen, or they would lean over the fence by the mock-orange for quite a long time – carried away. I suppose it sounds absurd to you – but it really seemed to me that he sang whole songs with a beginning and an end to them. "

Katherine Mansfield