LANGUAGE OF NATURE.

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ing or instruction. A man cannot move or look without thinking of God, for all that meets his eye is

just as it left his mighty hand. The old forest as it nods to the passing wind speaks of him-the still mountain points towards his dwelling-place, and the calm lake reflects his sky of stars and sunshine. The glorious sunset and the blushing dawn-the gorgeous midnight and the noon-day splendor, mean more in these solitudes than in the crowded city. Indeed, they look different-they are different.

Yours truly,

9

XXII.

FOREST MUSIC.

THE WOODS, August.

DEAR H-:

How often we speak of the solitude of the forest, meaning by that, the contrast its stillness presents to the hum and motion of busy life. When you first step from the crowded city into the centre of a vast wilderness, the absence of all the bustle and activity you have been accustomed to makes you at first believe there is no sound, no motion there. So a man accustomed for a long time to the surges of the ocean cannot at first hear the murmur of the rill. Yet these solitudes are full of sound, aye, of rare music, too. I do not mean the notes of birds, for they rarely sing in the darker, deeper portions of the forest. Even the robin, which in the fields cannot chirp and carol enough, and is so tame that a tyro can shoot him,

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ceases his song the moment he enters the forest, and flits silently from one lofty branch to another, as if in constant fear of a secret enemy. If you want to listen to the music of birds, go to some field that borders on the woods, and there, before sunrise of a summer morning, you will hear such an orchestra as never before greeted your ears. There are no dying cadences and rapturous bursts and prolonged swells, but one continuous strain of joy. Yet there is every variety of tone, from the clear, round note of the robin, to the shrill piping of the sparrow. No time is kept, and no scale is followed-each is striving to outwarble the other, and yet there seems the most perfect accord. No jar is made by all the conflicting instruments— the whole heavens are full of voices tuned to a different key-each pausing or breaking in as it suits its mood-and yet the harmony remains the same. It is unwritten music such as nature furnishes-filling the soul with a delight and joy it never before experienced.

But this is found only in the fields our great forests are too sombre and shadowy for such glees. Still you find music there. There is a certain kind occurring only at intervals, which chills the heart like

a dead-march, and is fearful as the echo of bursting billows along the arches of a cavern. The shrill scream of a panther in the midst of an impenetrable swamp, rising in the intervals of thunder claps-the long, discordant howl of a herd of wolves at midnight, slowly traveling along the slope of a high mountain, you may call strange music; yet there are certain chords in the heart of man, that quiver to it, especially when he feels there is no cause of alarm. The lowing of a moose, echoing miles away in the gorges -the solitary cry of the loon in some deep bay—the solemn hoot of the owl, the only lullaby that cradles you to sleep, all have their charms, and stir you at times like the blast of a bugle. So the scream of the eagle, and cry of the fish-hawk, as they sweep in measured circles over the still bosom of a lake after their prey, or the low, half suppressed croak of the raven-his black form like some messenger of death, slowly swinging from one mountain to another—are sights and sounds that arrest and chain you. Yet these are not all-the ear grows sensitive when you feel that everything about you treads stealthily; and the slightest noise will sometimes startle you like the unexpected crack of a rifle.

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After watching for a long time for deer on the banks of some still stream, almost motionless myself, the unexpected spring of a trout to the surface has sent the blood to my temples as suddenly as though it had been the leap of a panther.

By living in the woods, your sense of hearing becomes so acute that the wilderness never seems silent. It is said that a nice and practised ear can hear at night, in the full vigor of spring, the low sound of growing, bursting vegetation, and in the winter, the shooting of crystals, "like moon-beams splintering along the ground." So in the forest, there is a faint and indistinct hum about you, as if the spreading and bursting of the buds and barks of trees, the stretching out of the roots into the earth, and the slow and affectionate interlacing of branches and kiss of leaves, were all perceptible to the ear. The passage of the scarcely moving air over the unseen tree tops, the motion it gives to the trunk-too slight to be detected by the eye -the dropping of an imperfect leaf; all combine to produce a monotonous sound, which lulls you into a feeling half melancholy and half pleasing. You may, on a still summer afternoon, recline for hours on some gentle slope, and listen without weariness to this low,