ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 833 



And then, in the deep woody depths, the singer incessantly moves 

 from place to place, now drawing near, and now receding ; hence arise 

 those distant effects which induce a delightful reverie, and that delicate 

 cadence which thrills the heart. 



Under our roof his song would ho. ever the same ; but on the 

 pinions of the wind the music is divine, it penetrates and ravishes 

 the soul. 



Page 241. The rohiii hastens, singing, to enjoy his share of the 

 luarmth. — I find this admirable passage in " The Conquest "of England 

 by the Normans " (by Augustin Thierry). The chief of the barbarous 

 Saxons assembles his priests and wise men to ascertain if they will 

 become Christians. One of them speaks as follows : — 



" Thou mayst remember, O king, a thing which sometimes happens, 

 when thou art seated at table Avith thy captains and men-at-arms, in 

 the winter season, and when a fire is kindled and the hall well 

 warmed, while there are wind and rain and snow without. There 

 comes a little bird, which traverses the room on fiutterino; wino-, 

 entering by one door and flying out at another : the moment of its 



passage is full of sweetness for it, it feels neither the rain nor the 

 storm ; but this interval is brief, the bird vanishes in the twinkling 

 of an eye, and from ivinter ijasses a%vay into ivinter. Such seems to 

 me the life of man upon this earth, and its limited duration, compared 

 with the length of the time which precedes and follows it." 



