EARLY SPRING IN SAVERNAKE FOREST 83 



and in the succeeding lull there are only low, mys- 

 terious agitated whisperings ; but they are multi- 

 tudinous ; the suggestion is ever of a vast concourse 

 — crowds and congregations, tumultuous or orderly, 

 but all swayed by one absorbing impulse, solemn 

 or passionate. But not always moved simul- 

 taneously. Through the near whisperings a deeper, 

 louder sound comes from a distance. It rumbles 

 like thunder, falling and rising as it rolls on- 

 wards ; it is antiphonal, but changes as it travels 

 nearer. Then there is no longer demand and re- 

 sponse ; the smitten trees are all bent one way, 

 and their innumerable voices are as one voice, 

 expressing we know not what, but always some- 

 thing not wholly strange to us — lament, entreaty, 

 denunciation. 



Listening, thinking of nothing, simply living in 

 the sound of the wind, that strange feeling which 

 is unrelated to anything that concerns us, of the 

 life and intelligence inherent in nature, grows upon 

 the mind. I have sometimes thought that never 

 does the world seem more alive and watchful of 

 us than on a still, moonlight night in a solitary 

 wood, when the dusky green foliage is silvered by 

 the beams, and all visible objects and the white 

 lights and black shadows in the intervening spaces 



