The Mountain Finch 



CHAPTER II 



Cardinal: the Story of My First Caged Bird 



A ONCE familiar but long unheard sound coming un- 

 expectedly to us will sometimes affect the mind as it 

 is occasionally affected through the sense of smell, re- 

 storing a past scene and state so vividly that it is less 

 like a memory than a vision. It is indeed more than a 

 vision, seeing that this is an illusion, something ap- 

 parently beheld with the outer or physical eyes ; the other 

 is a transformation, a return to that state — that forgotten 

 self — which was lost for ever, yet is ours again; and 

 for a glorious moment we are what we were in some 

 distant place, some long-vanished time, in age and fresh- 

 ness of feeling, in the brilliance of our senses, our wonder 

 and delight at this visible world. 



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