98 FIVE DAYS ON MOUNT MANSFIELD. 
of the gray-cheek. If it has less variety, and 
perhaps less rapture, than the song of the 
wood-thrush, it is marked by greater sim- 
plicity and ease; and if it does not breathe 
the ineffable tranquillity of the veery’s 
strain, it comes to my ear, at least, with a 
still nobler message. The hermit’s note 
is aspiration rather than repose. ‘Peace, 
peace!” says the veery, but the hermit’s 
word is, “Higher, higher!” ‘Spiritual 
songs,” I call them both, with no thought 
of profaning the apostolic phrase. 
I had been listening to thrush music (1 
think I could listen to it forever), and ata 
bend of the road had turned to admire the 
wooded side of the mountain, just here spread 
out before me, miles and miles of magnifi- 
cent hanging forest, when I was attracted by 
a noise as of something gnawing —a borer 
under the bark of a fallen spruce lying at 
my feet. Such an industrious and contented 
sound! No doubt the grub would have said, 
“Yes, I could do ¢his forever.”” What 
knew he of the beauties of the picture at 
which I was gazing? The very light with 
_ which to see it would have been a torture 
to him. Heaven itself was under the close 
