138 SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 
even now I have a feeling that the peculiar en- 
joyment which the song of the black-throated 
green warbler never fails to afford me may per- 
haps be due in some measure to its association 
with that twilight hour. 
To this same hemlock grove I was in the 
habit, in those days, of going now and then 
to listen to the evening hymn of the veery, or 
Wilson thrush. Here, if nowhere else, might 
be heard music fit to be called sacred. Nor did 
it seem a disadvantage, but rather the contrary, 
when, as sometimes happened, I was compelled 
to take my seat in the edge of the wood, and 
wait quietly, in the gathering darkness, for 
vespers to begin. The veery’s mood is not so 
lofty as the hermit’s, nor is his music to be com- 
pared for brilliancy and fullness with that of the 
wood thrush; but, more than any other bird- 
song known to me, the veery’s has, if I may 
say so, the accent of sanctity. Nothing is here 
of self-consciousness; nothing of earthly pride 
or passion. If we chance to overhear it and 
laud the singer, that is our affair. Simple- 
hearted worshiper that he is, he has never 
dreamed of winning praise for himself by the 
excellent manner in which he praises his Crea- 
tor, —an absence of thrift, which is very be- 
coming in thrushes, though, I suppose, it is 
hardly to be looked for in human choirs. 
