The Rambles of an Idler 



ered. Its rarity gives it a genuine interest, 

 and it is never so long-lived as to become mo- 

 notonous. I think, if I were in an absolutely 

 silent cell, the singing of the birds would come 

 to me at will, and I could laugh at walls how- 

 ever stoutly built. Now I have no need to deal 

 with theory or put in practice any fancied con- 

 dition. Nature is ever voluble in May. The 

 moments between the songs of thrush and gros- 

 beak, wren and oriole, chewink and chat, few 

 and far apart, are filled by chanticleer in my 

 neighbor's barnyard. 



What is often felt to be silence and spoken of 

 as such is but the rhythmic pulse of Nature, that 

 rapidly intermitting hum of life which cease- 

 lessly wells up from the warm earth. Night or 

 day the teeming millions of the marshes, the 

 meadow brook, and dark, damp tangles in the 

 upland woods keep theoretical, perhaps myth- 

 ical, silence forever in the background. Did 

 we live the year round wholly out-of-doors, I 

 think we would forget the very word silence. 

 If we make a bogy of this same silence, we 

 should not complain if it frighten us. 



The restless rose-breast has returned, and 

 why heed the non-existent? I have wandered 



60 



