TANGLE-LEAF PAPERS. 



55 



note. Nature's tone is rarely loud, rarely over- 

 accentuated. The blue-jay in the orchard, 

 the cat-bird in the hedgerow, the kingfisher by 

 the brook, each is a key to a harmony. Na- 

 ture, on the whole, suggests under-statement 

 and a reserve of color. Her contrasts are not 

 of the Rembrandt type; her expressions do 

 not abound in adjectives. Gay, flaunting flow- 

 ers and gorgeous birds are rare save in green- 

 houses and cages. The suppressed power felt 

 in the solemn stillness of great woods is sug- 

 gestive of that force which some men of few 

 words bear about with them. 



I saw a simple picture of Nature's painting 

 once, which has returned to my memory again 

 and again, and if it could be put on a canvas 

 or fastened in a poem it would forever remain 

 a masterpiece of art. And yet it was nothing 

 but a green heron standing in the swift shallow 

 current of a brook with the diamond-bright 

 wavelets breaking around its slender legs and 

 a tuft of water-grass trembling beside it. I 

 was lying idly enough, at full length on the 

 brook's bank, so that beyond the bird, as I 

 gazed, opened a fairy-like landscape, over 

 which a gentle breeze was blowing with an 

 effect wholly indescribable, shaking tall flags 

 and tossing the dragon-flies about in the sun- 

 shine. The whole effect was cooling and tran- 

 quillizing, with a subtle hint in it of a land 

 somewhere just out of reach where one might 

 dream the lotos-dream forever. 



Now, a good artist might have easily painted 

 the little scene so far as painting usually goes ; 

 but it would have required such genius as is 

 yet to be born to imprison in the sketch the 

 hint of what seemed to lie just beyond the 



