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 (I 

 think I could listen to it forever), and at a 

 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 dp this 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 



