60 UNDER THE TREES. 



pears, and I am breathing the universal life ; I 

 have gone back to the far beginning of things, and 

 I am once more in that dim, rich moment of prime 

 val contact with Nature out of which all mytholo 

 gies and literatures have grown. How profound 

 and all-embracing is the silence, and yet how full of 

 inarticulate sound ! The faint whisperings of the 

 leaves touch me first with a sense of melody, and 

 then, later, with a sense of mystery. These are the 

 most venerable voices to which men have ever lis 

 tened ; and when I think of the immeasurable life 

 that seems to be groping for utterance in them, I 

 remember with no consciousness of skepticism 

 that these are the voices which men once waited 

 upon as oracles ; nay, rather, wait upon still ; for am 

 I not now listening for the word which shall speak 

 to me out of these shadowy depths and this mys 

 terious antique life ? I am ready to listen and to 

 follow if only these vagrant sounds shall blend into 

 one clear note and declare to me that secret which 

 they have kept so well through the centuries. I 

 wait expectant, as I have waited so often before ; 

 there is unbroken stillness, then a faint murmur 

 slowly rising and spreading until I am sure that the 

 moment of revelation has come, then a slow reces 

 sion back to silence. I am not discouraged ; sooner 

 or later that multitudinous rustle of the wild woods 

 will break into clear-voiced speech. I am sure, too, 

 that some great movement of life is about to dis 

 play itself before me. Is not this hush the sudden 



