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 



