New Walks in Old Ways 



of one of the glories of our literature. 

 Anybody could have written the beau- 

 tiful ode. Only for centuries nobody 

 did. It remained for just one person 

 to do it. Just so with "The Cham- 

 bered Nautilus." Simple enough, isn't 

 it? You or I or anybody could have 

 worked out the same idea. But we 

 didn't. We recognize the beauty of a 

 lot of these master strokes, and marvel 

 at their simplicity and their obvious- 

 ness. Of course, we all have it in us; 

 but somehow we don't seem to be able 

 to get it out. I don't know the 

 English skylark. I suppose his flights 

 and his songs are extended far beyond 

 the performances of our more plebeian 

 martins, swifts and swallows; and 

 I suspect, therefore, that it is just as 

 well that Shelley did the job of im- 

 mortalizing these blithe spirits of God's 

 aerodrome. 



Purple martins have at least one 

 quality not possessed by larks: they 

 are emphatically gregarious, and this 



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