was something in this sudden and unfamiliar 

 roar of the pines that hinted at its kinship 

 with the roar of the sea ; but it had a dif- 

 ferent tone. Waste and trackless solitudes 

 and death are in the roar of the sea ; re- 

 moteness, untroubled centuries of silence, 

 the strange alien memories of woodland 

 life, are in the roar of the pines. The for- 

 gotten ages of an immemorial past seem to 

 have become audible in it, and to speak of 

 things which had ceased to exist before 

 human speech was born ; things which lie 

 at the roots of instinct rather than within 

 the recollection of thought. The pines only 

 murmur, but the secret which they guard 

 so well is mine as well as theirs ; I am no' 

 alien in this secluded world ; my citizenship 

 is here no less than in that other world to 

 which I shall return, but to which I shall 

 never wholly belong. The most solitary 

 moods of Nature are not incommunicable ; 

 they may be shared by those who can for- 

 get themselves and hold their minds open 

 to the elusive but potent influences of the 

 forest. He who can escape the prison of 

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