134 Autumn 



softest and gentlest sigh. Now if others are present, 

 and particularly if my attention is drawn to it, the 

 wind comes laden with dreariness. Waste places 

 over which it has blown spread out before my imagin- 

 ation as I listen ; useless force and matter seem 

 piping their lamentation in it. If I hear a so-called 

 lover of Nature posing as a critic of Nature's sorrow, 

 the music chills and haunts me like a despairing wail. 

 But alone and not consciously listening, the accom- 

 paniment played on the pine-trees weaves itself into 

 dream and fancy. Pipe after pipe is smoked and 

 relit, while an endless procession of figures in shadow- 

 land pass by dead and living, real and imaginary 

 jostling one another in a crowd where all are on an 

 equal footing. Yet if one were to say, ' How sadly the 

 wind moans to-night ! ' the spell is broken. Presto ! 

 Like a troop of ghosts at daybreak, like feeding conies 

 at a gunshot, they have fled. To hear and not to know 

 you are hearing ; to see and be unconscious of sight, 

 these are the only means of tasting the delicious in- 

 fluence of Nature. 



The companionship of books is not much less of 

 a bore than that of human beings. An intellectual 

 hunger in its mildest form is a distraction, and soon 

 develops into a disease. Who, with unassuagable 

 appetite passes on from book to book is worse than a 

 drudge ; he is in the way of becoming a slave to 

 printed matter ; his own individuality is lost among 

 the alien spirits with whom he consorts. The other 



