SPRING 81 



fresh from a summer in France, that the 

 nightingale is no such singer. I have never 

 heard the nightingale, but that does not alter 

 my opinion. Formerly I wished that the 

 hermit, and all the rest of our woodland 

 thrushes, would practice a longer and more 

 continuous strain. Now I think differently; 

 for I see now that what I looked upon as a 

 blemish is really the perfection of art. Those 

 brief, deliberate phrases, breaking one by 

 one out of the silence, lift the soul higher 

 than any smooth-flowing warble could possibly 

 do. Worship has no gift of long-breathed 

 fluency. If she speaks at all, it is in the 

 way of ejaculation : " Therefore let thy words 

 be few," said the Preacher, a text which 

 is only a modern Hebrew version of what 

 the hermit thrush has been saying here in the 

 White Mountains for ten thousand years. 



One of the principal glories of Franconia 

 is the same in spring as in autumn, the 

 colors of the forest. There is no describing 

 them : greens and reds of all tender and 

 lovely shades ; not to speak of the exquisite 

 haze-blue, or blue-purple, which mantles the 

 still budded woods on the higher slopes. For 



