200 June — His Emotional Expression. 



into the night air and dying slowly in a prolonged agony 

 till they grow so thin and faint that you know not 

 whether yet they have wholly ceased or not ! The bird 

 runs over the whole range of emotional expression, from 

 the intoxication of loudest triumph that can be heard as 

 far as the shouting of a strong man, down to the sighing 

 of an airy voice that seems like the lamentation of an 

 inconsolable spirit. Often there is an evident artist- 

 pride in consummate executive accomplishment, often 

 the bird plays upon its own marvellous instrument as a 

 musician plays the flute or the violin, seeking for the 

 most varied and original effects, and rejoicing in them 

 when they are found. Again, the song of the night- 

 ingale being his only utterance, it is not music simply 

 as music is for us, but also poetry and eloquence. The 

 nightingale is not merely a musician playing on an 

 instrument, he is a singer as we say that the poets 

 themselves are singers. No one who listens can doubt 

 that he expresses an original emotion. The abundant 

 variety of his song is evidence that it is not simply 

 mechanical, and the pauses that he allows himself are 

 not merely to recruit from physical weariness, but much 

 more to seek a fitting expression for the emotion that 

 is beginning to succeed to that which has just been 

 expressed. If the reader thinks that it is too much 

 to claim for this the character of poetry, since there 

 is no conscious exercise of creative intellect, he will 

 scarcely deny to the bird a gift like that of some mu- 

 sician who in the late evening sits at his piano, and 

 in a long series of unpremeditated improvisations gives 



