] I THE FOREST | [ 



blankets, we seem to float in inky blackness, while 

 the pines are like beetling cliffs against the starlit 

 heavens. Darkness and light confront each other; 

 it is as if we hovered between them and had made 

 our camp for the night on the borderland. But 

 with the dawn, that luminous world has vanished 

 and we are again under the familiar pines. 



One is impressed most by the wonderful stillness 

 of the night. Not only is the world blotted out 

 in the enveloping darkness, but it is voiceless, and 

 there prevails absolute silence. Rarely this is 

 broken by the yapping of coyotes, or a dry twig 

 snaps sharply under the foot of some animal. 



Not until the wind rises does the forest recover 

 its voice. During the day there is always music; 

 it is as constant as noise in the city. Impalpable 

 currents descend from the empyrean to caress only 

 the tops of the tallest pines, coming no nearer to 

 earth than this, and while all is silent below there 

 arises a distant chant in the tree tops, which have 

 been touched by an invisible hand and made to 

 respond to moods of the sky. Full and resonant, 

 yet with that muffled quality of tone which makes 

 it appear always to come from a distance, the 

 rhythmic force of this chant sways one like the 



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