240 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS. 



though not so palpable, is as sure an indication as any of the 

 motion being in the right direction I 



However uncivilized the expression of such an opinion 

 may sound we love to be heterodox occasionally ! it has 

 certainly seemed to us always a very strained, round-about 

 and up-hill sort of work, this mode we mortals have of con- 

 veying our emotions and thoughts through merely arbitrary 

 signs, which stand for sounds. Of one thing we are sure, 

 and that is, that it was not thus our Mother Earth talked to 

 our infancy, nor thus she talks to us now, and we have a notion 

 that she is exceeding eloquent in her way. We address 

 each other only through a single sense, while she communes 

 with us through them all, and we could never perceive that 

 she made herself any the less perfectly understood for that. 



Be this as it may, all time has been filled with the glory 

 of the revelations she has made to her children, and the Ar- 

 tist is her favorite child ! He addresses himself to his broth- 

 ers of mankind as nearly as he can, after her manner not 

 alone through one sense, by " directions," but through all 

 " by indirections " works he out this charmed and magical 

 communion for does he not through the sight suggest what- 

 ever else of feeling, odor, taste and sound there may be want- 

 ing to actual creation. 



Thus, in the suggestiveness of his skill consists the necro- 

 mancy of the Artist, who, if he does not create absolutely 

 as God may, a new life in his work, creates at least a new 

 sense a real presence in the mind of his brother, which 

 will always find a natural language. Thus we hear this in- 

 ner, Art-born sense, when moved before a picture of God- 

 like passion speaking for itself long ago, in an unconscious 

 kind of way 



" Such sweet observance in this work was had, 

 That one might see those far off eyes look sad." 



And again it prattles, in " mere simplicity," concerning 



