The Wanderer 13 



walk alone in the woods or by the sea, for 

 both the waves and the leaves are talking, 

 talking of durations and principles, not 

 the gossip of the corners. We think all 

 such speech mere sound, and that our own 

 babble is wiser. If only we could hear 

 true ! Rustling leaves, the gust, water's 

 plash and tumble, bird-songs, the cries of 

 brutes : these were prologues to the human 

 comedy and are its accompaniment. Per- 

 haps when men had a sense of smell as 

 keen as that of dogs they also knew how to 

 listen, and could read at least the temporal 

 meanings in this talk of the world. Does 

 the tree have the same speech whether it 

 is well or ill, dry or surfeited, growing or 

 dying ? And it is a fact about this speech. 

 The waves rise because a wind has come ; 

 that stirs because the sun has somewhere 

 baked the earth, and the hot air, rising, 

 leaves a vacuum that cooler air rushes in 



to fill ; the sun has baked, because ? 



And there is a sun, because ? Shall we 



always express our relation to the outer 

 world by an interrogation point ? 



Take your best self with you when you 



