X 



OF A NEW VOICE IN THE VALLEY 



mornings I fish to slow music, for the 

 wind sits ever in the N.W. As I near the 

 island the breeze takes on a new kind of voice. 

 Its sigh becomes melodious ; faint breaths of har- 

 mony intermingle with its whisper ; its very lulls 

 are tuneful. Where, hitherto, the cuckoos and the 

 larks, the sheep and the cattle, the reeds and the 

 poplars alone have raised their untutored voices, 

 the meadows are vocal with arpeggios. The Spring 

 Song of Mendelssohn is distinguishable, sometimes 

 above, sometimes below that of the valley. 



It is at this time of the day that my wife 

 practises. 



Is there something in the harp which makes it 

 more akin to Nature than any other instrument ? 

 In solitudes such as these one rarely hears any 

 human music. A piano may tinkle in a cottage 

 (for we are so excessively educated nowadays), a 

 travelling gramophone may stutter and wheeze 

 from the high road, a mouth-organ may go by at 

 the march, a hurdy-gurdy clatter out with im- 



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