THE MEMORABLE. 



through your heart, is to him a mere fact, and 

 perhaps a fact of very little value. For the thing 

 may be a very little matter in itself; it is the time, 

 the place, the association, the anticipation that 

 makes it what it is. Let me adduce a few ex- 

 amples. 



Living for years in Newfoundland and Canada, 

 Wilson's ''American Ornithology"' had become al- 

 most as familiar to me as my alphabet, and when 

 at length I travelled into the Southern States, 

 many of the birds which do not extend their 

 visits to the north had become objects of eager 

 interest to me. Prominent among these was that 

 nightjar* whose nocturnal utterances are thought 

 to repeat the words, "chuck-will's widow." I 

 know not what made this particular bird so in- 

 teresting ; perhaps the singularly true resemblance 

 to the human voice of its cry; perhaps the solemn 

 hour of its occurrence, for night-sounds have 

 always an element of romance about them ; per- 

 haps the rarity of a sight of the bird ; perhaps the 

 superstitions with which it is invested ; perhaps 

 all of these combined ; or perhaps none of them;— 

 I cannot tell ; but so it was : I ardently desired to 

 hear the chuck-will's widow. 



I went to the South, and arrived in the hill- 

 country of Alabama as spring was merging into 

 the early summer. I had not been domiciled many 

 days, when one night I remained sitting at the 

 open window of my bedroom, long after the 

 household had retired to bed. It was a lovely 

 night; a thunder-storm had just passed, which 

 had cleared and cooled the air ; the moon was in 

 the west, and the stars were twinkling ; the rain- 

 drops still hung upon the trees, sparkling as the 

 beams fell on them ; the large white blossoms of a 

 * Caprimulyus Carulinciisis. 

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