STRAIGHT SEEING AND THINKING 



somewhere within earshot, and we wondered just 

 how much interest she took in the performance. 

 Was it all for her benefit, or inspired by her pre- 

 sence ? I think, rather, it was inspired by the May 

 night, by the springing grass, by the unfolding leaves, 

 by the apple bloom, by the passion of joy and love 

 that thrills through nature at this season. An hour 

 or two before, we had seen the bobolinks in the 

 meadow beating the air with the same excited wing 

 and overflowing with the same ecstasy of song, but 

 their demure, retiring, and indiflFerent mates were 

 nowhere to be seen. It would seem as if the male 

 bird sang, not to win his mate, but to celebrate the 

 winning, to invoke the young who are not yet bom, 

 and to express the joy of love which is at the heart 

 of nature. 



When I reached home, I went over the fourteen 

 volumes of Thoreau's Journal to see if he had 

 made any record of having heard the " woodcock's 

 evening hymn," as Emerson calls it. He had not. 

 Evidently he never heard it, which is the more sur- 

 prising as he was abroad in the fields and marshes 

 and woods at almost all hours in the twenty-four 

 and in all seasons and weathers, making it the busi- 

 ness of his life to see and record what was going on 

 in nature. 



Thoreau's eye was much more reliable than his 

 ear. He saw straight, but did not always hear 

 straight. For instance, he seems always to have 

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