IN AN OLD GARDEN 257 



wings that brought him for a few moments within 

 hearing, have borne him beyond it again; and 

 missing it, the sunshine looks less brilliant than 

 before, and all other bird-voices seem by com- 

 parison dull and of the earth. 



Certainly there is nothing spiritual in the song 

 of the chaffinch. There he sits within sight, mo- 

 tionless, a little bird-shaped automaton, made to 

 go off at intervals of twelve or thirteen seconds; 

 but unfortunately one hears with the song the 

 whirr and buzz of the internal machinery. It is 

 not now as in April, when it is sufficient in a song 

 that it shall be joyous; in the leafy month, when 

 roses are in bloom, one grows critical, and asks 

 for sweetness and expression, and a better art 

 than this vigorous garden singer displays in that 

 little double flourish with which he concludes his 

 litde hurry-scurry lyric. He has practised that 

 same flourish for five thousand years — to be quite 

 within the mark' — and it is still far from perfect, 

 still little better than a kind of musical sneeze. 

 So long is art I 



Perhaps in some subtle way, beyond the psy- 

 chologist's power to trace, he has become aware 

 of my opinion of his performance — the unspoken 



