The Parks. 109 



an impression of distance as the long ac-koo of the dove. 



A few leaves still remain in November and fall from 

 the trees ghosts of their former selves. It causes a twinge 

 of regret to see a lone weak butterfly flit across a field on 

 its last excursion, or to see an old tree die ; but the drop- 

 ping of the dead leaves in Autumn, though a part of the 

 funeral procession of the year, does not bring the same 

 feeling. Yet it is as natural for the tree as the leaf to die, 

 and perhaps it is only that the dead leaves are so common, 

 their graves are everywhere, whereas the butterfly and the 

 old orchard tree, with its last apple, appeal more directly 

 to our attention — they are greater deaths. 



Often on a Sunday, while seated in the sun on the 

 open sandy ground, I have heard the distant church 

 bells. I noticed that the tolling of the bell was regulated 

 by the breathing of the ringer, with each inspiration he 

 pulled the rope. 



The best preaching of a church is often done by its 

 bell. They call it a relic of barbarism, or at least of the 

 times before watches and clocks, but they who speak thus 

 slightingly have never sat alone and listened to the distant 

 tolling of the bells. There is a rhyme, a cadence of the 

 bells, they talk out with their tongues and preach sermons 

 in sound. 



The bells of Elizabethport across the kill, answered to 

 those of Mariner's Harbor, and their different tones seemed 

 to speak different desires. Like living things they too 

 seemed to have desires. Did they call come, come, or was 

 it hark, hark ? I interpreted it as the latter, for nature 

 would never have you run wildly about the world, she is 



