240 
WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS. 
though, not so palpable, is as sure an indication as any of the 
motion being in the right direction ! 
However uncivilized the expression of sucb an opinion 
may sound — we love to be heterodox occasionally I — it has 
certainly seemed to us always a very strained^ round-about 
and up-hill sort of work, this mode we mortals bave of con- 
veying our emotions and thoughts through merely arbitrary 
signs, which stand for sounds. Of one thing we are sure^ 
and that is, that it was not thus our Mother Earth talked to 
our infancy, nor thus she talks to us now, and we have a notion j 
that she is exceeding eloquent in her way. We address [ 
each other only through a single sense, while she communes j 
with us through them all, and we could never perceive that [ 
she made herself any the less perfectly understood for that. | 
Be this as it may, all time has been filled with the glory \ 
of the revelations she has made to her children, and the Ar- | 
tist is her favorite child ! He addresses himself to his broth- | 
ers of mankind as nearly as he can, after her manner — not 
alone through one sense, by " directions/' but through all 
" by indirections " works he out this charmed and magical | 
communion — for does he not through the sight suggest what- j 
ever else of feeling, odor, taste and sound there may be want- 1 
ing to actual creation. j 
Thus, in the suggestiveness of his skill consists the necro- j 
mancy of the Artist, who, if he does not create absolutely \ 
as God may, a new life in his work, creates at least a new | 
sense — a real presence — in the mind of his brother^ which | 
will always find a natural language. Thus we hear this in- | 
ner, Art-born sense, when moved before a picture of God- | 
like passion speaking for itself long ago, in an unconscious I 
kind of way — | 
j 
" Sucli sweet observance in this Avork was liad, \ 
That one might see those far off eyes looh sad." \ 
! 
And again it prattles, in " mere simplicity," concerning \ 
