240 
WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS. 
though not so palpable, is as sure an indication as any of the 
motion being in the right direction ! 
However uncivilized the expression of such an opinion 
may sound — we love to be heterodox occasionally ! — it has 
certainly seemed to us always a very strained, round-about 
and up-hill sort of work, this mode we mortals have 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 
that she is exceeding eloquent in her way. We address 
each other only through a single sense, while she communes 
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- 
ever else of feeling, odor, taste and sound there may be want- 
ing to actual creation. 
Thus, in the suggestiveness of his skill consists the necro- 
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 Grod- 
like passion speaking for itself long ago, in an unconscious 
kind of way — 
" Such sweet observance in this work was liad. 
That one might see those off eyes loolc sad," 
And again it prattles, in " mere simplicity," concerning 
