PINES AND MOORLAND 
205 
luckier still, catch a glimpse of him in and out between the 
trees ; perhaps even 
“ Sometimes 
A faun with torches.” 
Who knows ? 
Or again, who knows but that these dim mysteries we call 
trees are not really pillars in the aisles of some vast Cathedral 
upreared in honour of a mighty faith ? the intense quiet but the 
throbbing silence succeeding aeons of passionate prayer ? Ay, 
and yon sudden shrill cry, that we call a jay’s note, but an 
unseen chorister singing — it must be admitted a little out of 
tune? — We call the place a “ pine wood,” in common parlance, 
and lest our friends should call us idiots if we call it otherwise. 
But, to those who have eyes other than bodily, what it really is, 
who can say ? 
Nature and we have many moods and many faces, with, 
indeed, only this difference to be remarked, that whereas 
Nature’s moods are always lovable, we cannot be quite certain 
of always saying the same for ourselves. However that may be, 
one thing is certain : that according to our frame of mind at the 
moment, so will the different moods of Nature be dear to us. 
Here and to-day, in the warm September stillness, whether 
under the pines, or out on the heather, we are conscious of but 
one thing : that the wide wise smile of the Great Mother holds 
in it an infinite rest. Here we come, all of us her tried children, 
and lie down at her feet, with our throbbing heads in the green- 
ness of her lap, and let her sing our weariness and pain and 
sorrow all away ; and sing she will, if we have ears to hear, in a 
voice that is born out of the wonders of infinity, that holds the 
dirge of the sea on far shores, and the crying of the gulls at the 
foam’s edge, the rolling of mighty rivers, the gurgling babble of 
little burns over clear stones, the wind whispering among the 
reeds, and keening lonesomely over the moorland, the lark’s 
high anthem, and the nightingale’s “eternal passion, eternal 
pain.” A voice that is like nothing else in all the world. Ay, 
and smile a little she will too, with the gentlest, kindliest 
humour, which is quite as it should be, and very good for us. 
Fellow-lovers, is there anything quite so good as this old 
world, where, as Browning puts it, 
“As God has made it, 
All is beauty ? ” 
G. Brodie. 
