ane of blue sky--neither Owen Jones
nor Willement can improve upon that ecclesiastical ornamentation,--while
for incense I have the fresh healthy turpentine fragrance, far sweeter
to my nostrils than the stifling narcotic odour which fills a Roman
Catholic cathedral. There is not a breath of air within: but the breeze
sighs over the roof above in a soft whisper. I shut my eyes and listen.
Surely that is the murmur of the summer sea upon the summer sands in
Devon far away. I hear the innumerable wavelets spend themselves gently
upon the shore, and die away to rise again. And with the innumerable
wave-sighs come innumerable memories, and faces which I shall never see
again upon this earth. I will not tell even you of that, old friend. It
has two notes, two keys rather, that Eolian-harp of fir-needles above
my head; according as the wind is east or west, the needles dry or wet.
This easterly key of to-day is shriller, more cheerful, warmer in sound,
though the day itself be colder: but grander still, as well as softer,
is the sad soughing key in which the south-west wind roars on,
rain-laden, over the forest, and calls me forth--being a minute
philosopher--to catch trout in the nearest chalk-stream.

The breeze is gone a while; and I am in perfect silence--a silence which
may be heard. Not a sound; and not a moving object; absolutely none. The
absence of animal life is solemn, startling. That ring-dove, who was
cooing half a mile away, has hushed his moan; that flock of long-tailed
titmice, which were twinging and pecking about the fir-cones a few
minutes since, are gone: and now there is not even a gnat to quiver in
the slant sun-rays. Did a spider run over these dead leaves, I almost
fancy I could hear his footfall. The creaking of the saddle, the soft
step of the mare upon the fir-needles, jar my ears. I seem alone in a
dead world. A dead world: and yet so full of life, if I had eyes to
see! Above my head every fir-needle is breathing--breathing for
ever; currents unnumbered circulate in every bough, quickened by some
undiscovered miracle; around me every fir-stem is distilling strange
juices, which no laboratory of man can make; and where my dull eye sees
only death, the eye of God sees boundless life and motion, health and
use.

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

* * * * *

ASPECTS OF NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN COUNTRIES.

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