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258 minuteness of detail and so forth, in fact for all shortcomings, and then to go on in faith, not in myself, indeed, but in the rooks, believing that they will be interesting, however much I may stand in their way.

When I speak of the rookery I do not mean the trees where the birds build—unfortunately there are none very near me—but those where they come to roost during the autumn and winter—true rookeries indeed if numbers count for anything. Here, their chosen resting-place is a silent, lonely plantation of tall funereal firs, standing shaggily tangled together, mournful and sombre, making, when the snow has fallen but lightly—before they are covered—a blotch of very ink upon the surrounding white. Who could think, seeing them during the daytime, so sad and abandoned, so utterly still, tenanted only by a few silent-creeping tits, or some squirrel, whose pertness amidst their gloomy aisles and avenues seems almost an affectation—who could think that each night they were so clothed and mantled with life, that their sadness was all covered up in joy, their silence made a babel of sound? In every one of those dark, swaying, sighing trees, there will be a very crowd of black, noisy, joyous birds, and strange it is that there should be more poetry in all this noise and clamour and bustle than in their sad sombreness, deeply as that speaks to one. The poetry of life is beyond that of death, and when the rooks have gone the dark plantation seems to want its soul. It is Cupid and Psyche, but under dreary, northern skies. Every evening the black, rushing wings come in love and seem to kiss the dark branches, every