Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/147

Rh the entrance to the wood, where the little strand lost itself in a soft carpet of moss, a few huts built of branches, and thatched with leaves, showed through the deeper shadow. Farther back slender columns of smoke, outlined against the paling sky, showed the vicinity of an Indian village; and a murmur of voices, mingled with snatches of song and tinkle of music, blended confusedly, like the notes of a wind-harp.

"By the seaside all the world sings. The deep undertone of the waves fills in the background of harmony. It is impossible to listen to its ceaseless pulsation without feeling the desire to mingle one's voice with the concert which immensity eternally offers to God. The breaking of the billows against the rocks, the lisping of the ripples against the beach, weave the strands of melody; and the soul, by them moved to remembrance, falls into reveries of the past which are either prayers or aspirations, which are like the memory of the lullabies of our mother over the child at her breast, or the lingering notes of the favorite air of the woman one first loved.

"As if in unison with this universal impulse