Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/117

 enough, to remind men of other spheres of life and activity. Perhaps I may say that I have never had a deeper and more memorable experience of life in its great serenity, than when listening to the trill of a tree-sparrow among the huckleberry bushes after a shower. It is a communication to which a man must attend in solitude and silence, and may never be able to tell to his brother. The least sensual life is that experienced through pure senses. We sometimes hear, and the dignity of that sense is asserted.

Friday, September 29.

I am winding up my music-box; and, as I pause, meanwhile the strains burst forth like a pent-up fountain of the middle ages. Music is strangely allied to the past. Every era has its strain. It awakens and colors my memories.

The first sparrow of spring! The year beginning with younger hope than ever. The first silvery warblings heard over the bare and dank fields, as if the last flakes of winter tinkled as they fell. What, then, are histories, chronologies, and all written [69]