Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/76

 then the cheapest sound has a larger meaning and a wider undulation than we knew.

When we hear any musical sound in Nature, it is as if it were a bell ringing; we feel that we are not belated, but in season wholly, and enjoy a pensive and leisure hour. What a fine and beautiful communication from age to age of the fairest and noblest thoughts,—the aspirations of ancient men preserved,—even such as were never communicated by speech,—is music! It is the flower of language,—thought colored and curved, tinged and wreathed,—fluent and flexible. Its crystal fountain tinged with the sun's rays, and its purling ripples reflecting the green grass and the red clouds. It teaches us, again and again, to trust the remotest and finest as the divinest instinct, and it makes a dream our only real experience.

There was a high wind this night which we afterwards learned had been still more violent elsewhere, and had done much injury to corn-fields far and near. But we only heard it sigh occasionally that it could not shake the foundations of our tent; and [28]