There is always a little fire of wood on the open hearth in the
kitchen when I get home at night; the old lady says it is "company"
for her, and sits in the lonely twilight, her knotted hands lying
quiet on her lap, her listening eyes fixed on the burning sticks.

I wonder sometimes whether she hears music in the leap and lick of
the fiery tongues, music such as he of Bayreuth draws from the
violins till the hot energy of the fire spirit is on us, embodied
in sound.

Surely she hears some voice, that lonely old woman on whom is set
the seal of great silence?

It is a great truth tenderly said that God builds the nest for the
blind bird; and may it not be that He opens closed eyes and unstops
deaf ears to sights and sounds from which others by these very
senses are debarred?

Here the best of us see through a mist of tears men as trees
walking; it is only in the land which is very far off and yet very
near that we shall have fulness of sight and see the King in His
beauty; and I cannot think that any listening ears listen in vain.

The coppice at our back is full of birds, for it is far from the
road and they nest there undisturbed year after year. Through the
still night I heard the nightingales calling, calling, until I
could bear it no longer and went softly out into the luminous dark.

The little wood was manifold with sound, I heard my little brothers