_My Mission_


But when in modern books, reviews, and thoughtful magazines I
read about the Needs of the Age, its Complex Questions. its
Dismays, Doubts, and Spiritual Agonies, I feel an impulse to go
out and comfort it, to still its cries, and speak earnest words
of Consolation to it.




_The Birds_


But how can one toil at the great task with this hurry and
tumult of birds just outside the open window? I hear the Thrush,
and the Blackbird, that romantic liar; then the delicate
cadence, the wiry descending scale of the Willow-wren, or the
Blackcap's stave of mellow music. All these are familiar--but
what is that unknown voice, that thrilling note? I hurry out;
the voice flees and I follow; and when I return and sit down
again to my task, the Yellowhammer trills his sleepy song in the
noonday heat; the drone of the Greenfinch lulls me into dreamy
meditations. Then suddenly from his tree-trunks and forest
recesses comes the Green Woodpecker, and mocks at me an impudent
voice full of liberty and laughter.