Thinking only of the first feeling, of fear, your imagination peoples the unseen world with demons or hostile forces. Thinking of the second, you become pantheistic, regarding your life as part of the big whole, a drop gathered for an instant out of the ocean, a grain quarried from the side of the great mountain. Thinking of the third, you become a man, strong and personal and responsible, knowing yourself to be son or brother of the God who owns the world, sharing his power and knowledge. So that the long spiritual history of the race, with its endless struggle and slow growth from fear to faith, is all lived over again in that brief moment when you wander out alone at night into the stormy woods to find yourself.

I had vaguely felt all this, which can never be analyzed or described, when I was brought back from the elemental to the present world by discovering with a shock that I did not know where to turn to find my camp. I had started to go back when I blundered into a dense fir-thicket that I had not passed before, and I knew instantly that I had lost my direction. The wind was east, but it whirled high over the trees where I could not locate its source, and the sound of the waves, only a few hundred yards away was utterly lost in the uproar of the wind and the rain. In the midst of the fir-thicket I stopped and took out my compass and steadied it. Then, under shelter of my poncho, I struck a match. As the light flared up there was a stir close beside my head, which was not the wind, and which made me forget instantly what I wanted to know. In the moment's glare I saw him plainly, a little white-throated sparrow, nestled close against the stem of a fir, with a branch drooping over him to shield him from the rain. The match blew out, leaving the world in blacker darkness than ever before. Then, out of the wild storm, out of the very heart of the night, a glad little song rippled forth: "I'm here, sweet Killooleet, lilloolleet, lillooleet," to tell me that mine was not the only life that had lost or found itself in the solitude.

He, too, had been alone in the vast, elemental confusion. Darkness had wrapped him about; the gale roared over his head; the rain rushed like a river over innumerable leaves. And he had slept quietly on his twig under his bending fir-tip, unmindful of it all. The sudden light had wakened him, and in the first moment he had proclaimed just one thing, — small enough, it may be, but still the only little thing in a vast, dark, stormy world of which he was perfectly sure, — himself. "Whose Home is the Wilderness."

William J. Long

In spoken English, no study of words or literature or nature must be at the expense of feeling. There are certain elements of the voice, such as tone color, which can never be revealed except when imagination and emotion are active. Spoken English and all phases of Vocal Expression, in fact all Written English as well, demand that our whole nature shall be harmoniously active. True study of nature, especially anything that has to do with artistic or creative action, such as reading or vocal expression, demands an awakening of our whole nature. Literature expresses life. To use our own language we must express our complete life. We must not only think, we must also imagine and feel. Right use of the voice especially demands harmonious co-operation of all the faculties. The hunter and the fisherman know what a great blessing it is to go into the woods, but they who have hunted without a gun and fished without a hook have seen things in nature which the destructive gunner and the ravenous fisherman have never known. He who does not go into the woods alone, simply as an observer and listener, misses certain impressions and the unfolding of his higher nature. Corot, the greatest painter of morning, said the way to paint morning is to "go out at 3 o'clock in the morning with the hands behind the back." In his words will be found the principle which applies not only to painters but to artists of every kind and to students of every class.

V. TRAINING THE SENSES

Jill-o'er-the-ground is purple-blue,
Blue is the quaker-maid;

The wild geranium holds its dew
Long in the bowlder's shade.
Over the shelf of the sandy cove
Beach peas blossom late.

...

By copse and cliff the swallows rove,
Each calling to his mate.

Seaward the sea gulls go,

And the land birds all are here;

That green-gold flash was a vireo,

And yonder flame where the marsh flags grow

Was a scarlet tanager.

"Gloucester Moors."

William Vaughn Moody

In the four previous lessons we have learned that talking and reading depend upon attention and upon the genuineness of our thinking. We must give attention to one thing at a time so that a picture may rise in our minds. The adequacy of our ideas or pictures depends upon the carefulness and definiteness of our observation of the things about us. We must not only have ideas, we must feel; our sympathies must awaken with our thinking./

Now, we find something more that is necessary. observe nature, we must train our minds to use our eyes and our ears.

TO A HUMMING-BIRD

Brave little humming-bird,

Every eye blesses thee;

Sunlight caresses thee,

Forest and field are the fairer for thee;
Blooms, at thy coming stirred,

Bend on each brittle stem;

Nod to the little gem,

Bow to the humming-bird, happy and free.

Now around the woodbine hovering,
Now the morning-glory covering,
Now the honeysuckle sipping,
Now the sweet clematis tipping,
Now into the bluebells dipping;

Hither, thither, flashing, bright'ning
Like a streak of emerald lightning;
Round the box with milk-white phlox,
Round the fragrant four-o'clocks,

Lightly dost thou whirl and flit;
Into each tubed throat

Dives little Ruby-throat.

Author not known

Before we can express truly we must see nature. Unless we develop the power to observe, our ideas will be wrong. We must observe, and observe quickly.

One of the first things that we observe in nature is color. Have you ever tried to count the different shades of green in some little cluster of bushes or the number of tints on a humming bird? Or have you compared the bird with the flowers it visits?

Have you ever observed how the color or hue of the

woods changes almost every day when the trees are budding out in the spring? Everybody knows the brilliant colors of autumn, but have you ever noticed the difference between the red of spring and the red of autumn, between the green of June and the green of September?

"Approach of Night."

By the yellow in the sky,

Night is nigh,

By the murk on mead and mere,
Night is near.

By one faint star, pale and wan,

Night comes on.

By the moon, so calm and clear,

Night is here.

Clarence Urmy

Can you, in reading these lines, realize the changing tints of evening, yellow sky, shadows over the valleys, the evening star and the moon?

SEPTEMBER

The goldenrod is yellow; the corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards with fruit are bending down.
The gentian's bluest fringes are curling in the sun;
In dusky pods the milkweed its hidden silk has spun.
The sedges flaunt their harvest in every meadow nook,
And asters by the brookside make asters in the brook,
From dewy lanes at morning the grape's sweet odors rise;
At noon the roads all flutter with golden butterflies.
By all these lovely tokens September days are here,
With summer's best of weather and autumn's best of cheer.
Helen Hunt Jackson

It is necessary not only that we observe colors with the eye, but also that we gain power to realize them in our mind. Observe the colors of grasses, of leaves, of trees at different seasons or different months. Learn to distinguish the color of the delicate shadows of the sun and the effect of shadows on colors of objects. Learn to enjoy the color effect of fogs and mists.

Then how wonderful is the color of birds! How many birds can you recognize by their color and by their form? Have you ever observed the varying tints on the blackbird? What shades of blue have you seen on birds? Of red? Of brown? Did you ever see plumage of rufous brown?

The primary sense considered in speech is hearing. The ear is possibly the sense most susceptible to training. The improvement of hearing as an agent of attention is not difficult. A small amount of study will show wonderful results; yet it is frequently neglected. Many people have poor speech and a poor method of reading because they have never trained the ear to help in thinking.

We'll build us a nest in the old apple-tree,

'Mid the blossoms of pink and of white;

Where the bee will come with her hum-hum-hum,
And the bumble-bee 'll drone with his bum-bum-bum.
Here the stars will look down 'twixt the leaves at night,
Look down from the sky on you and on me.

Can you read these lines, giving the "hum" of the honeybee among the apple blossoms on one pitch, and then the bumble-bee's sound with another note, as you have heard him make it? What is the chief difference?

How many of the sounds or songs referred to in these lines come to you in reading? Do you both hear and see in your mind?