Such scenes live in their loveliness only for him who has seen and harvested them: they cannot be pictured forth to another by words, nor with the painter's brush, though it be charged with _tintas orientales_; least of all by photography, which brings all things down to one flat, monotonous, colourless shadow of things, weary to look at.
From sights we pass to the consideration of sounds, and it is unfortunate that the two subjects have to be treated consecutively instead of together, since with birds they are more intimately joined than in any other order of beings; and in images of bird life at its best they sometimes cannot be dissociated;--the aërial form of the creature, its harmonious, delicate tints, and its grace of motion; and the voice, which, loud or low, is aërial too, in harmony with the form.
We know that as with sights so it is with sounds: those to which we listen attentively, appreciatively, or in any way emotionally, live in the mind, to be recalled and reheard at will. There is no doubt that in a large majority of persons this retentive power is far less strong with regard to sounds than sights, but we are all supposed to have it in some degree. So far, I have met with but one person, a lady, who is without it: sounds, in her case, do not register an impression in the brain, so that with regard to this sense she is in the condition of civilised man generally with regard to smells. I say of civilised man, being convinced that this power has become obsolete in us, although it appears to exist in savages and in the lower animals. The most common sounds, natural or artificial, the most familiar bird-notes, the lowing of a cow, the voices of her nearest and dearest friends, and simplest melodies sung or played, cannot be reproduced in her brain: she remembers them as agreeable sounds, just as we all remember that certain flowers and herbs have agreeable odours; but she does not _hear_ them. Probably there are not many persons in the same case; but in such matters it is hard to know what the real condition of another's mind may be. Our acquaintances refuse to analyse or turn themselves inside out merely to gratify a curiosity which they may think idle. In some cases they perhaps have a kind of superstition about such things: the secret processes of _their_ mind are their secret, or "business," and, like the secret and _real_ name of a person among some savage tribes, not to be revealed but at the risk of giving to another a mysterious power over their lives and fortunes. Even worse than the reticent, the superstitious, and the simply unintelligent, is the highly imaginative person who is only too ready to answer all inquiries, who catches at what you say in explanation, divines what you want, and instantly (and unconsciously) invents something to tell you.