Why is love the most melancholy of all joys?
With what passionate melancholy he enchants her who is sitting in the
nest close by! The origin of art is sex; woman is a reed, and our
desire--"
"Hush! Listen to the nightingale! His discourse is better than
yours."
"How absorbed he is in his song, stave after stave; he seems to say,
'You want more tunes? If that is all, you shall have more.' Hush!" And
they listened to the rich warble, sounding so strange in the midst of
the lonely country. "A love-call of three notes, which he repeats
before passing into cadenzas. Hush!" The bird started again, and this
time as if encouraged by the success of his last efforts.
"What flutings! What trills! What runs! Pearls and jewels scattered.
Little tunes of three or four notes, casting a spell about the
hillside, followed by passionate cadenzas."
Another bird answered far away out of the stillness, the same sweet
strain it was; and listening, they seemed to hear the same strain
within their hearts--a silent, mysterious song. All the world seemed
singing the same sweet strain of melancholy, now when the moon passed
out of the dusk--shining high up in the heavens, with stars above and
beneath--Owen thought of some mysterious music-maker.
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