en
air all the time.

Then there was also the silence, at first so strange as to be almost
oppressive, but later on sweeter than music. It was at early morning
and nightfall that this silence was most intense. On a still night one
could almost hear the earth move, and fancy that the stars diffused a
gentle crackling noise as of rushing flame. The fall of an acorn in a
pine wood startled the ear like an explosion. The river also was
discerned as having a definite rhythm of its own. It ran up and down a
perpetual scale, like a bird singing. What had seemed a heavy confused
sound of falling water resolved itself into regular harmonies, which
could have been written down in musical notation. At times there was
also in the air the sense of breathing. On a dark night, standing at
my door, I had the sense of a great heart that beat in the obscurity,
of a bosom that rose and fell, of a pulse as regular as a clock. I
think that the ear must have recovered a fine sensitiveness, normal to
it under normal conditions, but lost or dulled amid the deafening roar
of towns. It is scarcely an exaggeration when poets speak of hearing
the grass grow; we could hear it, no doubt, if the ear were not stunned
by more violent sounds.

It is probable that mere increase of vitality in itself is sufficient
to account for this new delicacy of the physical senses. The senses
adapt themselves to their environment. An example of this is found in
the absence of what is called long sight among city children. Having
no extensive horizon constantly before the eye, the power of discerning
distant objects gradually decays. On the contrary a child brought up
upon the African veldt, where he is daily confronted with almost
infinite distances, acquires what seems to be an almost preternatural
sharpness of vision. It is the same with hearing. The savage can
distinguish sounds which are entirely inaudible to the civilised man.
The footfall of his enemy, the beat of a horse's hoofs, the movement of
a lion in the jungle, are heard at what appear impossible distances. I
do not seek to offer any absolute explanation of these phenomena as
regards myself, but I state the fact that in returning to a natural
life I found a remarkable quickening of my physical senses. As my eye
became accustomed to the wide moorland prospects I found myself
increasingly able to discriminate distant objects. Flowers that had
seemed to me to smell pretty much alike, no