William Henry Hudson

“ And alike for those who live beneath the blue skies of California, and for those who wander awhile as visitors among her scenes of wonder and enchantment, the old mission buildings will ever be objects of curious and unique interest. Survivals from a by-gone era, embodiments not only of the purposes of their founders, but of the faith which built the great cathedrals of Europe, they stand pathetic figures in a world to which they do not seem to belong. In the noise and bustle of the civilization which is taking possession of what was once their territory, they have no share. ”

“ For, as I turn back into our own world, I remember that this past was once verily and actually the present; that these dead things, these long-forgotten people, were once intensely alive; that the tragedy and the comedy of existence went on then as it goes on to-day; and that in the breasts of men and women fashioned like ourselves beat human hearts, after all, very like our own. Hope and disappointment, joy and despair; the memory of yesterday, the expectation of the morrow; the hunger and thirst of the spirit; the lust of the eye; the pride of life ”

“ Your grandfather Nuflo calls you Rima."
"Nuflo?" She spoke as if putting a question to herself. "Is that an old man with two dogs that lives somewhere in the wood?" And then, with sudden petulance, "And you ask me to talk to you!"
"Oh, Rima, what can I say to you? Listen——"
"No, no," she exclaimed, quickly turning and putting her fingers on my mouth to stop my speech, while a sudden merry look shone in her eyes. "You shall listen when I speak, and do all I say. And tell me what to do to please you with your eyes—let me look in your eyes that are not blind." ”

“ But he is never long still, and when he resumes his lively, eccentric, up-and-down and sideway motions he is interesting in another way. One is not soon tired of watching his perpetual mouse-like, independent-of-the-earth’s-gravity perambulations over the surface of the trunk and branches. He is like a small woodpecker who has broken loose from the woodpecker’s somewhat narrow laws of progression, preferring to be a law unto himself.
Without a touch of brilliant colour, the nuthatch is a beautiful bird on account of the pleasing softness and harmonious disposition of his tints ”

“ It is while he is in their company, I suppose, more than at any other time, that the Anglo-Saxon reader feels how far the pathways of Bohemia lie outside the boundaries of respectable society. Louise, the fickle bird of passage; Musette, vagabond and careless; Mimi, charming, heartless, ill-fated; Phémie, beneath whose delicate exterior was concealed a veritable volcano of passion;—yes, the face of the moralist will certainly harden as he dwells on the giddy vagrancy of their lives, and the hopeless tragedy in which the music and the laughter inevitably find their earthly close. ”

“ The nightingale so nearly resembles the robin in size, form, and manner that he might be taken for that bird but for his clear, brown colour. Like the robin, he feeds on the ground, seeking grubs and insects under the dead leaves, hopping rapidly by fits and starts, standing erect and motionless at intervals as if to listen, and occasionally throwing up his tail and lowering his head and wings, just as the robin does. He inhabits woods, coppices, rough bramble-grown commons, and unkept hedges, and loves best of all a thicket growing by the side of running water. ”

“ But before you came I knew nothing, nothing, for there was only grandfather to talk to. A few words each day, the same words. If yours is mine, mine must be yours. Oh, do you not know that mine is better?"
"Yes, better; but alas! Rima, I can never hope to understand your sweet speech, much less to speak it. The bird that only chirps and twitters can never sing like the organ-bird."
Crying, she hid her face against my neck, murmuring sadly between her sobs, "Never—never!"
How strange it seemed, in that moment of joy, such a passion of tears, such despondent words! ”

“ And here we see the advantage of his peculiar colouring—the various soft shades of buff and brown and grey, which at a short distance harmonise with the surroundings, and render him invisible. When perching on a tree he makes himself invisible in another way: his habit is to perch, not crossways on a branch, but lengthways. He rises from the ground when almost trodden on, and goes away with a silent flight, darting this way and that in an eccentric course, and looking more like a great grey mottled and marbled moth than a bird. ”

“ There could be no mistake; if the forest had been full of the sounds of animal life and songs of melodious birds, her voice would have been instantly distinguished from all others. How mysterious, how infinitely tender it sounded in that awful blackness!—so musical and exquisitely modulated, so sorrowful, yet piercing my heart with a sudden, unutterable joy. "Rima! Rima!" I cried. "Speak again. Is it you? Come to me here."
Again that low, warbling sound, or series of sounds, seemingly from a distance of a few yards. ”

“ The wood-pigeon is the handsomest, as well as the largest, of the British doves, its dove-grey tints being singularly delicate, soft, and harmonious, and their effect heightened by the white marks and touch of iridescent colour on the neck. On the ground its motions are deliberate, and have a graceful dignity which contrasts strongly with the hurried, eager manner of the rock-pigeon and stock-dove. When startled from its perch it rushes out with great violence and loud clapping of the wings. ”

“ Was that a humming-bird we saw a little while ago? You are like that, now dark, a shadow in the shadow, seen for an instant, and then—gone, oh, little thing! And now in the sunshine standing still, how beautiful!—a thousand times more beautiful than the humming-bird. Listen, Rima, you are like all beautiful things in the wood—flower, and bird, and butterfly, and green leaf, and frond, and little silky-haired monkey high up in the trees. When I look at you I see them all—all and more, a thousand times, for I see Rima herself. ”

“ From its perch it watches for its prey, but is by no means a motionless and depressed-looking watcher, like the flycatcher: its movements on its stand, as it turns its head from side to side and jerks and fans its tail, frequently uttering its low, percussive, chat-like chirp or call-note, give the impression of a creature keenly alive to everything passing around it. The shrike is, in fact, attentively watching air, earth, and the surrounding herbage and bushes for a victim, which he captures by a sudden dart, taking it by surprise. ”

“ When you have recognised him—an old man, brown as an Indian, with a white beard—point him out to the angels, and say, 'This is Nuflo, the bad man that lied to Rima.' Let them take him and singe his wings with fire, so that he may not escape by flying; and afterwards thrust him into some dark cavern under a mountain, and place a great stone that a hundred men could not remove over its mouth, and leave him there alone and in the dark for ever!"
Having ended, she rose quickly from her knees, and at the same moment Nuflo, dropping the knife, cast himself prostrate at her feet. ”

“ When feeding on a carcase his appearance is not engaging: there is a lack of dignity in his sidling or ‘loping’ motions, and savage haste in tearing at the flesh, with a startled look round after each morsel. When disturbed from his repast the slow, cumbrous, flapping flight as he rises strongly reminds you of the vulture. He makes a nobler figure when soaring high in the air, or along the face of some huge beetling cliff that fronts the sea; for then his flight has power and ease as he falls and rises, playing, like a giant chough or jackdaw, with his mate. ”

“ My every action, word, thought, had my feeling for Rima as a motive. Why, I began to ask myself, was Rima so much to me? It was easy to answer that question: Because nothing so exquisite had ever been created. All the separate and fragmentary beauty and melody and graceful motion found scattered throughout nature were concentrated and harmoniously combined in her. How various, how luminous, how divine she was! A being for the mind to marvel at, to admire continually, finding some new grace and charm every hour, every moment, to add to the old. ”

“ Standing up, I pointed to distant mountains and isolated peaks.
"Look at those peaks," I said. "It is like that with the world—this world we are standing on. Beyond that great water that flows all round the world, but far away, so far that it would take months in a big boat to reach them, there are islands, some small, others as large as this world. But, Rima, they are so far away, so impossible to reach, that it is useless to speak or to think of them. They are to us like the sun and moon and stars, to which we cannot fly. ”