“What is more cheerful, now, in the fall of the year, than an open-wood-fire? Do you hear those little chirps and twitters coming out of that piece of apple-wood? Those are the ghosts of the robins and blue-birds that sang upon the bough when it was in blossom last Spring. In Summer whole flocks of them come fluttering about the fruit-trees under the window: so I have singing birds all the year round.”

“Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very quiet if only those birds sing there that sang best.”

“Stray birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away. And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh.”

“Stray birds of the summer come to my window to sing and fly away.And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh.O TROUPE of little vagrants of the world, leave your footprints in my words . . . ”

“The woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those who sang the best.”

“The light struck upon the trees in the garden, making one leaf transparent and then another. One bird chirped high up; there was a pause; another chirped lower down. The sun sharpended the walls of the house, and rested like the tip of a fan upon a white blind and made a fingerprint of a shadow under the leaf by the bedroom window. The blind stirred slightly, but all within was dim and unsubstantial. The birds sang their blank melody outside. ”