From Chorus of the Forest, Part One, "Music of the Wild"
by Gene Stratton-Porter
Note: Gene Stratton-Porter's book "Music of the Wild" was published in 1910. Some of the places that Gene walked, studied and wrote about in this book, may be visited today. Her words are vibrant and descriptive of this area of the Limberlost Swamp around Geneva that she loved.
The leaves and mosses near earth were the darkest, growing lighter through never-ending shades. No one could have enumerated all of them. They were more variable and much more numerous than the grays. But in dim forest half-light all color appeared a shade paler than in mere woods.
From the all-encompassing volume of sound I endeavored to distinguish the instruments from the performers. The water, the winds, and the trees combined in a rising and falling accompaniment that never ceased. The insects, birds, and animals were the soloists, most of them singing, while some were performing on instruments. Always there was the music of my own heart over some wondrous flower or landscape picture or stirred to join in the chorus around me. The trees were large wind-harps, the trunks the framework, the branches the strings. These trunks always were wrapped in gray, but with each tree a differing shade.
by Gene Stratton-Porter
Note: Gene Stratton-Porter's book "Music of the Wild" was published in 1910. Some of the places that Gene walked, studied and wrote about in this book, may be visited today. Her words are vibrant and descriptive of this area of the Limberlost Swamp around Geneva that she loved.
The leaves and mosses near earth were the darkest, growing lighter through never-ending shades. No one could have enumerated all of them. They were more variable and much more numerous than the grays. But in dim forest half-light all color appeared a shade paler than in mere woods.
From the all-encompassing volume of sound I endeavored to distinguish the instruments from the performers. The water, the winds, and the trees combined in a rising and falling accompaniment that never ceased. The insects, birds, and animals were the soloists, most of them singing, while some were performing on instruments. Always there was the music of my own heart over some wondrous flower or landscape picture or stirred to join in the chorus around me. The trees were large wind-harps, the trunks the framework, the branches the strings. These trunks always were wrapped in gray, but with each tree a differing shade.
Woods on the Limberlost Territories, spiderwort, phlox, fungi, and the Limberlost Creek. Photos by Terri Gorney.
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