Spring in Washington

David (dstrother@pop.dn.net)
Mon, 28 Sep 1998 21:45:10 -0400 

Is it possible that Halle was in some way inspired by TR's letter
"Spring in Washington" found at  http://www.bartleby.com/53/60.html 
replete with bird references?

QUOTE  The birds have come back. Not only song-sparrows and robins, but
a winter wren,  purple finches and tufted titmice are singing in the
garden; and the other morning      early Mother and I were waked up by
the loud singing of a cardinal bird in the      magnolia tree just
outside our windows.

Yesterday afternoon Archie and Quentin each had a little boy to see him.
They climbed trees, sailed boats in the fountain, and dug in the
sand-box like woodcocks.  END

....and then there's Tom Thomson's encomium at 
http://www.netwalk.com/~vireo/014.html

QUOTE And, of all the books I have ever read that speak mostly of birds,
Spring in Washington, by Louis J. Halle, is undoubtedly one of my
perennial favorites, somewhere up there in the top three or four. Mind
you, I am not speaking of books on bird identification or books with an
array of resplendent color plates.

I am talking about a bird book in which the author writes from the
heart. And knowingly. He certainly knows his birds. Although the slender
little book is mostly about birds,   there are astute observations about
other wild creatures, and more than a little musing and wondering about
the nature of man himself. As I said, it is a small book, 201 pages to
be exact, but one that has held me enthralled through countless
readings.   END

.....and Thomson again at  http://www.netwalk.com/~vireo/025.html

QUOTE  In Spring in Washington, Louis J. Halle describes the voice of
the whip-poor-will as a "rapid, vibrant, steady pulsation of sound, like
something organic in the earth itself, like the beating of one's own
heart."

Halle's empathic description of the whip-poor-will's song Seems to match
the warp and woof of much of his writing.  Consider this beautifully
rendered thought: "Here in the  dawn, I think I have been mistaken all
this time in regarding the earth as a place of tears and tribulation for
men aspiring to an imagined heaven. This earth itself is our heaven. As
for the philosophers and scientists, they have not explained why the
earth should be beautiful. They are old men of the evening; they long
for heaven because they face the grave."  END

Thanks for bringing Halle to our attention.

David Strother
Bethesda, Maryland
dstrother@pop.dn.net