The Little Birds Who Won't Sing

On my last morning on the Flemish coast, when I knew that
in a few hours I should be in England, my eye fell upon one
of the details of Gothic carving of which Flanders is full.
I do not know whether the thing is old, though it was certainly
knocked about and indecipherable, but at least it was certainly
in the style and tradition of the early Middle Ages.
It seemed to represent men bending themselves (not to say
twisting themselves) to certain primary employments.
Some seemed to be sailors tugging at ropes; others, I think,
were reaping; others were energetically pouring something
into something else. This is entirely characteristic of
the pictures and carvings of the early thirteenth century,
perhaps the most purely vigorous time in all history.
The great Greeks preferred to carve their gods and heroes
doing nothing. Splendid and philosophic as their composure
is there is always about it something that marks the master
of many slaves. But if there was one thing the early
mediaevals liked it was representing people doing something--
hunting or hawking, or rowing boats, or treading grapes,
or making shoes, or cooking something in a pot. "Quicquid agunt
homines, votum, timor, ira voluptas." (I quote from memory.)
The Middle Ages is full of that spirit in all its monuments and
manuscripts. Chaucer retains it in his jolly insistence on
everybody's type of trade and toil. It was the earliest and
youngest resurrection of Europe, the time when social order was
strengthening, but had not yet become oppressive; the time when
religious faiths were strong, but had not yet been exasperated.
For this reason the whole effect of Greek and Gothic carving is
different. The figures in the Elgin marbles, though often reining
their steeds for an instant in the air, seem frozen for ever
at that perfect instant. But a mass of mediaeval carving
seems actually a sort of bustle or hubbub in stone.
Sometimes one cannot help feeling that the groups actually
move and mix, and the whole front of a great cathedral has
the hum of a huge hive.

. . . . .

But about these particular figures there was a peculiarity
of which I could not be sure. Those of them that had any heads
had very curious heads, and it seemed to me that they had their
mouths open. Whether or no this really meant anything or was
an accident of nascent art I do not know; but in the course
of wondering I recalled to my mind the fact that singing was
connected with many of the tasks there suggested, that there
were songs for reapers and songs for sailors hauling ropes.
I was still thinking about this small problem when I walked
along the pier at Ostend; and I heard some sailors uttering
a measured shout as they laboured,