IV PREFACE. 



which, in that direction, exalts us, and gives us many whis- 

 perings of the greatness of the Power under whose control 

 the worlds perform their ceaseless march, and the seasons 

 ohserve the times appointed them. If we can now and then 

 turn aside from the feverish hurry of commercial life — a life 

 fraught with tendencies to deaden the finer sympathies of 

 our nature — if we can now and then turn aside to breathe 

 and enjoy the cool air of mountain groves, and to listen to 

 the music of falling waters, and the murmurs of many 

 voices ; we shall thereby enlarge the circle of our emotions, 

 and quicken our sense of appreciation for things which lie 

 around and above us. 



This ministration of dew-drops and red sun-sets is not 

 appointed in vain ; it is a ministration to the heart rather 

 than to the brain of man, and teaches him the lesson of his 

 moral hfe, of which, under the excitement of worldly avo- 

 cations, he too often becomes oblivious. 



These papers, such as they are, are expressions of a passion 

 which has grown with me under the sober study of natural 

 changes and simple things, all of which, viewed through the 

 imagination with the help of thought, afford us an insight 

 into the poetical uses of natural forms and phenomena, and 



