THE FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE 193 
The influence of books and works of art upon an 
author may be seen in all respectable writers. If 
knowledge alone made literature, or culture genius, 
there would be no dearth of these things among the 
moderns. But I feel bound to say that there is 
something higher and deeper than the influence or 
perusal of any or all books, or all other productions 
of genius, —a quality of information which the mas- 
ters can never impart, and which all the libraries do 
not hold. This is the absorption by an author, pre- 
vious to becoming so, of the spirit of nature, through 
the visible objects of the universe, and his affiliation 
with them subjectively and objectively. Not more 
surely is the blood quickened and purified by con- 
tact with the unbreathed air than is the spirit of 
man vitalized and made strong by intercourse with 
the real things of the earth. The calm, all-permit- 
ting, wordless spirit of nature, — yet so eloquent to 
him who hath ears to hear! The sunrise, the heav- 
ing sea, the woods and mountains, the storm and 
the whistling winds, the gentle summer day, the 
winter sights and sounds, the night and the high 
dome of stars, —to have really perused these, espe- 
cially from childhood onward, till what there is in 
them, so impossible to define, finds its full mate and 
echo in the mind, —this only is the lore which 
breathes the breath of life into all the rest. With- 
out it, literary productions may have the superb 
beauty of statues, but with it only can they have 
the beauty of life. 
I was never troubled at all by what the critics 
