Central Park 



Much the same that the shore is to water-waves, the 

 ear to atmospheric undulation, and the eye to ether- 

 waves, is the human heart to the impressions of nature. 

 The deepest, truest beauty there is not objective, self- 

 existent ; its forms and even its colors are largely trans- 

 muted into beauty by a reaction of the soul ; and that 

 reaction or responsiveness is the giving back to scenery 

 our thoughts — our anticipations and memories, joys 

 and sadnesses, our very moods, which all become inter- 

 woven with the scene, and show back to us, from forms 

 and colors of the mountains, valleys, trees, and clouds. 

 This interblending of nature and ourselves we may be 

 well assured of, though it be an unfathomable mystery. 



Thus what we get out of nature is largely what we 

 have put into it, and that is why nature becomes more 

 and more to us as we grow older. The child finds very 

 little there, only what appeals to eye and ear, for he has 

 put little or nothing into it. Wordsworth sums up the 

 matter in a word when he says, 



'* Minds that have nothing to confer 

 Find little to perceive; " 



and what can we confer upon nature except our very 

 selves ? 



And this mirror-like quality is the most delightful 

 feature of nature, enabling almost every object in it to 

 become a centre around which the imagination can play 

 interminably. Even an old, dead, wayside post may be 

 the garner of pleasant thoughts (else why is it put into 

 pictures) ; how much more such living, stately, and 

 graceful figures as trees and vines. Where is the soli- 



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