58 OCCASIONAL PAPERS. 



in the season of youth, the mind being then most 

 capable of pure enjoyment for its own sake ; all 

 things then wear a fairy garb ; it was then, says 

 Wordsworth, that 



" The sounding cataract 



Haunted me like a passion : the tall rock, 



The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, 



Their colours and their forms, were then to me 



An appetite ; a feeling and a love 



That had no need of a remoter charm 



By thought supplied, or any interest 



Unborrowed from the eye." 



And as riper years steal upon us the same love re- 

 tains its hold, but there is a change in the mode of 

 regarding it ; we, like the poet, learn 



" To look on Nature, not as in the hour 



Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes 



The still sad music of humanity, 



Not harsh nor grating, though of ample power 



To chasten and subdue. And we have felt 



A presence that disturbs us with the joy 



Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 



Of something far more deeply interfused, 



Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 



And the round ocean, and the living air, 



And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : 



A motion and a spirit that impels 



All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 



And rolls through all things." 



To come to something practical : let us draw a 

 comparison between a lover of nature and one who 

 thinks nothing of her. Take the case of a simple 

 ramble through the fields : most people are in the 

 habit of " doing a constitutional " occasionally. 

 This walk is very often quite aimless, and is only 

 undertaken as a matter of duty, out of regard to 

 one's health. A man takes a certain number of 

 steps every day ; he feels a sort of satisfaction after 

 it, and goes to his work again until the time returns 



