fllpuj^ing tl^e ifourt]^ 



Nature's Music, Art, and Industry 



NATURE demands silence in the presence 

 of beauty. She gave these solitary lakes 

 their burnished sheen, their crystal depths, 

 framed them in forests, girdled them with vines 

 and flowers, besprinkled them with lilies, caused 

 them to duplicate their brilliant autumnal shores, 

 to reflect the passing cloud, and in many a silent 

 and solitary night cast bridges across them of 

 shimmering moonbeams. And this display of 

 natural beauty, to which no description could 

 do justice, has unfailingly been repeated day and 

 night for many centuries, unseen by man, unap- 

 preciated, unknown. Wherever natural beauty is, 

 there is silence also. And this is a law. A noisy 

 person in the presence of a great painting would be 

 invited by the guard to leave the room; or if in the 

 midst of the rendering of a fine piece of music, 

 would be regarded by all present as possessing 

 neither decency nor sense. Even the rivulets, clear 

 and cold, seem to steal their way into such a scene 

 cautious as the foot of a hunter. Back in the hills 

 they plash and leap under their veils of overhanging 

 foliage. But as they approach this gem of Nature's 

 art they leave their merriment behind. The boom 

 of a falling tree comes over the wooded ridge, and 



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