LOVERS OF NATURE 213 



permits for a minute or two ; they are very different 

 clouds and speak differently. I long for some of 

 the old clouds that had no memories. There were 

 nights in those times over those fields, not darkness, 

 but Night, full of glowing suns and glowing rich- 

 ness of life that sprang up to meet them. The nights 

 are there still; they are everywhere, nothing local 

 in the night; but it is not the Night to me seen 

 through the window." 



In the literature of nature I know of no page so 

 pathetic and human. 



Moralizing about nature or through nature is 

 tedious enough, and yet, unless the piece has some 

 moral or emotional background, it does not touch us. 

 In other words, to describe a thing for the mere sake 

 of describing it, to make a dead set at it like a re- 

 porter, whatever may be the case in painting, it will 

 not do in literature. The object must be informed 

 with meaning, and to do this the creative touch of 

 the imagination is required. Take this passage from 

 Whitman on the night, and see if there is not more 

 than mere description there : 



" A large part of the sky seemed just laid in great 

 splashes of phosphorus. You could look deeper in, 

 farther through, than usual ; the orbs thick as heads 

 of wheat in a field. Not that there was any special 

 brilliancy either nothing near as sharp as I have 

 seen of keen winter nights, but a curious general 

 luminousness throughout to sight, sense, and soul. 

 The latter had much to do with it. ... Now, in- 

 deed, if never before, the heavens declared the 



