214 RIVERBY 



glory of God. It was to the full the sky of the 

 Bible, of Arabia, of the prophets, and of the oldest 

 poems. " 



Or this touch of a January night on the Delaware 

 River : 



" Overhead, the splendor indescribable; yet some- 

 thing haughty, almost supercilious, in the night; 

 never did I realize more latent sentiment, almost 

 passion, in the silent interminable stars up there. 

 One can understand on such a night why, from the 

 days of the Pharaohs or Job, the dome of heaven, 

 sprinkled with planets, has supplied the subtlest, 

 deepest criticism on human pride, glory, ambition." 



Matthew Arnold quotes this passage from Ober- 

 mann as showing a rare feeling for nature : 



"My path lay beside the green waters of the 

 Thiele. Feeling inclined to muse, and finding the 

 night so warm that there was no hardship in being all 

 night out of doors, I took the road to Saint Blaise. 

 I descended a steep bank, and got upon the shore of 

 the lake where its ripple came up and expired. The 

 air was calm; every one was at rest; I remained 

 there for hours. Toward morning the moon shed 

 over the earth and waters the ineffable melancholy 

 of her last gleams. Nature seems unspeakably grand, 

 when, plunged, in a long reverie, one hears the rip- 

 pling of the waters upon a solitary strand, in the 

 calm of a night still enkindled and luminous with 

 the setting moon. 



" Sensibility beyond utterance, charm and tor- 

 ment of our vain years; vast consciousness of a na- 



