INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER XV 



but every day these cities and towns enlarge their 

 boundaries, and the sweet face of Nature is hidden 

 from the inhabitants. We should, therefore, not 

 only make our books breathe into the depth of 

 every street, court, and alley, the natural aliment 

 of human hearts the love of Nature but rouse 

 them, like a trumpet, to get out at times, and renew 

 that animating fellowship which God designed to 

 be maintained between the soul of man and the 

 beauty of the universe. It is a principle undoubt- 

 edly implanted in every breast; it is one which 

 cannot, perhaps, be utterly extinguished. We see 

 it under the most unfavourable circumstances, after 

 years of oppression and alienation, struggling 

 through its barriers and exhibiting itself in some 

 miserable specimens of plants in pots, in the little 

 nooks of dreary and smoke-blighted gardens in the 

 centre of the densest cities, and in the lowest habi- 

 tations of poverty and ignorance. But it is a prin- 

 ciple which requires, like all others, cultivation. 

 Let it once be lit up, and it will never die ! Let 

 the mind in which it has once been excited, become 

 enlightened and expanded with knowledge, and it 

 " will grow with its growth, and strengthen with its 

 strength." Thus it is that it has ever been found 

 the most intense in the greatest minds ; the poets 

 especially (who are, if truly entitled to that glorious 

 name, particularly accustomed to cherish in their 

 spirits pure and lofty sentiments, liberal opinions, 

 warm and generous emotions, that their writings 

 being eminently imbued with those qualities may 



