EARTH AND SKY. 31 



meet in a union which no science can dissolve, be 

 cause God has joined them together. Could I but 

 penetrate the mystery which lies at the heart of this 

 fragile flower, I should possess the secret of the 

 universe ; I should understand the ancient miracle 

 which has baffled wisdom from the beginning and 

 will not discover itself to the end of time. 



If I permit my thought to rest upon this fragrant 

 flower, to touch petal and stem and root, and unite 

 them with the vast world in which, by a universal 

 contribution of force, they have come to maturity, 

 I find myself face to face with the oldest and the 

 deepest questions men have ever sought to answer. 

 Elements of earth and sea and sky are blended here 

 in one of those forms of radiant and vanishing 

 beauty with which the unseen life of Nature crowns 

 the years in endless and inexhaustible profusion. 

 As it budded and opened into full flower in the 

 garden, how complete it seemed in itself, and how 

 isolated from all other visible things ! But in 

 reality how dependent it was, how entirely the crea 

 tion of forces as far apart as earth and sky ! The 

 great tide from the Unseen cast it for a moment into 

 my possession ; for an hour it has filled a human 

 home with its far-brought sweetness ; to-morrow it 

 will fall apart and return whence it came. As I look 

 into its heart of passionate color, the whole visible 

 universe, that seems so fixed and stable, becomes im 

 material, evanescent, vanishing ; it is no longer a 

 permanent order of seas and continents and 



