5 2 UNDER THE TREES. 



serene was her look upon the great world dropping 

 its fruit at her feet ; how familiar and at ease her 

 attitude in the presence of these sublime mysteries ! 

 She is at one with the hour and the scene ; she has 

 not begun to think of herself as apart from the 

 things which surround her ; that strange and sud 

 den sense of unreality which makes me at times an 

 alien and a stranger in the presence of Nature, 

 &quot;moving about in world not realized,&quot; is still far 

 off. For her the sun shines and the winds blow, 

 the flowers bloom and the stars glisten, the trees 

 hold out their protecting arms and the grass 

 weaves its soft garment, and she accepts them 

 without a thought of what is behind them or shall 

 follow them ; the painful process of thought, which 

 is first to separate her from Nature and then to re 

 unite her to it in a higher and more spiritual fel 

 lowship, has hardly begun. She still walks in the 

 soft light of faith, and drinks in the immortal 

 beauty, as the flower at her side drinks in the dew 

 and the light. It is she, after all, who is right as 

 she plays, joyously and at home, on the ground 

 which the earthquake may rock, and under the sky 

 which storms will darken and rend. The far- 

 brought instinct of childhood accepts without a 

 question that great truth of unity and fellowship to 

 which knowledge comes only after long and ago 

 nizing quest. Between the innocent sleep of child 

 hood in the arms of Nature and the calm repose of 

 the old man in the same enfolding strength there 



