THE EARLIEST INSIGHTS. 55 



tant Alps, cloudlike, apparently evanescent, yet 

 eternally true ; in which the commonest realities 

 are more wonderful than visions. How many 

 children live all their childhood in the very heart 

 of this realm, and are never so much as told to 

 look about them. The sublime miracle play is 

 yearly performed in their sight, and they only 

 hear it said that it is hot or cold, that the day is 

 fair or dark ! 



And now there come sudden insights into still 

 larger and more awful truths ; a sense of wonder 

 and awe makes the night solemn with mystery. 

 Who does not recall some starlit night which sud 

 denly, alone on a country road, perhaps, seemed to 

 flash its splendor into his very soul and lift all life 

 for a moment to a sublime height ? The trees stood 

 silent down the long road, no other footstep echoed 

 far or near, one was alone with Nature and at one 

 with her ; suspecting no strange nearness of her 

 presence, no sudden revelation of her inner self, 

 and yet in the very mood in which these were both 

 possible and natural. The boy of Wordsworth s 

 imagination would stand beneath the trees &quot; when 

 the earliest stars began to move along the edges of 

 the hills,&quot; and, with fingers interwoven, blow mimic 

 hootings to the owls : 



And they would shout 

 Across the watery vale, and shout again, 

 Responsive to his call with quivering peals, 

 And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud, 



