96 UNDER THE TREES. 



but the beauty of the perfect blossoming obliterated 

 the very memory of its earlier growth. The climb 

 upward is often a long anguish, but the dust and 

 weariness are forgotten when once the eye rests on 

 the vast outlook. &quot; On every height there lies re 

 pose &quot; is the sublime declaration of one who had 

 looked into most things deeper than his fellows, 

 and had learned much of the profounder processes 

 of life. Emerson long ago noted that even in 

 action the forms of the Greek heroes are always in 

 repose ; the crudity of passion, the distorting agony 

 x&amp;gt;f half-mastered purpose, are lost in a self-forget- 

 f ulness which borrows from Olympus something of 

 the repose of the gods. The sublime calm which 

 imparts to great works of art a hint of eternity is 

 born of complete mastery of life ; all the stages of 

 evolution have been accomplished, the whole move 

 ment of growth has been fulfilled, before the hand 

 of art sets the seal of perfection on the thing that 

 is done. Shadow and light, heat and cold, tempest 

 and quiet days, have all wrought together before 

 the blooming of the flower which in its perfect 

 grace and beauty gives no hint of its troubled 

 growth. As the consummation of all toil and 

 struggle and anguish, there comes at last that deep 

 repose, born not of idleness and indifference, but of 

 the harmony of all the elements in their last and 

 finest form. 



In the unbroken silence of the noontide such 

 thoughts come unbidden and almost unnoticed to 



