The Commonplace 39 



has its touch of natural history for all things 

 in the end are natural, and we recognize them 

 if we have had the training of a wholesome 

 outlook to the commonplace. Timrod's son- 

 net on the factory smoke is a nature-note: 



"I scarcely grieve, O Nature ! at the lot 

 That pent my life within a city's bounds, 

 And shut me from thy sweetest sights and sounds. 

 Perhaps I had not learned, if some lone cot 

 Had nursed a dreamy childhood, what the mart 

 Taught me amid its turmoil ; so my youth 

 Had missed full many a stern but wholesome truth. 

 Here, too, O Nature ! in this haunt of Art, 

 Thy power is on me, and I own thy thrall. 

 There is no unimpressive spot on earth! 

 The beauty of the stars is over all, 

 And Day and Darkness visit every hearth. 

 Clouds do not scorn us : yonder factory's smoke 

 Looked like a golden mist when morning broke." 



The ground. 



I would preach the surface of the earth, 

 because we walk on it. 



When a youth, I was told that it was 

 impossible for me to study geology to any 

 purpose, because there were no outcroppings 



