

i 



from human history, its free, buoyant, 

 changeful being. It stands for those 

 strange and unfamiliar revelations with 

 which Nature sometimes breaks in upon 

 our easy relation with her, and brings back 

 on the instant that sense of remoteness 

 which one feels when in intimate fellow- 

 ship a friend suddenly lifts the curtain 

 from some great experience hitherto un- 

 suspected. In the vast sweep of life 

 through Nature there must always be 

 aspects of awful strangeness; great realms 

 of mystery will remain unexplored, and 

 almost inaccessible to human thought; 

 days will dawn at intervals in which those 

 who love most and are nearest Nature will 

 feel an impenetrable cloud over all things, 

 and be suddenly smitten with a sense of 

 weakness; the greatest of all her inter- 

 preters are but children in knowledge of 

 her mighty activities and forces. On the 

 sea this sense of remoteness and strange- 

 ness comes oftener than in the presence of 

 any other natural form ; even the moun- 

 tains make sheltered places for our thought 

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