is all the deeper and richer because it is 

 inarticulate. The very thought of speech 

 or companionship jars upon me; silence 

 alone is possible for such hours and moods. 

 The great movement of life which builds 

 these mighty trunks and sends the vital 

 currents to their highest branches, which al- 

 ternately clothes and denudes them, makes 

 no sound ; cycle after cycle have the com- 

 pleted centuries made, and yet no sign of 

 waning power here, no evidence of a fin- 

 ished work! Here life first dawned upon 

 men ; here, slowly, it discovered its mean- 

 ing to them ; here the first impressions fell 

 upon senses keen with desire for untried 

 sensations; here the first great thoughts, 

 vast as the forest and as shadowy, moved 

 slowly on toward conscious clearness in 

 minds that were just beginning to think ; 

 here and not elsewhere are the roots of 

 those earliest conceptions of Nature and 

 Life, which again and again have come 

 to such glorious blossoming in the litera- 

 tures of the race. This is, in a word, the 

 world of primal instinct and impression ; 

 7 97 



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