seed from the soil and lifts it, growth by 

 growth, to the beauty and the sweetness of 

 the flower. Under the same law of un- 

 conscious growth every true poem, every 

 great work of art, and every genuine noble 

 character, has fashioned itself and come at 

 last to conscious perfectness and recogni- 

 tion. Genius is nearer Nature than talent ; 

 it is only when it strays away from Nature, 

 and loses itself in mere dexterities, that it 

 degenerates into skill and becomes a tool 

 with which to work, and not a gift from 

 heaven. The silence of the deep woods 

 is pregnant with mighty growths. Says 

 Maurice de Guerin, true poet and lover of 

 Nature : " An innumerable generation actu- 

 ally hangs on the branches of all the trees, on 

 the fibres of the most insignificant grasses, 

 like babes on the mother's breast. All 

 these germs, incalculable in their number 

 and variety, are there suspended in their 

 cradle between heaven and earth, and given 

 over to the winds, whose charge it is to 

 rock these beings. Unseen amid the living 

 forests swing the forests of the future. 

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