

Our personal ambitions, the sharply defined 

 aims of our working hours, the very limi- 

 tations of our individuality, are gone ; we 

 lose ourselves in the larger life of which 

 we are part. After the fret of the day we 

 surrender ourselves to universal life as the 

 bather, worn and spent, gives himself to 

 the sea. There is no loss of personal force, 

 but for an hour the individual activity is 

 blended with the universal movement and 

 the peace and quiet of infinity calm and 

 restore the soul. Meditation comes with 

 eventide as naturally as action with the 

 morning; our soul opens to the soul of 

 Nature, and we discover anew that we are 

 one. In the noblest passage in Latin poetry 

 Lucretius invokes the universal spirit of 

 Nature, and identifies it with the creative 

 force which impels the stars and summons 

 the flowers to strew themselves in the path 

 of the sun. There is nothing so refreshing, 

 so reinvigorating, as fresh contact with the 

 fountain whence all visible life flows, as a 

 renewed sense of oneness with the mighty 

 appearance of things in which we live. 

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