glad that it is not a white-winged spirit, or a disem- 

 bodied voice. And let him wonder the more that so 

 plain a singer knows so divine a song. 



Our philosopher mistakes his own dominant mood 

 for the constant mood of nature. But nature has no 

 constant mood. No more have we. Dawn and dusk 

 are different moods. The roll of the prairie is unlike 

 the temper of a winding cowpath in a New England 

 pasture. Nature is not always sublime, awful, and 

 mysterious ; and no one but a philosopher is persist- 

 ently contemplative. Indeed, at four o'clock on a 

 June morning in some old apple orchard, even the 

 philosopher would shout, 



" Hence, loathed melancholy ! " 



He is in no mind for meditation; and it is just pos- 

 sible, before the day is done, that the capture of a 

 drifting seed of the dandelion and the study of its 

 fairy wings might so add to the wonder, if not to 

 the sweetness, of the flower, as to give him thought 

 for a sermon. 



There are times when the companionship of your 

 library is enough ; there are other times when you 

 want a single book, a chapter, a particular poem. It 



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