LEAVES. 47 



How some cells should have power to secrete fluid 

 that shall take a definite color, and no other, is one of 

 those mysteries which at present seem quite beyond 

 our ken. The day may come when it will be known. 

 Happily nature is full of such enigmas. They allure 

 us onwards, for to the true student of nature, a mystery 

 is something to be unriddled, just as to the true worker 

 a " difficulty " is something that has to be surmounted. 

 It is well that we are surrounded by things seemingly 

 inscrutable. Enterprise and imagination are alike in- 

 vigorated by them. The amount of our consciousness 

 of the unfathomed, is a capital test of our condition, 

 for if we cease to feel the weight of mystery, we are 

 ceasing to improve. To be satisfied with things as 

 they seem to be, and to have no care or curiosity as 

 to their nature and significance, is to be stranded like 

 a ship upon the shore. Life is active in our own 

 souls in precisely the degree that we hear it uttering 

 itself in a thousand languages outside. 



