A SHARP LOOKOUT. 33 



sees an agent that has kneaded and leavened the soil 

 like giant hands. 



One secret of success in observing nature is capa- 

 city to take a hint ; a hair may show where a lion is 

 hid. One must put this and that together, and value 

 bits and shreds. Much alloy exists with the truth. 

 The gold of nature does not look like gold at the first 

 glance. It must be smelted and refined in the mind 

 of the observer. And one must crush mountains of 

 quartz and wash hills of sand to get it. To know the 

 indications is the main matter. People who do not 

 know the secret are eager to take a walk with the ob- 

 server to find where the mine is that contains such 

 nuggets, little knowing that his ore-bed is but a gravel- 

 heap to them. How insignificant appear most of the 

 facts which one sees in his walks, in the life of the 

 birds, the flowers, the animals, or in the phases of 

 the landscape, or the look of the sky ! insignificant 

 until they are put through some mental or emotional 

 process and their true value appears. The diamond 

 looks like a pebble until it is cut. One goes to Nature 

 only for hints and half-truths. Her facts are crude 

 until you have absorbed them or translated them. 

 Then the ideal steals in and lends a charm in spite 

 of one. It is not so much what we see as what the 

 thing seen suggests. We all see about the same ; to 

 one it means much, to another little. A fact that has 

 passed through the mind of man, like lime or iron 

 that has passed through his blood, has some quality 

 or property superadded or brought out that it did not 



