INTRODUCTION xxiii 



have some feeling of kinship with her. They have 

 something in common between their soul and the 

 soul of Nature. They have the sense of more in 

 common between them and Nature than a midge 

 has between it and a man. 



And in a delicately sensitive man such as an 

 artist — painter, poet, or musician — this sense of 

 kinship with Nature is highly developed. In regard 

 to his relationship with Nature he is like the finely 

 sensitive and cultured artist-midge would be in 

 regard to a man — the midge who, through under- 

 standing the inner soul and character of the man, 

 was able to read the expression on his features and 

 see their beauty. 



What we ordinary men have to do, and what we 

 especially want those gifted with unusually sensitive 

 souls to do, is to bear in mind the difficulties which 

 the midge has in understanding us and in seeing any 

 beauty in us, and the way in which it would have to 

 train and cultivate its faculties before it could ever 

 hope to understand the expression on our features — 

 to bear this in mind, and then to take ourselves in 

 hand and develop the soul within us till it is fine 

 enough and great enough to enter into the great 

 soul of Nature. 



The sense of Beauty we all possess in some slight 

 degree is in itself a proof that behind the outward 

 appearance of Nature there is a spiritual reality — 

 an " I " — just as behind the outward appearance of 

 the man which the artist-midge sees there is the " I " 

 of the man. And by cultivating this sense — that 

 is, by training and developing our capacity to see 

 deeper into the heart of Nature, see more signifi- 



