LOVERS OF NATURE 213 



in blue summer skies. I have lived a good 

 deal on clouds; they have been meat to me 

 often ; they bring something to the spirit which 

 even the trees do not. I see clouds now some- 

 times when the iron gripe of hell permits for a 

 minute or two; they are very different clouds 

 and speak differently. I long for some of the 

 old clouds that had no memories. There were 

 nights in those times over those fields, not 

 darkness, but Night, full of glowing suns and 

 glowing richness of life that sprang up to meet 

 them. The nights are there still; they are 

 everyAvhere, nothing local in the night; but it 

 is not the Night to me seen through the win- 

 dow. " 



In the literature of nature I know of no page 

 so pathetic and human. 



Moralizing about nature or through nature is 

 tedious enough, and yet unless the piece has 

 some moral or emotional background it does not 

 touch us. In other words, to describe a thing 

 for the mere sake of describing it, to make a 

 dead set at it like a reporter, whatever may be 

 the case in painting, it will not do in literature. 

 The object must be informed with meaning, and 

 to do this the creative touch of the imagination 

 is required. Take this passage from AVhitman 

 on the night, and see if there is not more than 

 mere description there : — 



" A large part of the sky seemed just laid in 

 great splashes of phosphorus. You could look 

 deeper in, farther through, than usual ; the orbs 

 thick as heads of wheat in a field. Not that 



