LOVERS OF NATURE 215 



choly of her last gleams. Nature seems un- 

 speakably grand, when, plunged in a long rev- 

 erie, one hears the rippling of the waters upon 

 a solitary strand, in the calm of a night still 

 enkindled and luminous with the setting moon. 

 "Sensibility beyond utterance, charm and 

 torment of our vain years; vast consciousness 

 of a nature everywhere greater than we are, and 

 everywhere impenetrable; all-embracing pas- 

 sion, ripened wisdom, delicious self-abandon- 

 ment — everything that a mortal heart can con- 

 tain of life- weariness and yearning, I felt it all. 

 I experienced it all, in this memorable night. 

 I have made a grave step toward the age of de- 

 cline. I have swallowed up ten years of life at 

 once. Happy the simple whose heart is always 

 young ! " 



The moral element is behind this also, and 

 is the source of its value and charm. In litera- 

 ture never nature for her own sake, but for the 

 sake of the soul which is over and above all. 



II 



One of the most desirable things in life is a 

 fresh impression of an old fact or scene. One's 

 love of nature may be a constant factor, yet it 

 is only now and then that he gets a fresh im- 

 pression of the charm and meaning of nature; 

 only now and then that the objects without and 

 the mood within so fit together that we have a 

 vivid and original sense of the beauty and sig- 

 nificance that surround us. How often do we 



