The eye reads omens where it goes, 

 And speaks all languages the rose ; 

 And, striving to be man, the worm 

 Mounts through all the spires of form. 



Nature, i., 7. 



The fossil strata show us that Nature began with rudimental forms, and rose 

 to the more complex as fast as the earth was lit for their dwelling-place ; and 

 that the lower perish as the higher appear. Very few of our race can be said to 

 be yet finished men. We still carry sticking to us some remains of the preced- 

 ing inferior quadruped organization. . . The age of the quadruped is to go out, 

 the age of the brain and of the heart is to come in. And if one shall read the 

 future of the race hinted in the organic effort of Nature to mount and melior- 

 ate, and the corresponding impulse to the Better in the human being, we shall 

 dare affirm that there is nothing he will not overcome and convert, until at last 

 culture shall absorb the chaos and gehenna. He will convert the Furies into 

 Muses and the hells into benefit. Culture. 



Ralph Waldo Ejiebsox. 



