ON THE MANUSCRIPTS OF GOD 



by any human being, she holds back for a 

 keener-eyed generation who shall know how 

 to ask for them and how not to misuse them; 

 for the brown enchantress is as wise in her 

 withholdings as in her givings. 



Nor does her benevolence end with gifts 

 to man alone. To every beast of the forest 

 and field, from the lion to the rabbit, she 

 also gives the gifts of a good fairy god- 

 mother. "Squatter's rights" she grants any 

 quadruped that roams the earth, and the 

 most obscure mole or woodchuck may have 

 for his subterranean home the pick of all her 

 forest wilds. Even the painfully diligent 

 ant is at liberty to give object-lessons in 

 "Ethical Culture and Communism" wher- 

 ever she can and will. 



For robins and many other birds she 

 keeps a fine larder of worms and bugs, and 

 for these same worms and bugs one knows 

 not what finer diet of vermiculous tid-bits. 

 As a merely nominal charge for all these 

 services she levies what the earth-worm 

 might call his road-tax. By this canny 

 measure with worms and by imposing a 



40 



