THE GREAT MANUSCRIPT 



flowers, the very grass beneath his feet, and 

 the good brown earth under the grass. 



Between the Alps and the tiniest blossom, 

 that must be wooed out of its hiding place, 

 what unnumbered millions of things there 

 are that can move him, either to a pianissimo 

 response or to thoughts and feelings that lie 

 too deep for tears ! And in what numberless 

 ways of expression, either lightly or deeply, 

 can he so rival Nature that he can move his 

 fellow men to the same vast range of thought 

 and feeling. Yet all his wisdom and cun- 

 ning cannot devise an instrument so deli- 

 cately attuned as himself to vibrate to all the 

 harmonies of the world, from the chirp of a 

 cricket to the "immemorial music of the sea." 

 Through his five senses and one knows not 

 how many more life continually plays upon 

 the myriad strings which respond in thought 

 and feeling, now waking melodies no man 

 has ever been able wholly to transcribe, or 

 discords which spur him on to more perfect 

 harmonies. 



Nor space nor time can muffle the heaven- 

 writ airs which the universe silently plays 



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