UNDER THE MAPLES 



or courage or humility is already answered in the 

 attitude of soul that devoutly asks it. We know 

 that the official prayers in the churches for victory 

 to the armies in the field are of no avail — and how 

 absurd to expect them to be — but who shall saythat 

 the prayer of the soldier on the eve of battle may 

 not steady his hand and clinch his courage? But 

 the prayer for rain or for heat or cold, or for the 

 stay of an epidemic, or for any material good, is 

 as vain as to reach one's hands for the moon. 



rV. ORIGINAL SOURCES 



The writers who go directly to life and Nature foT 

 their material are, in every age, few compared with 

 the great number that go to the libraries and 

 lecture-halls, and sustain only a second-hand rela- 

 tion to the primary sources of inspiration. They 

 cannot go directly to the fountain-head, but de- 

 pend upon those who can and do. They are like 

 those forms of vegetation, the mushrooms, that 

 have no chlorophyll, and hence cannot get their 

 food from the primary sources, the carbonic acid 

 in the air; they must draw it from the remains of 

 plants that did get it at first-hand from Nature. 

 Chlorophyll is the miracle-worker of the vegetable 

 world; it makes the solar power available for life. 

 It is in direct and original relation to the sun. It 

 also makes animal life possible. The plant can go 

 to inorganic nature and through its chlorophyll can 



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