204 MY LIFE AS A NATURALIST 



She is always building up, and always destroying. Her workshop 

 is inaccessible. Nature lives in her children only, and the Mother, 

 where is she ? There is constant life, motion, and development 

 in her, and yet she remains where she was. Of rest she knows 

 nothing, and to all stagnation has affixed her curse. The mean- 

 ing of the whole she keeps to herself, and no one can learn it of 

 her. Who does not see her everywhere, sees her nowhere aright. 

 She rejoices in illusion. If a man destroys this in himself and 

 others, she punishes him like the hardest tyrant. If he follows 

 her in confidence, she presses him to her heart as it were her 

 child. 



" Her children are numberless. To none is she wholly a 

 niggard ; but she has her favourites, on whom she lavishes much, 

 and for them she makes many a sacrifice. Life is her fairest 

 invention, and Death her device for having life in abundance. 



"Her crown is love through love alone can we come near 

 her. She isolates everything that she may draw everything 

 together. With a draught from the cup of love she repays for 

 a life of trouble. She has placed me in this wx>rld : she will 

 also lead me out of it. I trust myself to her." 



Thus far Goethe, and I will finish with four lines from an 

 unknown author : 



"Though baffled seers cannot impart, 

 The secret of its labouring heart, 

 Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast 

 And all is clear from East to West." 



Thus did the wilderness inspire me, and the memories of that 

 gorgeous May day will often come back to me like a draught of 

 Spring sunshine, whenever my wayward soul requires a stimulant, 

 such as Nature alone has to offer. 



