A DISPLAY OF ENERGY. 89 



nature which encompasses us, and of which, in truth, 

 we ourselves are part. If, as Wordsworth puts it, 

 every flower enjoys the air it breathes, so much the 

 more must humanity, in a reasonable state of mind, 

 be depressed by dull days and gladdened by the days 

 that are bright and sunny. The seasons are too closely 

 a reflex of our life to escape having an influence over 

 us : hence, on the verge of May, a hundred voices are 

 crying to us from the woods and fields, from the hills 

 and valleys, from the cliffs and the sea, and bidding 

 us rejoice and be glad in the summer revival of our 

 land. We may well re-echo the voice of nature, and 

 to those of us who are downcast and sorrowful repeat 

 the message of summer-time, "And again I say to 

 you, Rejoice ! " 



There is dead silence in the wood through which I 

 am strolling this warm afternoon. A fortnight since, 

 the buds were just coming to maturity. Now, the young 

 leaves are out, and the sunlight is broken into varied 

 pathways by the first of summer's harbingers in the 

 way of the green clothing of the twigs and branches. 

 I wonder if the thought ever occurs to folk unac- 

 customed to think of the abstract things of science, 

 that an incalculable amount of energy is expended in the 

 plenishing of the plant-world for its summer dress. 

 To certain minds the words " force " and " energy " 

 are meaningless terms ; and I sympathise with the 

 mind which, accustomed to the practical details of 

 life, and to the realities of pounds, shillings, and 

 pence, refuses or is unable to assimilate the abstrac- 

 tions or transcendentalisms in which the scientific 

 mind delights.' 



But most ideas in science are easily mastered, if 

 one can but think in terms of things rather than 



