274 ARBOR DAY 



recall the picture and stoop in spirit to the aspiration 

 it yet arouses. For there is no saint like the sky, 

 sunlight shining from its face. 



Before I had any conscious thought it was a 

 delight to me to find wild flowers, just to see them. 

 It was a pleasure to gather them and to take them 

 home ; a pleasure to show them to others to 

 keep them as long as they would live, to decorate the 

 room with them, to arrange them carelessly with 

 grasses, green sprays, tree-bloom large branches 

 of chestnut snapped off, and set by a picture per- 

 haps. Without conscious thought of seasons and the 

 advancing hours to light on the white wild violet, 

 the meadow orchis, the blue veronica, the blue 

 meadow cranesbill ; feeling the warmth and delight of 

 the increasing sun-rays, but not recognizing whence 

 or why it was joy. All the world is young to a boy, 

 and thought has not entered into it; even the old 

 men with gray hair do not seem old; different but 

 not aged, the idea of age has not been mastered. 

 A boy has to frown and study, and then does not 

 grasp what long years mean. The various hues of 

 the petals pleased without any knowledge of color- 

 contrasts, no note even of color except that it was 

 bright, and the mind was made happy without con- 

 sideration of those ideals and hopes afterwards 

 associated with the azure sky above the fir trees. 

 A fresh footpath, a fresh flower, a fresh delight. 



