34 WOODLAND IDYLS. 



day. These are the precepts which nature 

 strives to teach us by silent example. 



By moonlight I went to the spring and came 

 back rejoicing in the presence of its mellow 

 beams. It is now 9 :15 and I am alone with 

 the God of Nature. Alone, yet with resplend- 

 ent company, for up there, smiling down at me 

 with twinkling eye and merry mien are those 

 worlds and suns, the stars, so near and yet so 

 far. Between me and them naught but the 

 emptiness of space, a void never to be measured, 

 never to be filled, never to be passed except by 

 the thought of man. Anon a fragment from a 

 distant world comes shooting down, and strik- 

 ing the atmosphere of this is kindled for a brief 

 second into a vivid living flame then dies out 

 forever into a darkness as of death. The moon 

 sinks slowly behind the trees and only the light 

 of those other worlds falls upon me. On them 

 perhaps are thinking beings such as I, looking 

 out this instant into space as I, and seeing this 

 world glowing in the light of its sun, long for 

 a wisdom to know what and why, where and 

 how about it questions which they and every 

 other thing possessing thought will forever ask 

 in vain. 



Thursday, August 6. Up at 4:20. The 

 morning hazy, the earth moist with a heavy 

 dew. A crimson glow in the east which, as seen 



