2 NATURES STORY OF THE YEAR 



which restless variation will be stilled in content. 

 The universe, however, provides no acceptable 

 evidence of such a state in a material condition 

 of existence ; even the worlds themselves, " at 

 whose immensity even soaring fancy stares," 

 seem but to have their day, and to pass at their 

 appointed speed to their appointed fate. But in 

 these considerations we soon get out of our 

 mental depth ; we are like the moth that, living 

 only long enough to find the sweetest burden of 

 a flower, cannot foreknow the fruit of a later 

 season ; or like the meal-grub that, weaving 

 fluffy tubes in the corn-bin, cannot think why 

 grain is ground. Wearied by the ceaseless tur- 

 moil of existence, we dream of happy rest ; but 

 the world knows it not : the universe is a stranger 

 to it Change, ceaseless alteration, seems to be one 

 of the fundamental facts of creation ; ever in evi- 

 dence, though often seemingly delayed, as through 

 the eternities of the stars ; and sometimes enforced 

 with subtlety, as by those passive agencies that 

 fade the leaves ; or in the violence that strips a 

 flower, or a forest, in the prime. To the higher 

 forms of life it may bring deep pleasure or intense 



