210 



NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 



and color on the interior of the sea-shell also 

 curves the prairie, arches the hill, rounds the 

 lake, and bends the river. The line forever 

 sweeps in and around. Even when there are 

 apparent exceptions in nature's products, as in 

 the forms of crystals (and there are round crys- 

 tals, too), or the sharp needles of a mountain- 

 peak, there is an attempt to amend the fault, 

 as it were. The winds, the rains, the frost, 

 the heat, immediately set about rounding and 

 curving the knife-like edges; and the peak, 

 which at a distance looks sharp and angu- 

 lar, proves to be round and smooth when 

 seen close to view. The hill, that to-day is 

 dome-crowned like a Byzantine lantern, was 

 once snapped and splintered upward by the 

 sharp fold of the rock strata; and many a 

 coast-lying island, that now is carpeted with 

 soft rolls of green sward, was originally banked 

 up in a ragged heap and pushed ahead of a 

 glacier in the great Ice Age. 



The circle is indeed nature's great working 

 principle. Organic and inorganic matter 

 winds, storms, clouds, tides all display it. 

 The life that springs up from the earth withers 

 and returns to the earth again, rising and fall- 

 ing in the lines of a jetting fountain ; and the 



