THE SOUL OF NATURE 161 



woods and waters, the mountains, the gey- 

 sers and the glaciers, with supernatural 

 beings, and the legendry of that region is 

 full of the action, baneful and heroic, that 

 is worked by those forces. Later philos- 

 ophies, in prose and verse, thrill with a 

 hope that is faith, already, among these 

 tribes. 



" Manfred" is a wild dream, is it not? the 

 summoning of spirits from other worlds 

 absurd ? Yet they tell us that a responsive 

 vibration goes through the world when- 

 ever a thing is done, as widening circles 

 spread from where the stone falls into 

 water; that, as thought is deed accom- 

 panied by motion in the brain, the working 

 out of that thought affects, be it never so 

 faintly, the gravities and substances of 

 farthest suns. Is this a forecast of the 

 energy that shall one day blaze from the 

 mind of the race to lighten those chasms 

 of cold that gulf our world in, and send 

 messages of divine equality and brother- 

 hood to the planets that roll about Sirius 

 and Aldebaran? It tells, at all events, the 

 oneness of creation, the refinement of mat- 





