162 NATURE IN A CITY YARD 



ter into mind. We are the spirits of the 

 universe, emanations in fleshly guise. In 

 our best moods we approach that larger 

 soul of nature and try to read it or impress 

 it. Some instinct to create or command 

 seems to work in us whenever we meet it 

 face to face. 



The growth of science and the literary 

 and artistic use of landscape prove a present 

 interest in nature that hardly seems to have 

 belonged to our grandfathers, to whom 

 honored pioneers! it was a task-master 

 rather than a friend. To them it was raw 

 material to subjugate, to use, but not to 

 study or to love. Yet man is but a piece 

 of the world, and we must read his environ- 

 ment to know his relations and understand- 

 ing. Our liking for brevities and essences 

 we acquire from our preference for men in 

 the presence of nature ; for men are na- 

 ture personated, crystallized. So we watch 

 the light from the cabin shining on the 

 mountain, rippling across the lake, or gleam- 

 ing out at sea, and we forget the darkness 

 and majesty that it illumines, and that more 

 solemn shining of the god-lights in the sky. 



