168 NATURE IN A CITY YARD 



cause memory is an artist, and paints a 

 better picture than the retina. When we 

 turn from the actual scene we seem to know 

 it better, and to find a higher promise and 

 beauty there. So does art soften detail, 

 suppress, select, and try to give us the 

 substance, perhaps the soul, of things. 



A spiritualizing process is beginning in 

 letters, art, music, color, life. " The world 

 is too much with us," but men are getting 

 away from the base world of needs to the 

 world of meanings. They progress as they 

 realize beauty, and the constant inference 

 of beauty is design. Can the fire of the 

 diamond, the tenderness of the flower, 

 the loveliness of the opal, the grandeur of 

 the mountain, be accidental ? Are they 

 not part of some great scheme for the all- 

 beautiful and all-good ? 



Nature piques, then eludes us; rejoices 

 us, and will not tell how or why. We 

 find her a mystery, and we are ever trying 

 to get behind that mystery, even though 

 what is fair in distance may be unlovely 

 and unprofitable at close hand. It is not 

 enough that we master inert physical na- 





