THE MAY FIELDS 27 



our presence. What is it to them whether they 

 have, or have not been seen by Man ? " We 

 are w^hat suns and winds and waters make us," 

 they say ; and, in saying thus, they speak but 

 the substantial truth. Their history is one of 

 strenuous self-endeavour ; their unique and dazzling 

 loveHness they have attained " alone," oblivious of 

 Man's presence in the world. After age-long 

 effort, from which their remarkable happiness and 

 beauty are the primest distillations, Man stumbles 

 upon them in their radiance, declares they are 

 languishing for want of his admiration, and at once 

 commiserates with them upon their lone and 

 wasted lot. What fond presumption ! How 

 typically human ! 



Is there not proof abundant of Nature's " profuse 

 indifference to mankind ? " Why, then, should 

 Man assume that all things are made for him ? 

 why, in his small, lordly way, should he say — as he 

 is for ever saying — " The sun, the moon, the stars, 

 have their raison d'etre in Me ? " In a sense he is 

 right, but not in the arrogant sense he so much 

 presumes. All things help to make him. The sun, 

 moon, and stars are for him, inasmuch as he would 

 not be what he is — he would not, probably, be 

 Man — did they not exist. But neither, then, 



