280 GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



rose and set in Judea, and the Psalmist chanted, "Thou 

 makest the outgoings of the morning and evening to 

 rejoice." Here was no "subtle observation " of meteor- 

 ological conditions peculiar to the east coast of the 

 Mediterranean; no aesthetic analysis, no scientific spec- 

 ulation. Here was simply the soul of a man touched 

 by the beauty and the mystery of a natural phenomenon 

 till poetry kindled on his lips and devotion in his heart. 

 It is that simple attitude toward Nature which I some- 

 times think the world has lost in these latter days, veri- 

 fying Goethe's statement that "animated inquiry into 

 causes does great harm." "Thou makest the out- 

 goings of the morning and evening to rejoice" how 

 calm and hushed the picture evoked, how peaceful and 

 brooding, how like a benediction it falls upon the spirit! 

 I think of my own mountain land, of a wooded knoll 

 that rises from the valley, and I stand bareheaded in the 

 fields while the golden floods of the sunset fill all the in- 

 tervale with liquid light, an intervale which is like a 

 green chalice amid the hills. The golden flood creeps 

 up the eastern slopes, and out of the darkening fields 

 below the shadows follow, amethyst shadows 'that stray 

 like smoke amid the birches. At last the gold burns 

 only in the kindled west, in a gap between two mountain 

 summits a gateway to that Land of Wonder which 

 lies forever around the world-rim underneath the set- 

 ting sun. The trees upon the little foreground knoll are 

 silhouetted now, black against the gold. The fields 



