IMPRESSIONIST SKETCH in 



ranks of the children who romped merrily on the sands 

 are thinned ; he passes among the flocks, and many need 

 no more shepherding ; he breathes among the dancing 

 day-flies, and they sink with the setting sun. And why 

 in the midst of life is there so much death, against which 

 there is no standing or defiance even among the strongest ? 

 It is in part due to the fact that although the sunlight 

 is the most powerful antagonist of the pestilence that 

 walketh in darkness, to wit, the omnipotent disease-germs 

 or Bacteria, the warmth and overflowing plenty of Summer 

 days favour their fatal multiplications; as is illustrated 

 by many fevers. It is partly because the machinery of 

 life is by no means perfectly self-repairing, and that the 

 organism in living is continually going into debt death 

 being the extreme of insolvency; as is illustrated by all 

 organisms whose efforts are followed by irremediable nerve 

 fatigue. And it is partly because during an early chapter 

 in life's history immortality was pawned for love, and 

 death was made a price for giving rise to new lives; 

 as is illustrated by so many butterflies and other animals, 

 not to speak of flowers, which die soon after reproducing. 

 But no one can have realised what the work of Summer 

 actually means, without feeling that there is profound truth 

 in the doctrine of reincarnations, that nothing is ever really 

 lost in this economical world. Matter is ever circulating, in 

 Summer most actively ; energy is ever changing, in Summer 

 most of all. Nothing is ever lost; all things flow. The 

 moistened dust and the quivering air become the grass, 

 the grass the deer, the deer the huntsman, the huntsman 

 the tiger, the tiger with the aid of Bacteria grass again. 

 For so the world goes round, and, " after last, returns the 

 first, though a wide compass round be fetched." 



