216 RIVERBY 



mentary glimpse of their ineffable splendor and sig- 

 nificance. How overwhelming, how awe-inspiring! 

 His thought goes like a lightning flash into that se- 

 rene abyss, and then the veil is drawn again. One's 

 science, one's understanding, tells him he is a voy- 

 ager on the celestial deep, that the earth beneath his 

 feet is a star among stars, that we can never be any 

 more in the heavens than we are now, or any more 

 within reach of the celestial laws and forces; but 

 how rare the mood in which we can realize this as- 

 tounding fact, in which we can get a fresh and vivid 

 impression of it ! To have it ever present with one 

 in all its naked grandeur would perhaps be more 

 than we could bear. 



The common and the familiar — how soon they 

 cease to impress us ! The great service of genius, 

 speaking through art and literature, is to pierce 

 through our callousness and indifference and give us 

 fresh impressions of things as they really are; to 

 present things in new combinations, or from new 

 points of view, so that they shall surprise and de- 

 light us like a new revelation. When poetry does 

 this, or when art does it, or when science does it, it 

 recreates the world for us, and for the moment we 

 are again Adam in paradise. 



Herein lies one compensation to the lover of na- 

 ture who is an enforced dweller in the town: the 

 indifference which familiarity breeds is not his. His 

 weekly or monthly sallies into the country yield him 

 a rare delight. To his fresh, eager senses the charm 

 of novelty is over all. Country people look with a 



