138 MY DEVON YEAR 



During December much minute work on a mighty 

 scale occupies each hour, and Hght and water and 

 temperatures begot of decay bring scent and familiar 

 odour over the surface of the earth, or lazy vapours that 

 hang low at the elbows of the lanes and woods, and 

 creep like blue ghosts above the crucibles of Nature's 

 chemistry. Here the rain and the busy worm convert 

 all this mass of food to the staple of the earth, and 

 again the lichens and liver-worts come to their place 

 in the circular procession and punctual march ; again 

 the mosses renew their shining youth ; again the tight 

 catkin appears upon the naked hazel and alder ; again 

 the North wind murmurs of coming snow. 



So the year closes, and one turns from this trivial 

 scrutiny to mourn that from such infinite possibili- 

 ties the personal harvest is so scanty. How much 

 the eye has seen, how little the mind has perceived 

 even at moments of closest contact! And beyond that 

 sorrowful certainty lies the greater assurance that in 

 every moment of every hour throughout my absence 

 from these scenes, there has budded some good thing, 

 there has flourished some animate or inanimate 

 creature, there has passed some perfect shape of life 

 unguessed and unrecorded. Each moment of the 

 day, each pulse of the night, carries along with it 

 a revelation seen only by the eyes of unconscious life ; 

 and the sun in the heaven, the unsleeping stars above 

 the firmament, most surely witness more through one 

 diurnal span than shall be found within all the gathered 

 wisdom of mankind. 



