SWEETNESS AND LIGHT 41 



To dress and to invite one's soul is a privilege without 

 price and without sin if we invite the gods. To loaf 

 and to invite nonsense is another thing in tune with plant- 

 ing thistles for the sake of watching them come up. But 

 who will say us nay when we half shut our eyes and 

 behold iris trailing her rainbow robes across the sunny 

 slopes of the ravines, awakening the rosy hepaticas to 

 paint beauty over the brown earth, or follow her to the 

 brook when the buttercups and cowslips open their golden 

 coffers at the call of spring ! 



What punishment more awful than to be "shut away 

 in outer darkness," without fragrance, music, or color, 

 and to have eyes that see not and ears that hear not? The 

 perfume of opening violets and lilac buds, the blue of 

 rain-washed April skies, and the wind harps in the tree 

 tops accompanying the robin's matin song would be as 

 things that were not. 



It is a blessed chance that coin from the mint cannot 

 purchase these things, or earthly painters change the color 

 harmonies that nature plays upon our eyes as strains of 

 music fascinate our ears. The humblest and most sorely 

 distressed needs but invite his soul to the vision of azure 

 beds of scillas reflecting the blue of heaven from the fresh 

 green of the young grass on the lawn, or look with rapture 

 upon the gold-woven tapestry of royal crocuses gemmed 

 with the dew of early morning, or go in search of the pink 

 clouds of peach and apple bloom in the groves. 



