THE SEARCH AND FINDING. 13 



the highway of the world ; and though you do not see 

 these neighbors' faces, or catch their words, the 

 drifted vapor, and the sheen of the sails, and the 

 streaming pennants yield a sense of nearness and com- 

 panionship that gives rein and verge to a man's hu- 

 manity. 



Then, physically, what reach ! Heaven and earth 

 touch their great circles in your eye ; the touch that 

 bounds human vision wherever you may go. No 

 height can lift you to a grander touch, or alter one 

 iota its magnificent proportions. With a land hori- 

 zon, it may be an occasional hill that conceals the 

 outmost bound, a temple or a tree ; it is various and 

 uncertain ; even upon the prairie a harvest of flowers 

 may fringe it with an edge that the autumn fires con- 

 sume, or which a trampling herd may beat down ; 

 but where sea touches sky, there, forever, is the line 

 immutable, which runs between our home and the 

 spacious heaven, that buoys, and bears us. And 

 thence, with every noontide, the sun pours a fiery 

 profusion of gold up to your feet ; and there, every 

 full moon paves a broad path with silver. 



So, with each of the features I have claimed, 

 come kingly pictures ; not least of all to the gentle 

 slope south or eastward, which should catch the 

 first beams of the morning, and the first warmth of 

 every recurring spring. 



