76 LIFE IN NATURE. 



nature, and using the inorganic world merely as a 

 dead pedestal on which to sustain itself, it is still 

 beautiful. Not even a narrow thought like this can 

 strip it of its charm. But narrow thoughts like this 

 have unhappily the power of drawing a veil around 

 the eyes, and closing up the heart until it clings to 

 baseless vagaries of fancy as if they were consecrated 

 truths, and shrinks from nature's deeper teaching 

 with superstitious dread. 



How lovely life were if it were but a revealing ! 

 the bright blossom wherein nature's hidden force 

 comes forth to display itself; the necessary outpour- 

 ing of the universal life that circulates within her 

 veins, unseen. How lovely, if life were rooted in 

 nature's inmost being, and expressed to us in the 

 most perfect form the meaning of the mighty laws 

 and impulses which sway her, and which, as written 

 on the seas, and rocks, and stars, is too vast for us to 

 grasp : the bright and merry life, with its ten thou- 

 sand voices, bursting forth from the dim and silent 

 Law which rules the world, as in the babbling spring, 

 the stream that has run darkling underground bursts 

 forth and sparkles to the sun. 



