122 GLAUCUS; OR, 



lovelier than he ; and as he stands, silent with awe, 

 amid the pomp of nature's ever-busy rest, hears, as 

 of old, " The AVord of the Lord God walking among 

 the trees of the garden in the cool of the day." 



One sight more, and we have done. I had 

 something to say, had time permitted, on the 

 ludicrous element which appears here and there in 

 nature. There are animals, like monkeys and crabs, 

 which seem made to be laughed at ; by those at 

 least who possess that most indefinable of faculties, 

 the sense of the ridiculous. As long as man pos- 

 sesses muscles especialty formed to enable him to 

 laugh, we have no right to suppose (with some) that 

 laughter is an accident of our fallen nature ; or to 

 find (with others) the primary cause of the ridiculous 

 in the perception of unfitness or disharmony. And 

 yet we shrink (whether rightly or wrongly, we can 

 hardly tell) from attributing a sense of the ludicrous 

 to the Creator of these forms. It may be a weakness 

 on my part ; at least I will hope it is a reverent 

 one : but till we can find something corresponding 

 to what we conceive of the Divine Mind in any 



