GAY PLUMES AND DULL 



of the struggle for existence, but more disposed to 

 regard them as the result of the same law or tend- 

 ency that makes nature in general adaptive and 

 harmonious — the outcome of the blendings, the 

 adjustments, the unifying processes or tendencies 

 that are seen and felt all about us. Is not open-air 

 nature ever striving toward a deeper harmony and 

 unity? Do not differences, discrepancies, antago- 

 nisms, tend to disappear ? Is there not everywhere 

 something at work to bring about agreements, 

 correspondences, adaptations? to tone down con- 

 trasts, to soften outlines, to modify the abrupt, to 

 make peace between opposites? Is not the very 

 condition of life and well-being involved in this 

 principle? The abrupt, the disjoined, the irrecon- 

 cilable, mean strife and dissolution; while agree- 

 ments, gradations, easy transitions, mean life and 

 growth. Like tends to beget like; the hand is sub- 

 dued to the element it works in. The environment 

 sets its stamp more or less strongly upon all living 

 things. Even the pyramids are the color of the 

 sands. Leave your bones there, and they will soon 

 be of the same tint. Even your old boots or old coat 

 will in time come to blend a little with the desert. 

 The tendency in nature that is over all and 

 under all is the tendency or effort toward harmony 

 — to get rid of strife, discord, violent contrasts, 

 and to adjust every creature to its environment. 

 Inside of this great law or tendency are the lesser 

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