BRIEF ESSAYS 225 



your house or your field and wood with tender re- 



memhrances; who stands between your yearning 



heart and the great outward void that you try in 



vain to warm and fill; who in his own person and 



spirit clothes for you, and endows with tangible 



form, all the attractions and subtle relations and 



meanings that draw you to the woods and fields. 



What the brooks and the trees and the birds said 



so faintly and vaguely, he speaks with warmth and 



directness. Indeed, your friend complements and 



completes your solitude, and you experience its 



charm without its desolation. I cannot, therefore, 



agree with Marvell that 



" Two paradises are in one, 

 To live in paradise alone." 



I should want at least my friend to share it with me. 



VI 

 AN OPEN DOOR 



How the revelations of science do break in upon 

 the sort of private and domestic view of the uni- 

 verse which mankind have so long held ! To many 

 minds it is like being fairly turned out into the 

 cold, and made to face without shield or shelter the 

 eternities and the infinities of geologic time and 

 sidereal space. We are no longer cozily housed in 

 pretty little anthropomorphic views of things. The 

 universe is no longer a theatre constructed expressly 

 for the drama of man's life and salvation. The 

 race of man becomes the mere ephemera of an hour, 

 like insects of a summer day. In an hour of the 



