14 A PHILOSOPHER WITH NATURE 



In the midst of this world of beauty thus is nature 

 red with rapine. Yet would it be the profoundest 

 of mistaJces to endeavour to read the emotions appro- 

 priate to a different plane of being into these inci- 

 dents of the universal stress of nature. For to this 

 stress the whole of this glowing world of fitness and 

 potency is undoubtedly allied. It is the product, 

 born of it and in it. To suspend the stress might 

 indeed be to take from hfe something of the sting 

 of its pain. But it would certainly also be to take 

 from it that constituent of its deepest pleasures 

 which passfeth understanding — the joy of a world of 

 fitness functioning in achievement. Even to human- 

 ize the stress is not to suspend it. Far otherwise. 

 The secret of ripening humanity is indeed nothing 

 else than the secret of this higher fitness ; the fit- 

 ness of apparent failure ; to be able not only to suc- 

 ceed consummately but to fail infinitely for others. 



The tide creeps quickly over the lower fringes of 

 the saltings. On this no-man's land the Ufe of the 

 ocean struggles with that of the land and here the 

 sea-fowl and the land-fowl meet. The surface is 

 covered with salt herbage, on which the sheep 

 thrive, cropping it between the tides, and it is hol- 

 lowed in places into long irregular pools. These 

 hold the sea-water and, surrounded by the pre- 

 vaihng dark grey tints, they reflect the simlight as 

 if they had been pools of white molten metal. The 

 mud at the bottom is marked with the feet of many 

 birds. Some pools have dried up, leaving the mark- 

 ings legible and the footprints of the land-birds, 

 rooks, carrion crows and jackdaws, are seen mingled 

 with the prints of the webbed feet of the sea-fowl. 

 Here a pool which has run dry has been missed and it 



