LEAF AND TENDRIL 



zero to the heat of the sun, human life knows only 

 a minute fraction. So of the elemental play of forces 

 about us and over us, terrestrial and celestial — too 

 fine for our apprehension on the one hand, and too 

 large on the other — we know but a fraction. 



The quivering and the throbbing of the earth 

 under our feet in changes of temperature, the bend- 

 ings and oscillations of the crust under the tread 

 of the great atmospheric waves, the vital fermenta- 

 tions and oxidations in the soil — are all beyond 

 the reach of our dull senses. We hear the wind in 

 the treetops, but we do not hear the humming of the 

 sap in the trees. We feel the pull of gravity, but 

 we do not feel the medium through which it works. 

 During the i?olar storms and disturbances all our 

 magnetic and electrical instruments are agitated, 

 but you and I are all unconscious of the agitation. 



There are no doubt vibrations from out the 

 depths of space that might reach our ears as sound 

 were they attuned to the ether as the eye is when 

 it receives a ray of light. We might hear the rush 

 of the planets along their orbits, we might hear the 

 explosions and uprushes in the sun ; we might hear 

 the wild whirl and dance of the nebulae, where suns 

 and systems are being formed; we might hear the 

 "wreck of matter and the crush of worlds" that 

 evidently takes place now and then in the abysms 

 of space, because all these things must send through 

 the ether impulses and tremblings that reach our 

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