120 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
strength. The same mathematical law winds the 
leaves around the stem and the planets around 
the sun. The same law of crystallization rules 
the slight-knit snowflake and the hard foun- 
dations of the earth. The thistledown floats 
secure upon the same summer zephyrs that are 
woven into the tornado, The dewdrop holds 
within its transparent cell the same electric fire 
which charges the thunder-cloud. In the soft- 
est tree or the airiest waterfall, the fundamen- 
tal lines are as lithe and muscular as the crouch- 
ing haunches of a leopard ; and without a pencil 
vigorous enough to render these, no mere mass 
of foam or foliage, however exquisitely finished, 
can tell the story. Lightness of touch is the 
crowning test of power. 
Yet nature does not work by single spasms 
only. That chestnut spray is not an isolated 
and exhaustive effort of creative beauty: look 
upward and see its sisters rise with pile above 
pile of fresh and stately verdure, till tree meets 
sky in a dome of glorious blossom, the whole as 
perfect as the parts, the least part as perfect as 
the whole. Studying the details, it seems as if 
Nature were a series of costly fragments with 
no coherence, —as if she would never encour- 
age us to do anything systematically, — would 
tolerate no method but her own, and yet had 
none of her own, — were as abrupt in her tran- 
