The Stream grows Larger. 63 
oozes and flows, and the sun sinks at the western 
mouth. So too, doubtless, the sun shone into 
the hollow in the evening cycle upon cycle ere 
then. 
Up the blade of grass here a tiny white-shelled 
snail has crawled, feeling in its dull, dim way that 
evening is approaching. The coils of the little shell 
are exquisitely turned—the workmanship is perfect ; 
the creature within, there can be no question, is 
equally perfect in its way and finds a joy in the 
plants on which it feeds. On the ground below, 
hidden among the fibres near the roots of the grass, 
lies another tiny shell ; but it is empty, the life that 
once animated it has fled—whither? Presently the 
falling dew will condense upon it, and at the opening 
one round drop will stand; after awhile to add its 
mite to the ceaseless flow of the fountain. Could any 
system of notation ever express the number of these 
creatures that have existed in the past? If time is 
measured by the duration of life, reckoned by their 
short spans eternity upon eternity has gone by. To 
me the greatest marvel is the countless, the infinite 
number of the organisms that have existed, each with 
its senses and feelings, whose bodies now help to 
build up the solid crust of the earth. These tiny 
shells have had millions of ancestors: Nature seems 
never weary of repeating the same model. 
In the osier-bed the brook-sparrow ‘chatters ; 
there, too, the first pollard willow stands, or rather 
