156 THROUGH LIBRARY WINDOWS 



broad tides of sunlight break over our dark 

 world. There is no creaking of heavy axles or 

 groaning of cumbrous machinery as our solid 

 globe wheels onward in its vast eliptic path. 

 The music of the spheres is imaginary to all 

 organs but spiritual. The blazing meteor that 

 rushes through the heavens with such startling 

 brilliance arrests only the eye. Massive moun- 

 tains have been piled up in great ridges by na- 

 ture's quiet upheavals. The great trees that 

 bring forth their boughs, beautifying and shad- 

 ing the earth; the plants that put forth their 

 flowers and emit such fragrant odors; the 

 grass that covers the bare and bald places as 

 with woven tapestry — all these are seen but 

 unheard transactions. No ear hears the mil- 

 lion rootlets pumping their moisture to give 

 beauty to the eye and bread to the mouth ; could 

 it all be heard as human machinery is, it would 

 fill the world with clamor, it is only the energy 

 of little things that expends itself in noise and 

 violence. The power which carries millions of 

 worlds through infinite cycles of space is as 

 noiseless as the drifting of thistledown. Grand 

 as are the impressions of nature's noises, they 

 do not affect a sensitive spirit as her silences. 



It is the silent forces which are our great 

 benefactors. Not the thunders shaking the very 



