I 20 Idle Days in Patagonia. 



Let us remember that om' poets, who speak 

 not scientifically but in the language of passion, 

 wlien they say that the sun rejoices in the sky and 

 laughs at the storm ; that the earth is glad with 

 flowers in spring, and the autumn fields happj^ ; that 

 the clouds frown and weep, and the wind sighs and 

 " utters something mournful on its Avay " — that in 

 all this they speak not in metaphor, as we are taught 

 to say, but that in moments of excitement, when 

 we revert to primitive conditions of mind, the earth 

 and all nature is alive and intelligent, and feels as 

 we feel. When, after a spell of dull weather, the 

 sun unexpectedly shines out warm and brilliant, who 

 has not felt in that first glad instant that all 

 nature shared his conscious gladness ? Or, in the 

 first hours of a great bereavement, who has not 

 experienced a feeling of wonder and even resentment 

 at the sight of blue smiling skies and a sun-flushed 

 earth ? 



" We have all," says Vignoli, " however unac- 

 customed to give an account of our acts and func- 

 tions, found ourselves in circumstances which pro- 

 duced the momentary personification of natural 

 objects. The sight of some extraordinary pheno- 

 menon produces a vague sense of someone acting 

 with a giA^en purpose." Not assuredly of "some- 

 one " outside of and above the natural phenomenon, 

 but in and one with it, just as the act of a man 

 proceeds from him, and is the man. 



It is doubtless true that we are animistic to this 

 extent only at rare moments, and in exceptional cir- 



