44 BIRDS AND POETS 



these seas, and rivers, and oceans, and atmospheric 

 currents, as necessary to the life of the ants and 

 worms we tread imder foot as to our own? And 

 does the sun shine for me any more than for yon 

 butterliy ? What I mean to say is, we cannot put 

 our finger upon this or that and say. Here is the end 

 of Nature. The Infinite cannot be measured. The 

 plan of Nature is so immense — but she has no plan, 

 no scheme, but to go on and on forever. "What is 

 size, what is time, distance, etc., to the Infinite? 

 Nothing. The Infinite knows no time, no space, 

 no great, no small, no beginning, no end. 



I sometimes think that the earth and the worlds 

 are a kind of nervous ganglia in an organization of 

 which we can form no conception, or less even 

 than that. If one of the globules of blood that cir- 

 culate in our veins was magnified enough million 

 times, we might see a globe teeming with life and 

 power. Such is this earth of ours, coursing in the 

 veins of the Infinite. Size is only relative, and the 

 imagination finds no end to the series either way. 



Ill 



Looking out of the car window one day, I saw 

 the pretty and unusual sight of an eagle sitting 

 upon the ice in the river, surrounded by half a 

 dozen or more crows. The crows appeared as if 

 looking up to the noble bird and attending his move- 

 ments. "Are those its young? " asked a gentleman 

 by my side. How much did that man know — not 

 about eagles, but about Nature? If ho had been 



