THE FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE 193 



The influence of books and works of art upon an 

 autlior may be seen in all respectable writers. If 

 knowledge alone made literature, or culture genius, 

 there would be no dearth of these things among the 

 moderns. But I feel bound to say that there is 

 something higher and deeper than the influence or 

 perusal of any or all books, or all other productions 

 of genius, — a quality of information which the mas- 

 ters can never impart, and which all the libraries do 

 not hold. This is the absorption by an author, pre- 

 vious to becoming so, of the spirit of nature, through 

 the visible objects of the universe, and his affiliation 

 with them subjectively and objectively. Not more 

 surely is the blood quickened and purified by con- 

 tact with the unbreathed air than is the spirit of 

 man vitalized and made strong by intercourse with 

 the real things of the earth. The calm, all-permit- 

 ting, wordless spirit of nature, — yet so eloquent to 

 him who hath ears to hear ! The suiu-ise, the heav- 

 ing sea, the woods and mountains, the storm and 

 the whistling winds, the gentle summer day, the 

 winter sights and sounds, the night and the high 

 dome of stars, — to have really perused these, espe- 

 cially from childhood onward, till what there is in 

 them, so impossible to define, finds its full mate and 

 echo in the mind, — this only is the lore which 

 breathes the breath of life into all the rest. With- 

 out it, literary productions may have the superb 

 beauty of statues, but with it only can they have 

 the beauty of life. 



I was never troubled at all by what the critics 



