The Rambles of an Idler 



fore man appeared and will continue long after 

 man has vanished. 



Humility befits us, and never more so than 

 when we venture to determine what of the day 

 just ushered in; what of such an Alpine morn- 

 ing as this, when frost encrystals every leafless 

 bough, and every withered blade of grass glit- 

 ters as if heavy with diamonds. We know 

 what it means in a plain, prosaic way — that the 

 moisture has congealed, that the brook is ice- 

 boun^d, and that the drifting sands of summer 

 are now firm as any rock ; but this is really not 

 enough to know. We soon learn, if we so de- 

 sire, that we are not the only living creatures 

 abroad on such a day. We have company, for 

 there is reason to believe that even crystals are 

 not inanimate. It was an absurdity, not long 

 ago, to speak of "living crystals"; not so now. 

 The researches of physicists have added a new 

 chapter to the "fairy-tales of Science." But 

 Tennyson here had better be misquoted that no 

 mistake arise. Eather the "long results" of 

 Science and the rest of it all, the fairy-tales of 

 Time. 



Perhaps we are not as good as our grand- 

 fathers, but we know more, and would extend 



42 



