EAGLES AND ART. 
243 
WitTi such a lieathenisli faith as this, what wonder then 
that his ideas of beauty should be somewhat heterodox, and 
that he should even look upon the rude and ancient counte- 
nance of Earth with favor ? Nay, since this Love is a great 
revelator and beautifier of all things, should even regard it 
as very fair, and fresh, and lovely. 
But though marvellous, it is nevertheless so ; and we judge 
the truth to be, that it is because he is no stranger upon her 
bosom, and is troubled with no such exaltation of spiritual 
mightiness, that he disdains the ground he treads upon. In 
his simplicity he lias probably found out, while she warmed 
him in her nourishing embrace, that he was bone of her 
bone and flesh of her flesh ; ay, and has even felt that the 
throbbings of her great heart were heaved with the pulses 
of his own ! 
What wonder, then, since he thus looks out upon Earth as 
a child of the earth, that 
" Beated and chapped with tanned antiquity," 
as she may seem to others, she should yet appear fair and 
young to him ? What wonder that he loves her too, and 
smiles in unconscious pity when the Learned Ninny talks in 
pompous humiliation of " our humble origin," and with face 
averted from his Old Mother, rants spiritual heroics at the 
stars ? 
What wonder, indeed, if in his innocence he should laugh 
at the emasculated wretch? — As if Earth, too, were not a 
Star, sister of the Planets, bride of the Sun, and a daughter 
of the Most High God ! 
What wonder, if his jealous love should be indignant at 
the insult, when he sees that a chafiing-dish would be sun 
enough for the world and heart of the blue-lipped haughty 
Pedant, and that yet, standing isolated upon heaped- up 
tomes — a world of man's creating — he dares, with out- 
stretched shaky finger, like a shrunk and withered brat, to 
be imperious with his Ancient Mother — to summons her to 
