BIRDS AND POETS. 
145 
ing before sunrise. Not one twisted fibre of the grass, one 
knotted eccentric twig, one blue-ejed, dewy -lipped violet but 
liung there — upside down, to be sure — ^but perfect as it came 
from God's hand. 
What is this? Does it not mock our pride of art, and 
shame its dedicated altars?" 
" It is God's handiwork through his natural laws !" 
Ah ! But the picture is not always there. Does God 
(in reverence) with his own personal hand paint the land- 
scape in the lake whenever it is seen ? Is it a special act ?" 
" No ; it is consequential upon an arrangement of laws 
fixed since the birth of time." 
" You are smiling ! was that smile now upon your face 
pre-ordained since the same period ?" 
" So far as we know, it was, equally with the other, conse- 
quentiaV 
That smile was a physical expression of a mental con- 
dition or humor in yourself, was it not ?" 
''Ay." 
" It might have been a frown, or varied by other external 
modification ?" 
Ay." 
" Might not the landscape in the lake have been a storm- 
shaken blurr ?" 
" Granted." 
''Is it not quite as ^consequential^'' then, that earth has her 
physical expressions of certain conditions and humors of 
the vital force in her which are affected by external rela- 
tions?" 
" What external relations can you mean ?" 
" First, those to her solar system ; next, those to the other 
systems which make up the universe. These relations may 
determine in her all the action of elemental expression — va- 
riations of the seasons, &c., &c." 
" Pshaw 1 fogmatic !" 
" Guilty ; but stilly we 'love similitudes.' " 
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