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bodies ; and yet what infinite mysteries it comprises, what 
immeasurable problems it opens up, with what innumerable 
beauties it is adorned ! It may be true, as Rousseau asserts, 
that — 
“ Le monde reel a ses bornes, le monde imaginaire est infini ” ; 
but the limits of the universe, if indeed there are limits, are at 
a distance so infinite as to be virtually non-existent. Not only, 
indeed, our comparatively little Earth, but the several parts and 
particles of it, even the motes in the sunbeam, are practically 
infinite. Our senses are sadly limited and we really do not 
know that we are not living like the blind reptiles of some great 
cave in the midst of wonders and beauties which we have no 
organs of sense to perceive. 
We are apt to think that every one recognises beauty when 
he sees it, but that is a complete mistake. Many stand both 
blind and deaf in the great temple of Nature. In the whole of 
classical literature there are hardly any references to the sublime 
and transcendent beauty of sunsets, which is all the more 
remarkable from the pre-eminent place which according to Max 
Muller and other great authorities, the dawn held in the origin 
and development of Aryan mythology. 
Goldwin Smith denied that the lily of the field was more 
beautiful than Solomon in all his glory. 
Lewis Cornaro, who lived to be over a hundred, and wrote 
his “Earnest Exhortation to a Sober Life” when he was ninety- 
one, attributed his wonderful health to his temperance and 
moderation. He enjoyed, moreover, he said, not only one, but 
“ two lives, one terrestrial, which I possess in fact, the other 
celestial, which I possess in thought.” But he tells us, “ I never 
knew till I grew old that the world was beautiful.” Even the 
Greeks, with all their keen sense of beauty in art, do not seem 
to have appreciated the still more exquisite beauty of Nature. 
And yet, though none of us can fully realise, and few indeed can 
even feebly recognise, the wonder and beauty of the world in 
which it is our privilege to live, still to many of us one look up 
to Heaven — the blue sky, or the brilliant stars — one glimpse of 
a lake or sea, one view up to or down from a mountain, and the 
dust of the highway of life vanishes away. That must, indeed, 
be a dark perplexity or a grievous pain which a fine day in the 
open air will not do much to lighten or relieve. 
Moreover, the benefit does not cease with the day. This is 
not a case in which, to use Thomas a Kempis's words, we have 
to think ’ 
“ Not of the lover’s gift 
But of the giver’s love.” 
It may be true, as Wordsworth tells us, that 
“ Nothing can bring back the hour 
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower.” 
