11 
ordained, our own existence as head and prime creature 
of all, becomes dignified above the strife of faction, the 
fretfulness of petty cares : 
“ He liveth best who loveth best, 
All things both great and small ; 
For the good God above us, 
He made and loveth all.” 
This pursuit, too, leads us into contemplative solitude 
in the gloom of forests, whose hushed stillness, waved 
with the alternate hum of cicalas, is broken but by the 
infrequent alarm of a bird, or the graceful vault of a mon- 
key. ’Mid pine-clad precipices looming over water-falls, 
whose force working in ceaseless detrition, measured nor 
utilised by human machinery, is so compassed by brush- 
wood, fern and crag, that the roar of its toil disturbs not 
the harmony immediately around, till, soothed and over- 
flowing in gentle stream, the waters again glide softly 
along or plash playfullyfrom boulder to boulder in most 
musical of ripples, haunted by butterflies. 
Amid this ceaseless activity of growth and decay, — 
of power migrating from form to form, — we may imbibe 
somewhat of the perfect repose which envelops it, and, 
braced with renewed energy, return contentedly to our 
own more immediate labours : 
“ 0 forest green and fair, O pine tree waving high, 
How sweet your cool retreat, how full of rest. 
Here free from care and pain ; gay as a child again, 
Peace and contentment reign 
Within my breast.” 
