keeping step with religion and metaphysics; or the
state of science is an index of our self-knowledge.
Since everything in nature answers to a moral power,
if any phenomenon remains brute and dark it is that
the corresponding faculty in the observer is not yet
active.

No wonder then, if these waters be so deep, that we
hover over them with a religious regard. The beauty
of the fable proves the importance of the sense; to
the poet, and to all others; or, if you please, every
man is so far a poet as to be susceptible of these
enchantments of nature; for all men have the thoughts
whereof the universe is the celebration. I find that
the fascination resides in the symbol. Who loves
nature? Who does not? Is it only poets, and men of
leisure and cultivation, who live with her? No; but
also hunters, farmers, grooms, and butchers, though
they express their affection in their choice of life
and not in their choice of words. The writer wonders
what the coachman or the hunter values in riding, in
horses and dogs. It is not superficial qualities. When
you talk with him he holds these at as slight a rate as
you. His worship is sympathetic; he has no definitions,
but he is commanded in nature, by the living power
which he feels to be there present. No imitation or
playing of these things would content him; he loves
the earnest of the north wind, of rain, of stone, and
wood, and iron. A beauty not explicable is dearer than
a beauty which we can see to the end of. It is nature