the field" said long ago One whom we profess to follow as our Guide
and Master. And a quiet receptiveness, an openness of eye, a simple
readiness to take in these gentle impressions is, I believe with
all my heart, of the essence of true wisdom. We have all of us our
work to do in the world; but we have our lesson to learn as well.
The man with the muck-rake in the old parable, who raked together
the straws and the dust of the street, was faithful enough if he
was set to do that lowly work; but had he only cared to look up,
had he only had a moment's leisure, he would have seen that the
celestial crown hung close above his head, and within reach of his
forgetful hand.

There is a well-known passage in a brilliant modern satire, where a
trenchant satirist declares that he has tracked all human emotions
to their lair, and has discovered that they all consist of some
dilution of primal and degrading instincts. But the pure and
passionless love of natural beauty can have nothing that is
acquisitive or reproductive about it. There is no physical instinct
to which it can be referred; it arouses no sense of proprietorship;
it cannot be connected with any impulse for self-preservation. If
it were merely aroused by tranquil, comfortable amenities of scene,
it might be referable to the general sense of well-being, and of
contented life under pleasant conditions. But it is aroused just as
strongly by prospects that are inimical to life and comfort,
lashing storms, inaccessible peaks, desolate moors, wild sunsets,
foaming seas. It is a sense of wonder, of mystery; it arouses a
strange and yearning desire for we know not what; very often a rich
melancholy attends it, which is yet not painful or sorrowful, but
heightens and intensifies the significance, the value of life. I do
not know how to interpret it, but it seems to me to be a call from