would have liked to talk to the woman in the kitchen who was peering
out of the window in amazement, but I decided it would be better to
jog on and not waste time. The farmer and I exchanged friendly
salutes, and Parnassus rumbled on.

The morning was so lovely that I did not feel talkative, and as the
Professor seemed pensive I said nothing. But as Peg plodded slowly
up a gentle slope he suddenly pulled a book out of his pocket and
began to read aloud. I was watching the river, and did not turn
round, but listened carefully:


"Rolling cloud, volleying wind, and wheeling sun--the blue
tabernacle of sky, the circle of the seasons, the sparkling
multitude of the stars--all these are surely part of one rhythmic,
mystic whole. Everywhere, as we go about our small business, we
must discern the fingerprints of the gigantic plan, the orderly and
inexorable routine with neither beginning nor end, in which death
is but a preface to another birth, and birth the certain forerunner
of another death. We human beings are as powerless to conceive the
motive or the moral of it all as the dog is powerless to understand
the reasoning in his master's mind. He sees the master's acts,
benevolent or malevolent, and wags his tail. But the master's acts
are always inscrutable to him. And so with us.

"And therefore, brethren, let us take the road with a light heart.
Let us praise the bronze of the leaves and the crash of the surf
while we have eyes to see and ears to hear. An honest amazement at
the unspeakable beauties of the world is a comely posture for the
scholar. Let us all be scholars under Mother Nature's eye.