280 s'(i'ccr:s.s.

faint, fainter, and infinitely faintest voices and vis-
ions. lYhen the scholar or the writer has pumped
his brain for thoughts and verses, and then comes
abroad into Nature, has he never found that there
is a better poetry hinted in a boy's whistle of a
tune. or in the piping of a sparrow. than in all
his literary results I’ “Ye call it health. “ihat is
so zulmirable as the health of youth? —with his
long‘ days because his eyes are good, and brisk cir-
culations keep him warm in cold rooms, and he
loves books that speak to the imagination ; and he
can read Plato, covered to his chin with a cloak in
a cold upper chamber, though he should associate
the Dialogiles ever after with a Woollen smell. ’Tis
the bane of life that natural effects are continually
crowdc(l out, and zirtificial arrangements substi-
tuted. ‘Ye renleniber when i11 early youth the
earth spoke and the heavens glow/ed: when a11
evening‘, any’ evening‘, grim and wintruy, sleet and
snow, was enough for us; the houses were in the
air. Now it costs a rare combination of clouds
and lights to overcome the common and mean.
“hat is it we look for in the landscape, in sunsets
and sunrises, in the sea and the firmalnent ? what
but a compensation for the (Talnl) and pettiness of
human performances I’ “'0 bask i11 the (lay, and
the mind finds somewhat as great as itself. ln N a-
ture all is large massive repose. Re1ne1nl>ei' what