i, p. 72.
--
"In the sweet old stories of ascetics who by living pure and simple lives
in the woods came to understand the secrets of Nature,
the conversation of trees, the talk of birds, do we not find
but the shadows of this modern communion with Nature to keep ourselves
simple and pure, to cultivate our moral sense up to that point of insight
that we see all Nature alive with energy, that we hear the whole earth
singing like a flock of birds, yet so that we remember Death with Mr. Darwin,
so that nothing is any more commonplace, so that death has its place
and life its place, so that even a hasty business walk along the street
to pay a bill is a walk in fairyland amidst unutterable wonders
as long as the sky is above and the trees in sight, -- in other words,
to be natural . . . natural in our art, natural in our dress,
natural in our behavior, natural in our affections, -- is not that
a modern consummation of culture? For to him who rightly understands Nature
she is even more than Ariel and Ceres to Prospero; she is more than a servant
conquered like Caliban, to fetch wood for us: she is a friend and comforter;
and to that man the cares of the world are but a fabulous
`Midsummer Night's Dream', to smile at -- he is ever in sight of the morning
and in hand-reach of God."*
--
* `Shakspere and His Forerunners', vol. i, p. 73.
--
The lectures close, as they began, with an estimate of the value of the poet
to the world and with a word of greeting to his audience: --
"Just as our little spheres of activity in life surely combine
into some greater form or purpose which none of us dream of,
and which no one can see save some unearthly spectator
that stands afar off in space and looks upon the whole of things, --
I was impressed anew with the fact that it is the poet
who must get up to this point and stand off in thought
at the great distance of the ideal, look upon the complex swarm of purposes
as upon these dancing gnats, and find out for man the final form and purpose
of man's life.
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