ect. A marriage takes
place. Our soul is wedded to the soul of the natural object. And at
the very moment of wedding Beauty is born. It springs from Love,
just as Love itself originally sprang from the wedding of primitive
man and woman.

In this process all will depend upon the mood. If we are not in the
mood for it, we are unreceptive of Nature's impressions, and we are
irresponsive. We do not come into touch with Nature. Consequently
we see no Beauty. But if we are in a sensitive and receptive mood, if
our minds are not preoccupied, and if our soul is open to the
impressions which Nature is ever raining on it, then we respond to
Nature's appeal. We feel ourselves in tune with her. We come into
communion with her, and we see Beauty.

If we are ourselves feeling sad and sorrowful when we look out on
Nature, and there all should happen to be bright and gay, we shall
feel out of harmony with Nature, we shall not feel in touch with her,
and we shall not see Beauty.

On the other hand, when we are in a glad and overflowing mood we
shall be extraordinarily responsive to Nature's appeal, and see
Beauty in a rugged, leafless oak tree or a poor old woman at the
corner of some mean street. And if when we are in such a mood
Nature happens to be at her best and brightest, as on some spring
morning, the Beauty we shall then see will be overpowering, and we
shall scarcely be able to contain ourselves for ecstasy of joy.

We shall have discovered an identity between what is in Nature and
what is in us. In looking on Nature, we shall have been introduced
into a Presence, greater than ourselves but like ourselves, which stirs
in us this which we feel. When we see Beauty in Nature we are
discovering that Nature is not merely a body, but _has_ or _is_ a
soul. And the joy we feel is produced by the satisfaction our soul
feels in coming into touch and harmony with this soul of Nature.
Our soul is recognising samenesses between what is in it and what is
in the soul of Nature, and feels joy in the recognition.

And the instinct of fellowship with our kind impels us to
communicate to others what we ourselves have felt. We want to tell
others what we have seen and what we have experienced.

We long, too, to share the joy which others also must have felt in
contemplating Nature. We want especially to know and feel what
those with far more sensitive souls than our own--the great poets,
painters, and musicians--have felt. So we communica