ion of the true
mystic, declared that when he was asked if he saw anything more in a
sunset than a round disk of fire, he could only answer that he saw an
innumerable company of the heavenly host crying "Holy, Holy, Holy Lord
God Almighty!" The birth of a day is a diviner miracle even than its
death. They were true poets who wrote the old Vedic hymns and sang
those wonderful adorations when the last stars were fading in the
splendour of the dawn. Beside the glory of the sun's announcement all
royal progresses are tawdry and mean; beside the beauty of the dawn,
slowly unveiling the day while the heavens wait in silent worship, all
poetry is idle and empty. It is the divinest of all the visible
processes of Nature, and the sublimest of all her marvellous symbolism.

On such a morning as this, twelve years ago, Amiel wrote in his diary:
"The whole atmosphere has a luminous serenity, a limpid clearness. The
islands are like swans swimming in a golden stream. Peace, splendour,
boundless space! . . . I long to catch the wild bird, happiness, and
tame it. These mornings impress me indescribably. They intoxicate me,
they carry me away. I feel beguiled out of myself, dissolved in
sunbeams, breezes, perfumes, and sudden impulses of joy. And yet all
the time I pine for I know not what intangible Eden." In these few
words this master of poetic meditation suggests without expressing the
indescribable impression which a summer carries into every sensitive
nature.

Last night the world was sorrowful, worn, and dulled; but lo! the new
day has but touched it and all the invisible choirs are heard again;
the old hope returns like a tide, and out of the unseen depths a new
life breaks soundless upon the unseen shores and sends its hidden
currents into every dried and empty channel and pool. The worn old
world has been created anew, and God has spoken again the word out of
which all living things grow. In the silence and peace and freshness
of this morning hour one feels the inspiration of nature as a direct
and personal gift; the inbreathing, which has renewed the beauty and
fertility about him, renews his spirit also. He responds to the fresh
and invigorating atmosphere with a soul sensitive with sudden return of
zest to every beautiful sight and sound. No longer an alien in this
world which has never known human care and regret, he enters by right
of citizenship into all its privileges of unwatched freedom and
uncloude