cene. Nature has her tempests, but her harvests are gathered amid the
calm of days that often seem filled with the peace of heaven, and the
mighty and irresistible movement of her life goes on in unbroken
silence. The deepest thoughts are always tranquillising, the greatest
minds are always full of calm, the richest lives have always at heart
an unshaken repose.

Chapter XVIII

Eventide

When the shadows lengthen and the landscape becomes indistinct, the
common life of men seems to touch the life of Nature most closely and
sympathetically. The work of the day is accomplished; the sense of
things to be done loses its painful tension; the mind, freed from the
cares which engrossed it, opens unconsciously to the sights and sounds
of the quiet hour. The fields are given over to silence and the
gathering darkness; the roads cease to be thoroughfares of toil; and
over all things the peace of night settles like an unspoken
benediction. To the most preoccupied there comes a consciousness that
the world has changed, and that, while the old framework remains
intact, a strange and transforming beauty has touched and spiritualised
it. At eventide one feels the soul of Nature as at no other hour. Her
labours have ceased, her birds are silent; she, too, rests, and in
ceasing to do for us she gives us herself. One by one the silvery
points of light break out of the darkness overhead, and the faithful
stars look down on the little earth they have watched over these
countless years. The very names they bear recall the vanished races
who waited for their appearing and counted them friends. Now that the
lamps are lighted and the work of the day is done, is it strange that
the venerable mother, whose lullabies have soothed so many generations
into sleep, should herself appeal to us in some intimate and personal
way?

With the fading out of shore and sea and forest line something deeper
and more spiritual rises in the soul as the mists rise on the lowlands
and over the surface of the waters. We surrender ourselves to it
silently, reverently, and a change no less subtle and penetrating is
wrought in us. Our personal ambitions, the sharply defined aims of our
working hours, the very limitations of our individuality, are gone; we
lose ourselves in the larger life of which we are part. After the fret
of the day we surrender ourselves to universal life as the bather, worn
and spent, gives himself to the sea. There is no