contradictions in nature and life by which the soul is sooner or later
paralyzed or at least bewildered.

And so his outlook upon the universe was serene and untroubled. As he
stood there in the deepening twilight he differed from the child who had
approached him in this, that while the boy reveled in the beauty around
him because he did not try to comprehend it, the youth was intoxicated
by the belief that he possessed the clue to all these mysteries, and had
a working theory of all the phenomena in the natural and spiritual world
in which he moved. To such mystical natures this confidence is
unavoidable anywhere through the period of the pride of adolescence; but
it was heightened in this case by the simplicity of life's problems in
this narrow valley, and in the provincial little village which was the
metropolis of this sparsely settled region. To him "the cackle of that
bourg was the murmur of the world," and his theories of a life lacking
the complexities of larger aggregations of men seemed adequate, because
he had never seen them thoroughly tested, to meet every emergency
arising for reflection or endeavor. In this mental attitude of serene
and undisturbed confidence that he knew the real meaning of existence,
and was in constant contact with the divine mind through knowledge or
through vision, every avenue of his spirit was open to the influences of
nature. Through all that gorgeous day of May he had been drawing these
influences into his being as the vegetation drew in light and moisture,
until his soul was drenched through and through, and at that perfect
hour of dusk, when the flowers and grasses exhaled the gifts they had
received from heaven and earth in a richer, finer perfume like an
evening oblation, the young dreamer was also rendering back those gifts
bestowed by heaven in an incense of purest thought and aspiration. It
was one of those hours that come occasionally in that sublime period of
unshattered ideals and unsullied faith, for which Pharaoh and Caesar
would have exchanged their thrones, Croesus and Lucullus bartered their
wealth, Solomon and Aristotle forgotten their learning.

Every imaginative youth who has been reared in pure surroundings
experiences over again in these rare and radiant hours all the bliss
that Adam knew in Eden. To his joyous, eager spirit, the world appears a
new creation fresh from the hand of God. He hears its author walking in
the garden at eventide, and murmuring: "Beh