ned by
those whom circumstances favor, but by those whom will impels onward to
exercise of mind; whom neither daily wants, nor animal appetites, nor
hope of gain, nor low ambition, nor sneers of worldlings, nor prayers of
friends, nor aught else can turn from the pursuit of wisdom; who, with
ceaseless labor and with patient thought, eat their way in silence, like
caterpillars, to the light, become their own companions, walk uplifted
by their own thoughts, and by slow and imperceptible processes are
transformed and grow to be the embodiment of the truth and beauty which
they see and love.

The overmastering love of mental exercise, of the good of the intellect,
is probably never found in formal and prosaic minds; or if so, its first
awakening is in the early years when to think is to feel, when the soul,
fresh from God, comes trailing clouds of glory, and the sun and moon and
stars, and the hills and flowing waters seem but made to crown with joy
hearts that love. It is in these dewy dawns that the image of beauty is
imprinted on the soul and the sense of mystery awakens. We move about
and become a part of all we see, grow akin to stones and leaves and
birds, and to all young and happy things. We lose ourselves in life
which is poured round us like an unending sea; are natural, healthful,
alive to all we see and touch; have no misgivings, but walk as though
the eternal God held us by the hand. These are the fair spring days when
we suck honey that shall nourish us in the winters of which we do not
dream; when sunsets interfuse themselves with all our being until we are
dyed in the many-tinted glory; when the miracle of the changing year is
the soul's fair seed-time; when lying in the grass, the head resting in
clasped hands, while soft white clouds float lazily through azure skies,
and the birds warble, and the waters murmur, and the flowers breathe
fragrance, we feel a kind of unconscious consciousness of a universal
life in Nature. The very rocks seem to be listening to what the leaves
whisper; and through the silent eternities we almost see the dead
becoming the living, the living the dead, until both grow to be one, and
whatever is, is life.

He who has never had these visions; has never heard these airy voices;
has never seemed about to catch a glimpse of the inner heart of being,
pulsing beneath the veil of visible things; has never felt that he
himself is a spirit looking blindly on a universe, which if his eyes