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and my own body, must be ranked under this name, NATURE. In enumerating the values of nature and casting up their sum, I shall use the word in both senses;-in its common and in its philosophical import. In inquiries so general as our present one, the inaccuracy is not material; no confusion of thought will occur. Nature, in the common sense, refers to essences unchanged by man; space, the air, the river, the leaf. Art is applied to the mixture of his will with the same things, as in a house, a canal, a statue, a picture. But his operations taken together are so insignificant, a little chipping, baking, patching, and washing, that in an impression so grand as that of the world on the human mind, they do not vary the result.

NATURE

I

go into solitude, a man needs to retire

Tas much from his chamber as from soci

ety. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds will separate between him and what he touches. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Na

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ture never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood.

When we speak of nature in this manner, we have a distinct but most poetical sense in the mind. We mean the integrity of impression made by manifold natural objects. It is this which distinguishes the stick of timber of the wood-cutter from the tree of the poet. The charming landscape which I saw this morning is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet. This is the best part of these men's farms, yet to this their warranty-deeds give no title.

To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child.

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The lover of nature is he whose inward and
outward senses are still truly adjusted to each
other; who has retained the spirit of infancy-Y
even into the era of manhood. His intercourse
with heaven and earth becomes part of his daily –
food. In the presence of nature a wild delight
runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows.
Nature says, he is my creature, and maugre
all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with
me. Not the sun or the summer alone, but
every hour and season yields its tribute of de-
light; for every hour and change corresponds to
and authorizes a different state of the mind, from
breathless noon to grimmest midnight. Nature
is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a
mourning piece.3 In good health, the air is a
cordial of incredible virtue. Crossing a bare
common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a
clouded sky, without having in my thoughts
any occurrence of special good fortune, I have
enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the
brink of fear. In the woods, too, a man casts
off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what
period soever of life is always a child. In the
woods is perpetual youth. Within these planta-
tions of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a
perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees

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