The writers who go directly to life and Nature for their material are,
in every age, few compared with the great number that go to the
libraries and lecture-halls, and sustain only a second-hand relation to
the primary sources of inspiration. They cannot go directly to the
fountain-head, but depend upon those who can and do. They are like those
forms of vegetation, the mushrooms, that have no chlorophyll, and hence
cannot get their food from the primary sources, the carbonic acid in the
air; they must draw it from the remains of plants that did get it at
first-hand from Nature. Chlorophyll is the miracle-worker of the
vegetable world; it makes the solar power available for life. It is in
direct and original relation to the sun. It also makes animal life
possible. The plant can go to inorganic nature and through its
chlorophyll can draw the sustenance from it. We must go to the plant,
or to the animal that went to the plant, for our sustenance.
The secondary men go to books and creeds and institutions for their
religion, but the original men, having the divine chlorophyll, go to
Nature herself. The stars in their courses teach them. The earth
inspires them.