"Enter these enchanted woods,
You who dare.
Nothing harms beneath the leaves
More than waves a swimmer cleaves.
Toss your heart up with the lark,
Foot at peace with mouse and worm,
Fair you fare,
Only at a dread of dark
Quaver, and they quit their form:
Thousand eyeballs under hoods
Have you by the hair.
Enter these enchanted woods,
You who dare."
So to understand Nature you must trust her, otherwise she will remain at
heart fearsome and cryptic.
"You must love the light so well
That no darkness will seem fell;
Love it so you could accost
Fellowly a livid ghost."
Mr. Meredith requires us to approach Nature with an unswerving faith in
her goodness.
No easy thing assuredly; and to some minds this attitude will express a
facile optimism. Approve it or reject it, however, as we may, 'tis a
philosophy that can claim many and diverse adherents, for it is no dusty
formula of academic thought, but a message of the sunshine and the winds.
Talk of suffering and death to the Vagabond, and he will reply as did
Petulengro, "Life is sweet, brother." Not that he ignores other matters,
but it is sufficient for him that "life is sweet." And after all he
speaks as to what he has known.
V
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
"Choice word and measured phrase above the reach
Of ordinary man."
WORDSWORTH (_Revolution and Independence_).
"Variety's the very spice of life
That gives it all its flavour."