Many of life’s hidden mysteries would be clear to us, if we could see
them as God does--from above.
Many times aeronauts, carried out to sea, have made this curious
observation: the higher they are, the more pellucid the water
seems, enabling them to see, more and more clearly, the bottom,
with its rocks and seaweed. In crossing the English Channel,
which is not very deep, especially near Calais, the bottom may
be easily seen, and a submarine could be followed there in all
its evolutions. (Text.)--ERNEST CONSTET, _Revue
Scientifique_.
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* * * * *
I remember an old woodsman in the Adirondack forest who used to
say that he wanted to go to the top of a certain mountain as
often as his legs would carry him because it gave him such a
feeling of “heaven-up-histedness.” That is an uncouth, humble,
eloquent phrase to describe the function of a great literature.
Unless above himself he can Erect himself, how mean a thing is
man!
I want the books that help me out of the vacancy and despair of
a frivolous mind, out of the tangle and confusion of a society
that is busied in bric-a-brac, out of the meanness of unfeeling
mockery and the heaviness of incessant mirth, into a higher and
serener region, where through the clear air of serious thoughts
I can learn to look soberly and bravely upon the mingled misery
and splendor of human existence, and then go down with a
cheerful courage to play a man’s part in the life which Christ
has forever ennobled by His divine presence. (Text.)--HENRY
VAN DYKE, _The British Weekly_.
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