The daisy brightening in the shadow of the hedgerow, or strewing
the fields as with golden flakes; the trees spreading their
whispering roof of tremulous foliage, or holding against the
blast their rugged arms, inlocked with a trunk deep-set and
rooted; brooks, lapsing or leaping from their summit springs;
the ocean, which takes these to itself, without an added ripple
on its bays, or an increase of its tides; all sounds, of mirth,
or suffering, or fear; the drowsy hum of multitudinous insects;
the arrowy song of birds, swifter than wings, aspiring to the
skies; all forms and tones of human life; the immeasurable
azure which is over us everywhere, brilliant with stars, or
flecked with clouds, or made the blue and boundless realm of
the victorious sun--all these, and all the visible system which
these but partly represent, the soul perceives. It goes out to
them, in its observant, inspecting glance. It meets and hears
them, if they are vocal, with its attent sense. It apprehends
them all, arranges them in their natural and obvious order,
assigns to each its place and service, and lives amid them as in
a home reared for it and furnitured at the commencement of its
being.--RICHARD S. STORRS.
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