uts clean through the Himalaya and, turning westward, also joins
the Ganges.

In the whole world no more wonderful natural scenery is to be found.
And the eagle with no unusual effort could see it all in a single day,
and see it with a distinctness of sight no man could equal. But keen
though its eyesight was and wide though its range, the eagle in all
that beautiful region would see not a single beauty. Neither in the
sunrise, nor in the snowy mountains, nor in the luxuriant tropical
forest, nor in the flowers, the birds, the butterflies, nor in the people
and animals, nor in the cataracts and precipices would it see any
beauty whatever. The mountain would be to it a mere outline, the
forests a patch of green, the rivers streaks of white, the animals just
possible items of food. The eagle would see much, but it would see
no beauty.

Perhaps we shall understand why it is that the eagle with these
unbounded opportunities sees no beauty if we consider the case of a
little midge buzzing round a man's body. The midge is roughly in
about the same relation to the body of a man that the eagle is to the
body of the Earth. The midge in its hoverings sees vast tracts of the
human body; sees the features--the nose, the eye, the mouth; sees the
trunk and the limbs and the head. But even in the most beautiful of
men it would see no beauty. And it would see no beauty because it
would have no soul to understand expression. It might be hovering
round the features of a man when the smile on his lips and the
exaltation in his eyes were expressive of the highest ecstasy of soul,
but the midge would see no beauty in those features because it had
not the soul to enter into the soul of the man and understand the
expression on his face. All the little shades and gradations and tones
and lights in the features of the man would be quite meaningless to
the midge because it would know nothing of the man's soul, of
which the features and the changes and variations in them were the
outward manifestation. The midge would know nothing of the
reality of the man which lay hidden behind the appearance.

It is the same with the eagle in respect to natural features as it is with
the midge in respect to the features of the man. The eagle sees only
the bare outward appearance of Nature, and sees no meaning in her
features. It has no soul to enter into the soul of Nature and
understand what the natural features are expressing. The delicate
lights and sha