lds,
every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall
never be seen again. The heavens change every moment, and reflect
their glory or gloom on the plains beneath. The state of the crop in
the surrounding farms alters the expression of the earth from week
to week. The succession of native plants in the pastures and
roadsides, which makes the silent clock by which time tells the
summer hours, will make even the divisions of the day sensible to a
keen observer. The tribes of birds and insects, like the plants
punctual to their time, follow each other, and the year has room for
all. By water-courses, the variety is greater. In July, the blue
pontederia or pickerel-weed blooms in large beds in the shallow
parts of our pleasant river, and swarms with yellow butterflies in
continual motion. Art cannot rival this pomp of purple and gold.
Indeed the river is a perpetual gala, and boasts each month a new
ornament.

But this beauty of Nature which is seen and felt as beauty, is the
least part. The shows of day, the dewy morning, the rainbow,
mountains, orchards in blossom, stars, moonlight, shadows in still
water, and the like, if too eagerly hunted, become shows merely, and
mock us with their unreality. Go out of the house to see the moon,
and 't is mere tinsel; it will not please as when its light shines upon
your necessary journey. The beauty that shimmers in the yellow
afternoons of October, who ever could clutch it? Go forth to find it,
and it is gone: 't is only a mirage as you look from the windows of
diligence.

2. The presence of a higher, namely, of the spiritual element is
essential to its perfection. The high and divine beauty which can be
loved without effeminacy, is that which is found in combination
with the human will. Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue. Every
natural action is graceful. Every heroic act is also decent, and causes
the place and the bystanders to shine. We are taught by great actions
that the universe is the property of every individual in it. Every
rational creature has all nature for his dowry and estate. It is his, if
he will. He may divest himself of it; he may creep into a corner, and
abdicate his kingdom, as most men do, but he is entitled to the world
by his constitution. In proportion to the energy of his thought and
will, he takes up the world into himself. "All those things for which
men plough, build, or sail, obey virtue;" said Sallust. "The winds
and waves,"