melike relations. Here, on still summer afternoons, one
seems to have come upon a sleeping world; a world over whose slumber
the clouds are passing like peaceful dreams. In such an hour the
limpid water of the spring seems to rise out of the very heart of the
earth, and to bring with it an unfailing refreshment of spirit. The
white sand through which it finds its way makes its transparent
clearness more apparent, and the great stone seems to hold back the
woods from an approach that would overshadow it. It rises so silently
into the visible world from the unseen depths that one cannot but feel
some illusion of sentiment thrown over it, some disclosure of truth
escaping with it from the darkness beneath. Whence does it flow, and
what has its journey been? Did some remote mountain range gather its
waters from the clouds and send them down through long and winding
channels deep in its heart? Is there far below an invisible stream
flowing, like the river Alphaeus, unseen and unheard beneath the earth?
The spring is mute when these questions rise to lips which it is always
ready to moisten from its cool depths. It is enough that in this quiet
place the bounty of Nature never ceases to overflow, and that here she
holds out the cup of refreshment with royal indifference to gratitude
or neglect. Here she ministers to every comer as if her whole life
were a service. One forgets that behind this cup of cold water, held
out to the humblest, there sweep sublime powers, and that the same hand
which serves him here moves in their courses the planets, whose faint
reflections shine in this silent pool by night.

Springs have been natural centres of life from the earliest times.
Deep in the solitude of forests, or fringed with foliage in the heart
of deserts, they have alike served the needs and appealed to the
sentiment of men. Around the wells cluster the most venerable
associations of the ancient patriarchal families; the beautiful
pastoral life of the Old Testament, full of deep, unwritten poetry,
discovers no scenes more characteristic and touching than those which
were enacted beside these sources of fertility. Green and fruitful in
the memory of the most sacred history repose these cool, refreshing
pools under the burning glance of the tropical sun. Here, too, as in
those distant lands, life is kept in constant freshness around the
borders of the spring. The grass grows green and dense here the whole
summer through,