from every tree in the breeze which swept the glade,
tossed in their faces a fragrant snow of blossoms and glittering drops
of perfumed dew.' It is thus that, like the oyster that conceals its
scar beneath a pearl, Nature heals her wounds with loveliness. She
gets over things.

And so do we. For, after all, the world about us is but a shadow, a
transitory and flickering shadow, of the actual and greater world
within us. Yes, the incomparably greater world within us; for what is
a world of grass and granite compared with a world of blood and tears?
What is the cleaving of an Alp compared with the breaking of a heart?
What is the sweep of a tornado, the roar of a prairie-fire, or the
booming thunder of an avalanche, compared with the cry of a child in
pain?' All visible things,' as Carlyle has taught us, 'are emblems.
What thou seest is not there on its own account; strictly speaking is
not there at all. Matter exists only spiritually, and to represent
some idea and body it forth.' The soul is liable to great volcanic
processes. There come to it tragic and tremendous hours when all its
depths are broken up, all its landmarks shattered, and all its streams
turned rudely back. For weal or for woe everything is suddenly and
strangely changed. Amidst the crash of ruin and the loss of all, the
soul sobs out its pitiful lament. 'Everything has gone!' it cries. 'I
can never be the same again! I can never get over it!' But Time is a
great healer. His touch is so gentle that the poor patient is not
conscious of its pressure. The days pass, and the weeks, and the
months, and the years. Like the trees that start from the rocky faces,
and the ferns that creep out of every cranny in the ruined horizon, new
interests steal imperceptibly into life. There come new faces, new
loves, new thoughts, and new sympathies. The heart responds to fresh
influences and bravely declines to die. And whilst the days that are
dead are embalmed in costliest spices, and lie in the most holy place
of the temple of memory, the soul discovers with surprise that it has
surmounted the cruel shock of earlier shipwreck, and can once more
greet the sea.

I am writing in days of war. The situation is without precedent. A
dozen nations are in death-grips with each other. Twenty million men
are in the field. Every hour brings us news of ships that have been
sunk, regiments that have been annihilated, thousands of brave men who
have been sl