THE PATH OF VISION
III
MINE OWN COUNTRY
EVEN to one who loves her and accepts
the rigor of her economy as part of
her lasting reward, nature is not everywhere
in a communicable mood, nor is she
always the same. Her disposition often
changes with our own; her appeal seldom
reaches the discordant heart. Her inner
voice is never heard by the passing stranger.
To say that we love nature only when we
take the pains to understand her, is trite;
but we can only partly understand her
when we suffer her to impose upon us her
supreme will. She unveils for those who
linger and wait; and she speaks only to
him who stands in reverence before a moss
or a fern as before the greatest of the
mysteries of the universe. A bird is singing
in the branches of a hemlock; a worm
is eating into its bark. The ranger passes
by indifferent to both, nothing seeing or
hearing. But the poet-naturalist lingers,
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