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Nature has given to the light of day.
- One feels so secure, and so much more courageous,-
- one would gladly, at need, take a bull by the horns.-
- What a stillness all round! Ah, the joys of Nature,-
- strange enough I should never have prized them before.
- Why go and imprison oneself in a city,
- for no end but just to be bored by the mob.-
- just look how the lizards are whisking about,
- snapping, and thinking of nothing at all.
- What innocence ev'n in the life of the beasts!
- Each fulfils the Creator's behest unimpeachably,
- preserving its own special stamp undefaced;
- is itself, is itself, both in sport and in strife,
- itself, as it was at his primal: Be!
- [Puts on his eye-glasses.]
- A toad. In the middle of a sandstone block.
- Petrifaction all round him. His head alone peering.
- There he's sitting and gazing as though through a window
- at the world, and is-to himself enough.-
- [Reflectively.]
- Enough? To himself-? Where is it that's written?
- I've read it, in youth, in some so-called classic.
- In the family prayer-book? Or Solomon's Proverbs?
- Alas, I notice that, year by year,
- my memory for dates and for places is fading.
- [Seats himself in the shade.]
- Here's a cool spot to rest and to stretch out one's feet.
- Why,