A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 fe«?5s£? ™>\%*«S};- uHlKKrSRt'' 
 
 AMILTON WRIGHT MABIE 
 
Class _TS>31l£3_ 
 
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 Book ^s_a_\ 
 
 Copyright N° 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
A CHILD OF NATURK 
 
•4\ Mi 
 
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 BOOKS BY MR. MABIE 
 
 My Study Fire 
 
 My Study Fire, Second Series 
 
 Under the Trees and Elsewhere 
 
 Short Studies in Literature 
 
 Essays in Literary Interpretation 
 
 Essays on Nature and Culture 
 
 Books and Culture 
 
 Essays on Work and Culture 
 
 The Life of the Spirit 
 
 In the Forest of Arden 
 
 Norse Stories 
 
 William Shakespeare 
 
 A Child of Nature 
 
 :•& M 
 
 w 
 
 

 A Child of 
 Nature 
 
 By 
 Hamilton Wright Mabie 
 
 With Illustrations an J 
 Ihcorations 
 
 Charles Louis Hinton 
 
 ■ •• • 
 
First Edition published October, /go/ 
 
 Copyright, igoi 
 
 By Dodd, Mead and Company, in the Bookman 
 
 as John Foster 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS . JOHN WILSON 
 AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF 
 CONGRESS, 
 
 Two Cohe3 Received 
 
 QCT, .U . 1.90.1. 
 
 cCOPVRICWTc BNTR* 
 
 CLASS CL/ XXc No. 
 
 '••ntix-:'] 
 

 
 ro 
 
 
 
 
 J. 
 
 B. H 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 A. 
 
 I.. B 
 
 • 
 
 
 AND TO 
 
 THOSE 
 
 WHO 
 
 l \\ 
 
 GONE 
 
 in ro nil. WORLD or 
 
 
 
 LIGHT*' 
 
 
 
*3 
 
 •.. \'>" ,;V:V;.\ 
 
 no sir ©f owLysraATrooiNis 
 
 Pagk 
 
 u The delicate melodies whieh are 
 
 borne on summer airs through 
 
 tin- paths of tlu- woods," Frontispiece 
 
 "Truth and beaut) bearing a new 
 flower on the ancient stem of 
 time" 40 
 
 "The madness and the gladm 
 in tin- foaming cup which life 
 
 holds to its lips" . 
 
 M It would hav< seemed as if 
 nature missed a familiar pres- 
 ence " 
 
 64 
 
 100 
 
I 
 
 My Heart leaps up when I behold 
 A Rainbow in the sky : 
 
 So was it when my life began ; 
 So is it now I am a Man ; 
 
 So be it when I shall grow old, 
 
 Or let me die ! 
 The Child is Father of the Man ; 
 And I could wish my days to be 
 Bound each to each by natural pief,. 
 
 
1 
 
CHILDft 
 OF NATURE 
 
 
 I 
 
 IT was late in April when John 
 Foster's life, long sinking, like 
 a flickering flame, suddenly 
 went out. He was not an old 
 man so far as years went, hut he 
 had lived his life as completely as 
 if his three-score had been length- 
 ened into four-score years and ten. 
 Those who knew him best, and 
 they were few, had marked a sud- 
 den change not long before ; a re- 
 laxation of purpose in a face that 
 had always reflected the man's 
 
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 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 mind and heart swiftly and un- 
 erringly. The quietude and ac- 
 quiescence that followed a lifelong 
 intensity of expression meant no 
 surrender, but rather a fulfilment 
 of purpose ; the concentration of 
 nature was no longer necessary ; and 
 the bow, long bent, sprung swiftly 
 back. The neighbours, as they 
 went silently into the darkened 
 room, were awed by the victorious 
 calm which touched the rugged 
 features with something of supernal 
 beauty. The face had been full of 
 an inscrutable meaning, but it had 
 never before borne such an expres- 
 sion not only of quiet acceptance, 
 but of final peace. 
 Some of the older men, hard-handed 
 
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 and hard-minded tanners, whose 
 life had been an unbroken struggle 
 with reluctant soil and uncertain 
 skies, instinctively resented the calm 
 assurance ot success which rested 
 on John Foster's face like a deci- 
 sive judgment on his life. These 
 older men had looked askance at 
 their neighbour for half a century, 
 and they mutely protested against 
 the irrevocable reversal of their 
 judgment which the touch of death 
 had made clear beyond all question- 
 ing. To their unsympathetic glance 
 there was something almost im- 
 moral in this assumption of success 
 by one whose career had been an 
 obvious failure. There had been no 
 evil in John Foster ; the hardest of 
 
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A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
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 the dry-eyed and sober-visaged men 
 never laid any such charge at his 
 door ; but there had been a lifelong 
 disregard of the traditional wisdom 
 of the rural community, sometimes 
 breaking into fiery contempt of its 
 prudential philosophy and its toil- 
 some surrender to the hardest con- 
 ditions of its life. These men had 
 never rebelled against the stubborn 
 soil that seemed to bear nothing 
 graciously, after the manner of Na- 
 ture in kindlier climes, but had to 
 be beaten and broken into fertility. 
 There was no fellowship between 
 them and their surroundings ; there 
 was rather an unbroken conflict ; 
 Nature must master them or they 
 must master Nature, and they never 
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 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 stopped work to discuss the ques- 
 tion of alternatives. They had 
 conquered, and in the conquest 
 they found the only evidence of 
 successful living of which they 
 took knowledge. John Foster 
 scorned both the process and the 
 result ; he would live open-handed 
 and open-hearted with Nature come 
 what might, and this was the chief 
 cause of his offending. " 'Pears 
 like as if he hadn't cum out so bad 
 after all," was old Mr. Ferguson's 
 comment as he returned to his 
 neighbours in the hall, awkwardly 
 holding his rarely worn, old-fash- 
 ioned silk hat in his hand; and this 
 seemed to be the general opinion, 
 with an undercurrent of unexpressed 
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 dissent from the verdict which 
 John Foster had taken the liberty, 
 with the mighty aid of death, to 
 pronounce on his own life in defi- 
 ance of the judgment of those who 
 thought they knew him best. 
 Out of doors there was a winning 
 softness in the air, like a gentle re- 
 pentance for months of climatic 
 wrongdoing ; winter still lingered, 
 but there were signs that its icy 
 hands were loosening their grip on 
 the streams and fields. In that re- 
 mote and hilly country spring is 
 always a late comer, and it was an 
 intangible touch of colour in the 
 sky and an intangible touch of 
 softness in the atmosphere that be- 
 tokened its coming at North Hill. 
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 The near hills were still white, save 
 the hare summits, from which the 
 tierce winds had swept the snow. 
 In the distance the circle of great 
 peaks were shining as in mid- 
 winter, and the hold outlines of 
 the mountain that rose solitary 
 in the far North cut sharply into 
 the blue. 
 
 
 

was a time when meadow, grove, and streamy 
 The earthy and every common sight. 
 To me did j i 
 Apparelled in celestial light y 
 The glory and the freshness of a dream. 
 
N 
 
 II 
 
 ATURE is not often so 
 companionable to the 
 higher moods, so indifferent to 
 the lower needs, as in this noble 
 country, where the land shapes 
 itself into such sublime pictures 
 and yields so reluctantly its mod- 
 icum of grain. It was John 
 Foster's fate to be alone in his fel- 
 lowship with Nature, while all his 
 neighbours were righting the stub- 
 born fields inch by inch. It was 
 enough for him that such minis- 
 tration was made to his spirit ; he 
 was glad that Nature did not serve 
 
 [13] 
 
A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 his body too carefully ; he accepted 
 the hard fare and forgot it. as the 
 poor student forgets his poverty 
 when he finds himself at last within 
 reach of the books of which he has 
 dreamed. John Foster could not 
 remember a time when the cluster- 
 ing hills and the remote and solitary 
 mountains had not been friendly to 
 him ; they had gathered round his 
 childhood as the stars had brooded 
 over it, and both had bidden him 
 welcome and made him feel at 
 home with them. The little farm- 
 house stood on the ridge of the 
 uplands, and on either hand the 
 surrounding country lay spread out 
 like a map to the far horizons. 
 To the north and west there were 
 
 
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 long, irregular processions ot hills, 
 sweeping away in sublime disorder 
 to join their leader in the far North ; 
 to the south and east a rolling 
 country was divided by rivers and 
 dotted with villages. Few travel- 
 lers crossed the hill to the village 
 that lay a mile and more beyond, 
 and for the most part John's child- 
 hood was as solitary as if it had 
 been cast on an island in mid-seas. 
 But the boy never knew what lone- 
 liness was. The deserted road, the 
 rugged hillsides, the woodlands, 
 were populous with life; he knew 
 all their ways and had mastered 
 all their secrets. When daisies 
 were atield he was more active, 
 but frozen rivulets and drifts of 
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 snow found him hardly less happy. 
 The deepest truths often lie sleep- 
 ing in the heart of a child long 
 before he knows of their presence 
 or understands what they say to 
 him. He has subtle perceptions 
 of the world about him which 
 seem wholly of the senses, but 
 which register the first delicate 
 contacts of his spirit with Nature. 
 Nothing seems quite real to him, 
 or at least not quite complete, 
 because everything hints at some- 
 thing more wonderful and magical 
 which is to come. There were 
 days when John haunted the woods 
 and waited breathless for something 
 to happen. What he expected he 
 could not have described ; he did 
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A CHILD OF Nsl T UR E 
 
 not know ; he only knew that the 
 air was full of whispers ; that all 
 manner of secrets were being ex- 
 changed ; that there seemed to be 
 a mysterious understanding between 
 the trees, the birds, the winds, and 
 the clouds, from which he was ex- 
 cluded ; not because there was any 
 desire to shut him out, but because 
 it was impossible to make him 
 understand. 
 
 John felt himself on the most 
 friendly footing with this magical 
 world, but the thinnest of veils 
 seemed to envelop him and maki 
 
 
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 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 
 
 vision often gave the things which 
 surrounded him a touch of unreal- 
 ity ; to him as to the Prince in 
 Tennyson's charming poem : 
 
 On a sudden in the midst of men and 
 day, 
 
 And while I walk'd and talk'd as here- 
 tofore, 
 
 I seem'd to move among a world of 
 ghosts, 
 
 And feel myself the shadow of a dream. 
 
 The boy's imagination was begin- 
 ning to play its magical tricks with 
 his vision, and the most solid things 
 took on a dreamlike vagueness, and 
 the most unsubstantial became solid 
 realities. The world was the more 
 beguiling to him because it sur- 
 rounded him with mysteries instead 
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 of revealing sharp outlines and hard 
 
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 realities. It was a wonder world, 
 
 as it is to every imaginative child ; Yi/n 
 
 and he went through it with eager J/W 
 
 step, expecting every moment to 
 surprise its hidden life by sudden and 
 complete discovery. The stretches 
 of forest, the meadows, the hills, 
 the quiet places in the heart of the 
 woods, the stars moving in sublime 
 procession past his window, the 
 glowing of the day and its fading : 
 these things touched his spirit with 
 K influences so fine and sensitive that 
 
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 ening him out of the dream of 
 childhood. Of this companionship 
 with the wild things of the wood 
 and the bright things of the sky he 
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 III 
 
 THERE was another life 
 which was as plain and 
 straight as the old road which ran 
 in front of the house ; he knew 
 what it had for him to do and he 
 did it ; it never once occurred to 
 him to try to escape from it. He 
 seemed born as much a part of it 
 as of the other world of which 
 he never spoke. The life of this 
 tangible world began very early in 
 the morning and ended when the 
 light faded ; and it was filled 
 with all manner of things to be 
 done ; that miscellaneous work 
 
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 ^ CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 which falls to a boy on a farm. 
 Whenever his feet could save the 
 feet of a man, his feet made the 
 journey to the mill or the black- 
 smith's forge or the country store ; 
 whenever his hands could save a 
 man's hands, his hands did the 
 work. He was at everybody's beck 
 and call ; and he knew no higher 
 wisdom than to serve every one as 
 he could. Unconsciously he was 
 grounding himself in reality at the 
 very moment when reality was be- 
 ginning to have secondary meanings 
 for him. 
 
 His surroundings were plain to the 
 point of bareness ; for the farm was 
 niggardly in disposition ; the house 
 was full of children ; there were so 
 
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 many bodies to be fed and clothed 
 that there was little left for the 
 nurture and furnishing of the mind. 
 There was no touch of romance in 
 the work or the home ; there were 
 few books to read, and these, with 
 a single exception, had nothing to 
 say to the boy who had found that 
 another and a finer crop could be 
 taken off* the farm, if one knew 
 how to harvest it. There was little 
 in common between the world in 
 which the boy worked and the 
 world in which he lived. He passed 
 through the first in a kind of dream, 
 doing with mechanical fidelity what 
 was set as his task ; in the second 
 he was alert, eager, expectant, as if 
 a moment's inattention might cost 
 
 
 
 

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 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 him something on which his heart 
 was set. Nobody could find fault 
 with him, but nobody predicted 
 success of any kind for him ; he 
 seemed like one of that vast com- 
 pany who serve the world in silence 
 and, having had not such wages as 
 they earned, but as the world chose 
 to give them, quietly vanish and 
 are seen no more. If the boy had 
 ambitions, he never spoke of them ; 
 when a day's work was done he 
 passed on as if he never expected 
 to gain anything from it ; of the 
 future he seemed to have no 
 thought ; he paid for the right to 
 live, and having settled his account 
 with the actual, escaped at once 
 into the world where his heart was. 
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 His body was often at work while 
 his mind was at play ; for birds sang 
 over the meadows as he did his 
 chores, and over the harvest held 
 there was always the arch of the 
 sky, with room enough for a boy's 
 soul to range in and a boy's heart to 
 make its home. 
 
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 OWEVER silent and un- 
 interested he might be on 
 the farm, he was alive to the tips 
 of his ringers in the woods. The 
 moment he crossed the invisible 
 boundary into the territory of Na- 
 ture he awoke as if out of sleep ; 
 his face was full of expectancy ; his 
 eves were evervwhere; his body 
 seemed to be instinct with intelli- 
 gence, so alert was his attitude and 
 so quick were his movements. All 
 his senses, in their intentness, com- y 
 bined to develop a sixth and higher 
 sense, compounded of sight, hear- 
 
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 ing, touch, smell, taste ; which in 
 some mysterious way seemed to 
 mingle the life of the body and of 
 the spirit into one indivisible, un- 
 conscious, throbbing life ; he lived 
 not on the surface of the world, 
 where a thousand beautiful appear- 
 ances flashed upon his vision and 
 then vanished, but in the deep, 
 flowing, invisible life of Nature. 
 Like the older myth-makers, he 
 was caught up in the universal 
 movement of things and borne 
 aloft into ecstasies of vision. If he 
 had understood his own emotions 
 or been able to give them speech, 
 he would have fashioned out of his 
 dreams and the deep joys of his 
 spirit a figure as elusive, as spon- 
 
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 taneous, as mysterious as Dionysus ; 
 in whom was embodied not only 
 the ripe glow of the wine, but the 
 rreedom, the spontaneity, the leap- 
 ing vitality, the power of abandon, 
 the radiant genius of the liberated 
 imagination. All these things were 
 in his heart, slowly and dumbly 
 rising into his mind. 
 Those who saw him saw none of 
 these things ; thev saw a shy New 
 England boy, quiet, silent, intent 
 mainly on keeping out of the way. 
 There was a dawning nobility in 
 the depth of the eve, the purity 
 of the brow, the moulding of the 
 head ; but only those who were 
 looking for the signs of greatness 
 i discerned these hints and fore- 
 
 [ 3 ] [ 33 ] 
 
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 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 shadowings. In the making of a 
 poet Nature is so secretive that few 
 discover her purpose until it is ac- 
 complished. She hides her inter- 
 preters from recognition by their 
 fellows until she has so confirmed 
 them in the habit of vision that 
 neither neglect nor applause can 
 deflect or betray them. 
 
 
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 And hark ! bow blithe the Throstle sings ! 
 He, too, is no mean preacher : 
 Come forth into the light of things, 
 Let nature be sour teacher. 
 
 She has a world of reads wealth, 
 
 Our minds and hearts to bless — 
 Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health. 
 Truth breathed by cheerful/;. . 
 
 r rom a vernal wood 
 May teach j i -. re of man, 
 
 Of ■■■ ■ ,:l evil and of good, 
 I v all the sages can. 
 
m* 
 
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 O tar qo book had ever spoken 
 to John Foster. He had seen 
 a few volumes, and from one hook 
 he had heard many things ; but no 
 phrase had ever crossed the thresh- 
 old of his mind. In the little 
 ij bare meeting-house at the point 
 where the roads crossed, and from 
 which the whole world seemed 
 to spread out, he heard much 
 discussion ot' this book and fre- 
 quent appeals to it; it seemed to 
 be a Pandora's box, in which there 
 \ •• were weapons tor use against one's 
 adversaries, remedies for one's ill- 
 
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 nesses, scourges for one's sins, 
 rewards for one's virtues, and a 
 plan of things which was taken 
 apart and put together again, like 
 a vast and uninteresting puzzle. 
 Sometimes out of all this confusion 
 of sounds a word, a sentence, a pic- 
 ture, an incident suddenly came to 
 life and glowed for a moment and 
 caught the boy with a thrill so in- 
 tense that it was a pain ; and then 
 the fog of an unknown language 
 drifted in, and the glimpse of some- 
 thing human and beautiful vanished. 
 The atmosphere was lifeless, cold 
 and grey ; some vast system of 
 magic, remote, lying far apart from 
 anything he knew or felt, seemed 
 to hold possession of the little meet- 
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 ing-house, as hare, hard, untouched 
 by sun and cloud and song and fra- 
 grance as the rigid lines of the 
 building. Everything was out of 
 
 key with Nature ; the largeness, 
 the rushing life, the vast fertility, 
 the immeasurable beauty, included 
 everything except the stern, ugly 
 little structure, that seemed not 
 only to defy the elements, but to 
 scorn the loveliness and to set the 
 teeming forces of Nature at de- 
 fiance. 
 In winter the bov looked at the 
 
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 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 human making, or listened with the 
 inward ear to the faint, far murmur 
 of waters in the mountain brooks; 
 in summer, when the windows were 
 open, he seemed to hear all manner 
 of sounds beating against the walls, 
 as if Nature were trying to break 
 down the barriers and flood the 
 place with light and warmth. 
 It was a great puzzle to the boy — 
 this strange severance of the bare 
 little building from the world 
 which was so vast and beautiful, 
 this unnatural divorce of the things 
 he heard from the things he knew 
 and felt. One Sunday, while he 
 was still a child and this mystery 
 perplexed and distressed him, a 
 strange hand opened the book and 
 
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 A CHI LD OF NATUR E 
 
 a strange voice read from it. The 
 voice had in it the magic of feeling 
 and of insight ; and as it retold one 
 of those old, familiar stories which 
 hold the mystery of life and are JK&j 
 deeper than any sounding of plum- $ 
 met, suddenlv the hook came to life 
 and the walls seemed to dissolve, 
 and with a great rush of fragrance, 
 caught up from fields and woods, 
 Nature swept into the room. If 
 there had heen the stir of angels' 
 wings in the place it could not have 
 been holier than it became from 
 that hour ; for the harmony once 
 heard was never lost again. 
 When the boy went home he car- 
 ried the book into the woods, and 
 there it sang to him strange, deep 
 
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 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 harmonies of the stars, with great 
 shoutings of the seas and music of 
 birds, and all the sweet, familiar 
 melody of the fields ; and in this 
 shining world of stars and seas and 
 birds and waving grain, which 
 he knew so well, he saw strange 
 sights of men moving as in great 
 dreams or caught up in great storms 
 and swept like leaves hither and 
 thither ; and his heart was heavy 
 with the burden of the mystery of 
 life and sore with its sorrows ; and 
 the veil was lifted from his eyes, 
 and he saw men as well as Nature ; 
 not with clear sight, but in part 
 with his eyes and in part with his 
 imagination. 
 
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 That blessed moody 
 In which the burthen if the mystery, 
 
 In a- bieb the heavy and the zee . bt 
 
 .// this unintelligible world, 
 Is lightened : — that serene and blessed mood, 
 ■'• the affections gently lead us on, — 
 this corporeal fr ■ 
 tven the motion of our human b. 
 Almost suspc. ve are laid asleep 
 
 In bods, and become a living soul : 
 
 le with an eye t 
 Of harmony, and the deep power ofjos, 
 U into the Hfe 'J' things. 
 
VI 
 
 HERE are three great dis- 
 coveries in a boy's life : 
 the discovery oi Nature, the discov- 
 ery of Man, and the discovery ot 
 
 God. No man passes through 
 lite without getting glimpses of 
 all these mysterious realities, but 
 there are few to whom these deter- 
 mining tacts in experience stand 
 out with equal clearness. Some 
 have the vision of God, and are so 
 transported by it that Nature re- 
 mains almost unnoted and men are 
 seen dimly and in a dream, like 
 trees walking. Some are so enam- 
 
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 oured with the beauty of the world 
 and so penetrated by its vitality 
 that, like the fauns and dryads, they 
 are bound to the woods and fields 
 and shun the homes and haunts of 
 men, singing strange melodies, in 
 which vibrate the undertones of a 
 life hidden and obscure in glens 
 and deep woods ; and others are so 
 caught up in the movement of hu- 
 man life and so passionately sympa- 
 thetic with it that they have no 
 heart for the joy of the world and 
 no silent rapture for the vision of 
 God. To each man, according to 
 his nature, the mystery shows itself; 
 and they are few and great in whose 
 imagination all the lines of light 
 meet and blend in perfect revelation. 
 
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 A CHILD OF NA T URE 
 
 John Foster found Nature with the 
 first pure touch of a child's hand 
 and loved Nature with the sweet 
 unconsciousness o\ a child's heart. 
 It was a vast playground, into 
 which he made his way with the 
 sen^e of possession; but from the be- 
 ginning there were mysterious voices 
 calling from a distance ; there were 
 sudden pauses in the sounds of day 
 and in the silence of the night when 
 there seemed to be a presence felt, 
 but not perceived ; hidden, but not 
 unknown ; in which every visible 
 thing stirred and bloomed and lived. 
 This strange, haunting presence 
 
 ^Vr'i suddenly Hashed into his imagi- 
 nation when he heard the book 
 
 W* vend for the first time ; and when 
 
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A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 he carried it away into the heart 
 of the woods and let the light of 
 / the open sky fall on it, and heard 
 the birds singing over him as they 
 sang in the pages of the book, and 
 the faint rustle of grain borne to 
 him on the soft air as it rises into 
 sound and subsides into silence 
 again in the record of the book, he 
 knew that between the beauty and 
 truth in Nature and the beauty and 
 truth in the book there was neither 
 discord nor severance, but harmony 
 at the root and in the flower of the 
 life that climbs in Nature and finds 
 many voices in the human spirit. 
 And so he discovered the presence 
 and knew that God was in His 
 world. 
 
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 All this lay deep in the boy's heart, 
 
 but it was dim in his thought ; for 
 the real things of life rise very 
 gradually into consciousness ; they 
 
 are born in experience and slowly 
 ascend out of the deeps where the 
 soul touches the Infinite in the 
 innermost recesses oi being. The 
 
 \ child plucks the flower with a care- 
 less hand and does not know that 
 its roots are deep in the mystery of 
 the universe and that earth and sky 
 meet in its making. It is hrst a 
 rlower to the eve, and then, when its 
 wonderful relationships are under- 
 stood, it blooms again in the im- 
 agination; and it is in this second 
 
 J blooming that art gathers it fresh and tT" 
 
 S fragrant for immortal blossoming. 
 
 1 [ 4 ] [ 49 ] 
 
 ■BHsiCT;^ 
 
, the marvellous P> •., 
 The sleep I that perished in his pi 
 
 Of II ■ tlked in glory and in 
 
 Foil . plough, along the mountain-side 
 
 By tt 
 

rrm 
 
 ^J^FtiBfiSRT' 
 
 VII 
 
 JOHN FOSTER had made two 
 great discoveries without tak- 
 ing note of his journey or waking 
 out of the dream of childhood. 
 
 And now his dream began to centre 
 about the bare little schoolhouse, 
 and new figures moved in it. 
 
 There, as at home, John was silent ; 
 he did not hold himself apart, and 
 there was no touch of pride in his 
 detachment ; hut language failed 
 him ; he knew not how to speak 
 of the things in his heart, and other 
 things barely touched him. He 
 had his place in the games, but he 
 [53] 
 
 « 
 
 1 
 
 Li**V 
 
 
 
I "<k> \JtlL>'< 
 
 fjZ't 
 
 
 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 seemed to be taking a part rather 
 than playing ; the shouts, the rush, 
 the turmoil, the stir and tumult of 
 recess and holidays never penetrated 
 the quiet places where he lived. 
 The text-books were faithfully stud- 
 ied, but they left him cold ; their 
 speech was not his, nor did the 
 things they taught mean anything 
 to him. It seemed to be the way 
 of the world to know these things, 
 and so he learned them ; but they 
 neither liberated nor inspired him. 
 Various masters, competent and in- 
 competent, sat behind the little 
 table with its row of dull books, 
 but the real teacher never came 
 that way, and the boy's spirit re- 
 mained untouched. There were a 
 
 [54] 
 
y^ 
 
 A C HI L D F NA -r UR E 
 
 few books in the little library oi the 
 
 school, mostly of the kind that are 
 horn dead ; hut there were also a 
 few that lived, and it chanced that 
 one of these hooks came into the 
 
 boy's hand and thence into his 
 pocket, and was carried arield the 
 next day. He knew nothing of its 
 origin, of the man whose heart was 
 in it, of the spiritual conditions 
 
, sS>% 
 
 h£> 
 
 ■ 
 
 /-■ \ "N 
 
 ;-U> 
 
 U- 
 
 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 flash of light, a phrase seemed to 
 leap out of the book into his im- 
 agination. It was a line from 
 Burns ; one of those fine simplici- 
 ties of speech in which a deep 
 thought lies like a star in a moun- 
 tain pool. In that moment the boy 
 knew without knowing what art is 
 and means; he caught a glimpse of 
 that perfection in which spirit and 
 form dwell together in immortal 
 harmony ; truth and beauty bearing 
 a new flower on the ancient stem 
 of time There was magic in 
 the line ; the earth suddenly shone 
 with new meanings ; the boy's 
 heart danced with inward glee ; it 
 seemed as if he must break away 
 from bonds of time and place 
 [56] 
 
 L 
 
 L 
 
 
 
 
 & 
 
 
■P 
 
 m 
 
 A CH I L P l : S .IT UR 1 
 
 into some unrealised liberty ; some 
 boundless freedom wide enough tor 
 
 his soul to run at large in. The 
 glow of that hour lasted long, and 
 as fast as it began to fade was re- 
 newed by the touch of another 
 poet; for the boy had found his 
 way to the singers, and the world 
 was Hooded with music. He walked 
 on air in the ecstasy of those first 
 days of fellowship with the seers, 
 the thinkers, and the poets. The 
 fields about him seemed to spread 
 to the horizon as he ran, and they 
 were swept by gusts ot fragrance 
 from the immortal fields where the 
 vanished singers chant beyond the 
 touch of care and time ; the wood- 
 were haunted with halt-seen forms 
 
 [57] 
 
 L 
 
Ms 
 
 k 
 
 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 which the world had long banished 
 and forgotten, won back to their 
 ancient haunts by the boy's faith 
 and vision ; and the stars, as he 
 walked the lonely road at night, 
 were like swinging lamps set along 
 some great highway where the im- 
 mortals pass in majestic procession. 
 The touch of the imagination lay on 
 the whole earth like a light which 
 brings all hidden, obscure, and mys- 
 terious things to view. The boy 
 was walking by the light which 
 has shone on the path of every poet 
 since time began. The power to 
 create was not to be his, but he 
 lived in the creative mood ; the 
 wonders were all revealed to him, 
 the joy was in his heart, the rap- 
 
 [58] 
 
 •", 
 
 
 r<*'.. 
 
i§§r^ 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 *<%,, 
 
 £he$. A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 W - — : — : : 
 
 tu re in his eye ; tor a new heaven 
 
 and new earth were horn in his 
 imagination, and the morning stars 
 
 sang again the great song of be- 
 ginnings 
 
 
 
 [ 59 ] 
 
And, when it chanced 
 That pauses of deep silence mocked his skill, 
 Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung 
 Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise 
 Has carried far into his heart the voice 
 Of mountain torrents ; or the visible scene 
 Would enter unawares into his mind 
 With all its solemn imagery, its rocks, 
 Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received 
 Into the bosom of the steady lake. 
 

*<«£ 
 
 tp>v »*vr v ' VTT. v^-tTfv 
 
 MH 
 
 AS 
 
 p 
 
 •*V? 
 
 v^ 
 
 
 s 
 
 VIII 
 
 Tl I E poets sit beside the tree 
 of life, and one cannot learn 
 their songs without learning also the 
 sorrow and joy, the strife and peace, 
 the work and rest, the hate and 
 love, the loss and gain which make 
 Up the human story. 
 In the lonelv countryside the soli- 
 tary boy entered into the rich 
 experience of the race; commit- 
 ted its crimes, fought its battle-, 
 suffered its defeats, was bruised 
 by its sorrows, and borne aloft 
 on the >trong wings of its great 
 aspiration^. He looked into the 
 
 [ 63 ] 
 
 m% 
 
 "M 
 
 I ■ ' • 1; , I t< 
 
V ., 
 
 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 heart of the past through eyes 
 that had the searching insight of 
 genius behind them. The passion 
 of the race, which has borne so 
 many great spirits on mounting 
 waves of power and dragged so 
 many down to the very gates of 
 hell, encompassed him, and he un- 
 derstood for the first time what tre- 
 mendous forces contend with man 
 in the making of that personality 
 which in turn makes destiny. 
 Among all those who saw John 
 Foster in those days no one knew 
 what was moving within him, least 
 of all they of his own household ; 
 for youth is a mystery save to the 
 poets ; and its rapture, its passion, 
 its dreaming of the time that is to 
 
 [6 4 ] 
 
 j 
 
 ■ 
 

I 
 
/ CHI I. I) F A .IT U RE 
 
 1 
 
 V 
 
 H>. 
 
 \: 
 
 1 
 
 fl 
 
 he — the madness and the gladness 
 
 in the foaming cup which lite holds 
 to its lips — pass unnoted In' those 
 who live under the Name roof. 
 In silence and solitude the soul 
 comes to its own ; in silence and 
 solitude it passes through the ulti- 
 mate gate into the final mystery. 
 Hut there was no sense of loneli- 
 ness in the hoy's life in those 
 days when he was discovering what 
 i- in men, and striving to rind 
 how this knowledge was one with 
 the knowledge of Nature and of 
 God. He was swept out himself 
 by the tides of emotion, impulse 
 and vitality from the Infinite which 
 flowed in upon him as the sea 
 corner sweeping in upon the land. 
 [ 5 ] [ 6 S ] 
 
jL^mi^ 
 
 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 He lacked near companionship, but 
 he was making friends with human- 
 ity, and Nature was rinding place 
 and speech for him. 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 ; <^- 
 
He sang of love, with quiet blending, 
 Slow to begin, and never ending ; 
 Of serious faith, and inward glee ; 
 That teas the Song — the Song for me J 
 
an 'jf" 
 
 ffl/KSflF l 
 
 
 &0**7i r4 
 
 ^ ' 
 
 / 
 
 A 
 
 
 IX 
 
 THERE was one other dis- 
 covery awaiting him when 
 boyhood had broadened into youth. 
 He made it unconsciously, as he 
 
 had made all the other discoveries. 
 A seed fell into his heart unawares, 
 and he awoke one day and found 
 the flower of love blooming there, 
 shy, delicate, and fragrant ; hidden, 
 like the arbutus, in sweet obscurity, 
 
 MgSB* 
 
 i 
 
: t 
 
 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 whole being. On the instant he 
 understood many things which the 
 poets had told him in a language he 
 had not learned. He was a born 
 lover, being of a pure mind and a 
 rich imagination ; and he wore the 
 crown of life in silent blissfulness. 
 He could not have spoken if he 
 would, for speech was denied him ; 
 but his nature was atune and, like 
 a sensitive harp, vibrated at every 
 touch of the unseen ringers. She 
 played upon him and did not hear 
 the music. Born to feel and to 
 know rather than to speak and to 
 act, for him love meant not passion, 
 but surrender. He gave everything, 
 and the great law was worked out 
 in him ; for he regained what he 
 
 [70] 
 
 A 
 
 w mtJ- 
 

 
 n 
 
 d£*<»> 
 
 ILD F NATUR E 
 
 v had given, increased a thousandfold. 
 There was a shrine in his soul and 
 
 there was perpetual adoration there, 
 and he became like the beautiful 
 soul he worshipped ; slowly trans- 
 formed by the creative power ot 
 that divine passion of which re- 
 ligion and art and service are the 
 witnesses, and from which all holy 
 and perfect and beautiful thoughts, 
 g words, deeds, and works are born. 
 The tumult barely touched his 
 senses, but set the imagination 
 aflame. The sensitive face ot the 
 New England girl caught the glow 
 of the morning, in which for the 
 first time the young man, passing 
 swiftly out of boyhood, saw the 
 reat world shining in the order 
 
 [71] 
 
 \ , v ... ■ 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 nrs*^ £3 
 
I 
 
 ?*£ 
 
 %M 
 
 m 
 
 mi. 
 
 m 
 
 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 and beauty of immortal love. Every 
 common thing turned to gold in 
 that light ; every impure thought 
 vanished, for Una was passing that 
 way. In the depths of his heart 
 there-were stirrings of deep human 
 feelings which knit him to his fel- 
 lows in the silent brotherhood of 
 universal experience. To love one 
 human soul is to have the capacity 
 to love all ; and through a great 
 affection for the friend at his side a 
 man reaches out and touches hands 
 with his remotest human kin. The 
 miracle of love, which turns human 
 clay into the semblance and shape 
 of divinity, once wrought in a man's 
 heart ripens swiftly or slowly into 
 infinite compassion and the capacity 
 
 M 
 
 m 
 
 
 u- 
 
 
 m 
 
 ■^y-y) 
 
 
 z^% 
 
MBM • /" 
 
 HBP ' 
 
 Hit 
 
 ./ C II I L 1) O F N AT I R / 
 
 tor sacrifice. It was not in John 
 Foster's nature to round out experi- 
 ence by expression or action ; he 
 
 was born to see, to think, and to feel, 
 hut not to speak or act. The depths 
 ol his soul were moved, hut the 
 trembling of the waters was unseen 
 and inaudible. The love which rilled 
 his soul was as pure as the fragrance 
 ot a flower or of the unstained sky ; 
 hut lacking the kindling touch of 
 passion, to which the harp of life 
 vibrates into the most enchanting 
 music, it remained a song without 
 words ; one of those unheard melo- 
 dies of which the audible music of 
 the world is but an echo. The 
 wonder-working stirring of the im- 
 agination when the senses are aglow, 
 
 [73] 
 
 ^ 
 
 
w 
 
 2~^ 
 
 ■sLii , 'V / jR W 
 
 f 
 
 
 v % 
 
 '■' esIUI 
 
 1 
 
 
 ft IB 
 HEmI 
 
 [ 
 
 
 iMeffl ■'■ '■ 
 
 ^ CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 which renews in every generation 
 the creative mood and brings back 
 the creative moment, was denied 
 him ; but all that love means short 
 of its ultimate surrender and its final 
 fruition he knew. Its purity, devo- 
 tion, exaltation, were his ; its trans- 
 lation out of the isolation of rapture 
 into the deeper joy of perfect com- 
 panionship in days and works, in 
 the visions and tasks which are ap- 
 pointed to all those who would 
 make the journey of life to the very 
 end, he did and could not know. 
 He was a worshipper from afar ; 
 and the goddess passed his way with- 
 out knowing that he had looked 
 and seen and loved. 
 
 [74] 
 
 wkSM 
 
 
X 
 
 And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, 
 
 Think not of any severing of our love ' 
 
 Yet in my heart of hearts I feel sour might ; 
 
 I only have relinquished one delight 
 
 To live beneath sour more habitual >: 
 


 A LIFE that silently expands 
 through vision and thought 
 and is undisturbed by the tumult 
 of action keeps no reckoning ot 
 time ; tor the days define themselves 
 sharply in the consciousness of those 
 only whose tasks are set for special 
 reasons and whose work is assigned 
 by the clock. John Foster's life 
 was so essentially subjective that the 
 divisions of time made for toilers 
 of the hour had no existence for 
 him ; days and years flowed past 
 3 him in one unbroken current, the 
 shadows of the trees cooling the 
 
 [77] 
 
m 
 
 A CHILD OF NATURE \ 
 
 quiet waters in summer and the 
 stars moving with them in winter. 
 As time went on the early reserve 
 deepened and the early silence was 
 more rarely hroken. It was not 
 the life of a recluse who wished 
 to escape from his fellows ; it was 
 rather the life of a man who was 
 denied the gift of speech. The 
 gentleness of the face, the kindli- 
 ness of the eyes, the habitual care 
 for others, showed the fellowship 
 of this reticent soul with those to 
 whom he was bound by ties of 
 kinship or of neighbourhood. The 
 work on the farm was never inter- 
 mitted ; there were no journeys be- 
 yond the mountains ; for while the 
 man's thoughts wandered far, his 
 
c .*>- 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 A C II I L n O F A .1 -T V R /•; 
 
 feet aever strayed outside the limits 
 
 of the great uplands on which he 
 was horn. Changes came, as they 
 will come alike to those who sit at 
 the fireside and to those who travel. 
 One alter another the children who 
 grew up under the root sought the 
 larger opportunities of more active 
 communities; the family shrunk un- 
 til John alone of the younger gen- 
 eration remained. Then the father 
 and mother died; there were hrief 
 home-comings, when the elders 
 were carried beyond the familiar 
 walls into the wide friendliness oi 
 the fields ; and then the house be- 
 came silent again, and John was J. 
 left to that seclusion which for him 
 meant the richest companionship 
 
 [79] 
 
 vt 
 
 rfT- 
 
 
 
 V. 
 
 
 

 l£> 
 
 &* 
 
 
 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 The farm was looked after, but it was 
 a secondary interest; the silent man 
 loved his bit of the landscape more 
 than he loved the crops it bore. 
 Idealist as he was to the very heart, 
 he was saved from material disaster 
 by habits of industry and thrift, 
 which, as in many another case, 
 kept the flower of the spirit well 
 shielded from keen winds and bit- 
 ter frosts. 
 
 The splendour slowly softened, as 
 youth vanished, into a tender beauty 
 which touched the heart of the 
 man as the earlier glory had touched 
 his imagination. Thoughts too 
 deep either for laughter or for tears 
 kept company with him at work 
 in his fields or at rest in the woods. 
 

 A CHILD OF NATl'RE 
 
 ;^$ It seemed to him as if the splen- ^ 
 dour which once lay on the surface 
 of the world had not vanished, but 
 silently sunk into the heart of 
 
 things and radiated thence in a 
 beauty more tender and pervading. 
 
 He learned the artist's secret of 
 rinding and keeping all things fresh 
 to his eve and imagination ; as the 
 glow of youth faded he found the de- 
 parting loveliness reappearing in the 
 form and shape and meaning of com- 
 mon things ; thus gradually exchang- 
 ing sight, which may grow dim, 
 for vision which becomes clearer 
 and more direct as the years go by. 
 So he kept the fairyland of his early 
 dreams at his doorstep, and trans- 
 lated the great speech of the poets 
 [6] [8l ] 
 
 N 
 
 % 
 
 tiuSi 
 
 wt 
 
 
 
 
 
 kv 
 
A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 into his own homely, every-day 
 utterance. He had mastered the 
 art of life ; for he had learned that 
 the purest idealism may be kept 
 untarnished in daily dealing with 
 homely cares and common work. 
 When the first kindling glow of 
 the senses began to fail he held 
 aloft the steady light of the imagi- 
 nation, and for him the world never 
 ceased to glow and bloom and ripen 
 in the large purpose of God. This 
 discovery kept him in touch with 
 Spenser and Shakespeare and Keats ; 
 and he found with Emerson that 
 wherever a man stands the whole 
 arch of the sky is over him. 
 John Foster, in his passion for the 
 stars, did not trip and fall to the 
 
 [82] 
 
 y 
 
 I 
 
 hi- 
 
A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 7 
 
 <i 
 
 ground over common duties ; he 
 kept his footing amid homely cares 
 and in familiar relations, and so his 
 vision remained undimmed. His 
 neighbours knew him to be kindly 
 and simple and industrious; they 
 thought him lacking in ambition ; ///A 
 he cared little for new methods and 
 his talk about the staple topics of 
 a tanning community was of the 
 briefest. From the standpoint of 
 local opinion he was trustworthy 
 and industrious, but he was not suc- 
 cessful. To his hard-handed and 
 hard-headed neighbours he was an 
 amiable ne'er-do-weel ; a man of 
 s who could not 
 

 m 
 
 ■L-l 
 
 m 
 
 
 >.- V5?' ' 
 
 i^y 
 
 management, and he was a very in- 
 different farmer. 
 
 If he knew the neighbourhood 
 opinion he was not oppressed by it. 
 His life was so entirely the unfold- 
 ing of the inward spirit, his stand- 
 ards were so far above local ideals, 
 his manner of life was so individual, 
 that without being self-centred he 
 was independent of his surroundings ,• 
 he was a rustic whose occupations 
 were of the farm, but whose inter- 
 ests were of the world. It is wise 
 to know neighbourhood opinion 
 and to regard it for correction, ad- 
 monition, and reproof; but he who 
 would possess his own soul must 
 live outside his neighbourhood. It 
 was precisely at this point that 
 [84] 
 
 
 11 
 
 S2 
 
 O 
 
mmm 
 
 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 the indifferent tanner parted com- 
 pany with neighbours; they hail 
 only the vocation of the hands ; he 
 
 had also the avocation of the spirit. 
 
 
XI 
 
 The Clouds that gather round the setting sun 
 I) take a sober colouring from an eye 
 That hath kept watch o'er man's mortali 
 
 hath been, and other palms are won, 
 ■ nks to the human heart by which we //: , 
 ".ks to its tenderness, its joss and fears. 
 To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
 Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. 
 
XI 
 
 N his later years he found a 
 new source of companionship. 
 Denied the gift of speech, by which 
 men not only carry their thought 
 outside their own personalities by 
 giving it ultimate form, but keep 
 the record of their own experience, 
 and thus continually reinforce the 
 creative energy of personality, Fos- 
 

 j? 
 
 ' 
 
 7-r^fe 
 
 2£ 
 
 Us 
 
 . 
 
 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 saved by the discovery that if he 
 could not give his thought full flow 
 and volume, he could at least keep 
 a record of it ; a kind of tally of ex- 
 perience. In these years of search- 
 ing observation, of deep reading, of 
 quiet meditation, the world had 
 gradually become clear to his im- 
 agination in its vast and infinitely 
 diversified life. As a student he 
 had lived in many ages, explored 
 many countries, seen many cities, 
 heard many languages, and pene- 
 trated many experiences ; as a lover 
 of Nature he had learned many se- 
 crets of woods and fields and chang- 
 ing skies ; as a sensitive, responsive, 
 meditative man he had come to 
 know life deeply and with sanity 
 [90] 
 
 <3\ 
 
 f\> 
 
 -Hi* 
 
^ST- 
 
 ^ 
 
 Yk\*' 
 
 .1 CHILI) OF NATURE 
 
 of insight. What other men would 
 have called a philosophy or general 
 scheme of things was to him simply 
 knowledge of life borne in from 
 main- sources, gained tar more by 
 the very commonplace process of 
 living than by any unusual process 
 of thinking, distilled by time out 
 of the rich substance of experience. 
 Slowly but steadily the great order 
 o\ the world revealed itself to him, 
 and he found his own place in it ; 
 as he touched it at many points in 
 ever-deepening harmony ot rela- 
 tionship his nature was fertilised ; 
 tor whenever a man touches that 
 order which is the hem o\ the gar- 
 ment o{ God, vitality passes into 
 him. Patientlv and reverently wait- 
 
 [91] 
 
A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 ing upon God, he was enriched and 
 inspired with glimpses of truth, in- 
 sights into life, visions of beauty. 
 The cares of the world did not wait 
 by his door when he passed out of 
 his home into the wide domain of 
 Nature ; the tumult of the world 
 did not drown the delicate melodies 
 which float over sun-swept fields or 
 are borne on summer airs through 
 the unthronged paths of the woods ; 
 the work of the world did not ex- 
 haust and benumb the responsive 
 power of his spirit when mysterious 
 influences, rising like exhalations 
 out of the pure deeps of his nature, 
 touched him like chords of faint 
 melody and set his spirit 
 with the divine harmon 
 
 [92] 
 
i y 
 
 A C HI L n l : NslT UR E 
 
 heart of things. He was free; he 
 was sane; he had silence, solitude, 
 
 and the pure heart; and the world 
 spoke to him : these are always the 
 
 simple annals of the seers and poets. 
 This continual flowering of thought 
 in his mind came at last to have a 
 
 record ; for he formed a habit o\ 
 keeping a register of his thoughts. 
 It was a skeleton report ; a bare 
 outline ; for some defect in his na- 
 ture kept him from any approach to 
 free expression. He was content 
 to make signs ; to keep a tew brief 
 data; a running account of the 
 things he saw, heard, felt, and 
 thought. As he grew older this 
 history of his spirit grew, not fuller, 
 but more exact and definite; it was 
 
 
 \f*l 
 
 
 W 
 
 : 
 
 
 
 y&i 
 
m 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 "If 
 ^ CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 )\ made up of slight but well-defined 
 tracings of his course through the 
 mysterious world of his journeying. 
 If the little note-books in which 
 this record was kept had fallen into 
 the hands of an unimaginative man, 
 they would have seemed but a con- 
 fusion of abrupt and incomplete 
 phrases ; a man of insight, finding 
 the key to their revelations, would 
 have seen in them the stuff of 
 which wonder-books are made ; the 
 star dust of great truths, the pollen 
 of the imperishable flowering of 
 imagination, the seeds of brave 
 deeds ; such gathering of treasure, 
 in a word, as befalls the man who 
 travels through a universe alight 
 with the splendour of God and 
 
 [94] 
 
 
 
 
 
 ; & 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 
 j^p 
 
 mi 
 mm 
 

 71 
 
 / CHILI) OF NATURE 
 
 throbbing with His measureless life. 
 It was the stuff of immortal life 
 
 which found its way through Fos- 
 ter's rich hut silent personality into 
 
 this record of his experience ; it 
 was the stuff, therefore, of which 
 literature is made. For literature 
 is not fashioned out of hand ; its 
 substance is secreted slowly and 
 silently in the depths of the spirit 
 out of all its passions, sorrows, toils, 
 cares, and works, with flashing of 
 Stars sinking unawares into its heart, 
 and great swelling harmonies bear- 
 ing it onward in those infrequent 
 ecstasies which sometimes lift it 
 above itself. In simplicity and sin- 
 cerity, with no thought oi the read- 
 ing of other eyes, as genuinely and 
 '[95] ' 
 
 <B 
 
 pwtfwjB? 
 

 
 s. 
 
 i CHILD OF NATURE, 
 
 quietly as he lived, John Foster kept 
 the record of his soul. And when 
 he died it lay in his desk with the 
 much-worn books in which for 
 years he had kept his accounts with 
 the seedsman and storekeeper. And 
 there, side by side, through the 
 months when the old house was 
 tenantless lay these two records of 
 a man's history as the owner of a 
 few acres and the possessor also of 
 that sublime landscape which is the 
 foreground of man's immortality. 
 
 v 
 
 /j? 
 
 [96] 
 
 *Zl 
 
 fm 
 
 n 
 
 A 
 
 jTZ 
 
 X 
 

 
 
 fc> 
 
 Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die, 
 
 leave thee, when gray hairs are nigh, 
 A melancholy slave ,• 
 But an old age serene and bright ', 
 And lovely as a Lapland night , 
 Shall lead thee to th\ grave. 
 
 
 ■>> 
 
 


 %} 
 
 £mi 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 K 
 
 XII 
 
 APRIL slowly drifted over the 
 mountain skies into May, 
 and May, touched with the first 
 delicate bloom of the tender North- 
 ern summer, ripened into June, and 
 life crept to the door of the old ±2^ 
 house where John Foster had al- 
 ways met it with a smile, and 
 climbed to the windows, and bud- 
 ded and bloomed in the old garden, 
 where a few familiar and friendly 
 flowers had always lived on inti- 
 mate terms with the silent man ; 
 but there was no response to the 
 beauty which enfolded the deserted 
 
 [99] 
 
 "l^sH 
 
 ■rv\^ 
 
 L.ofC. 
 

 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 house. The hand of Nature was 
 on the latch, but the door remained 
 shut. If one who had known the 
 love of the man for this radiant and 
 fragrant world and the caressing 
 gentleness of that world, had taken 
 thought of the circumstances, it 
 would have seemed as if Nature 
 missed a familiar presence and were 
 feeling for it with sensitive tendrils, 
 and striving to recall it with voices 
 that were musical, murmurs on the 
 fragrant breath of summer. The 
 wide landscape softened, grew ten- 
 der, stirred with the rising tide of 
 life, and broke at last into verdure 
 and bloom, all the hidden springs 
 of vitality overflowing in green 
 rivulets or rich masses of foliage ; 
 
 [ IO °] 
 
 
 ws$. 
 
 
 &B 
 
 ^, 
 
 
" It would have seemed as if nature missed a familiar presence. 
 
 
\f: 
 
 I C 11 I L /) F NATV R E 
 
 hut the house remained silent and 
 tenantless. Seed-time passed into 
 harvest and the ancient miracle w 
 wrought again : hut in the un- 
 opened house, to which the sun 
 found access only for a tew slender 
 beams, the record of Foster's life lay 
 like a seed buried in the ground, 
 beyond the reach oi warmth and 
 light. 
 
 In October, when the banners of 
 the retreating hosts were flaming 
 on the hills, the closed windows 
 were suddenly opened and the door 
 swung wide for a new tenant. The 
 farmer folk were at their wits' ends 
 to classify him, for his like had 
 never been seen in that country be- 
 fore save in so 
 
 <*'ift 
 
 
 M 
 
/» 
 
 
 C 
 
 
 ^ CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 summer sightseers. He was young ; 
 there was that air of being on easy 
 terms with the world which can 
 neither be counterfeited nor con- 
 cealed ; his figure, face, bearing, 
 manner, and dress bore unmistak- 
 able testimony to largeness of op- 
 portunity and ripeness of taste. 
 From the local point of view he 
 was an idler ; for he made no show 
 of interest in the farm ; and no one 
 saw the trace of any kind of work 
 on hands or face. He was simple, 
 unaffected, and friendly ; but he 
 was even more detached from the 
 life of the community than John 
 Foster had been. Foster had never 
 spoken out ; he had never acquired 
 the use of speech ; the new tenant 
 [ io2 ] 
 
 s* 
 
 I 
 
 rfi 
 
A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 
 
 of the old house had had access to 
 so many kinds oi knowledge, had 
 seen life in so many diverse aspects 
 and in so many places that his in- 
 dividuality had been buried for the 
 time under a mass of unassimilated 
 learning and half-understood ex- 
 perience-. To Foster lite had been 
 niggardly in its gifts of outward ex- 
 perience ; to Ralph Parkman life 
 a had been lavish ; the one reached 
 order, clearness, beauty by the un- 
 folding of his own nature ; the 
 other was to attain these ultimate 
 ends of living by a rich process of 
 assimilation. To the one had been 
 given the clear vision, the deep con- 
 viction, the inward harmony ; to 
 the other freedom, fluency, and 
 
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 ?«i^t.^ 
 
 'pvi 
 
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 HI 
 
 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 beauty of expression. The one 
 lacked words, the other lacked the 
 inward unity of thought and knowl- 
 edge which charges words with 
 meaning and gives them wings for 
 flight into the highest regions of 
 expression. 
 
 There was a touch of genius in 
 Ralph Parkman ; that beautiful 
 grace which seems to be the 
 flower of ancestral toil ; as if for- 
 gotten generations had worked, m 
 that presently, as out of a rich soil, 
 one human soul might blossom 
 spontaneously, radiantly, with the 
 divine unconsciousness of the flow- 
 ers of the field. And conditions 
 had made it easy for the ardent 
 young spirit to bask in the sun and 
 [ 104] 
 

 A CHILL 
 
 I 
 
 
 k 
 
 pluck the fruits by the lifting of 
 the hand which others gain by toil 
 and self-denial and pain. While 
 his fellows were besieging fortune 
 with prayers and offerings and sac- 
 rifices she turned on him her 
 indifferent glance, and straightway 
 there was a smile on the face of 
 fate; she ran before him, and the 
 way blossomed with opportunity 
 and pleasure. There was a vein of 
 native vigor in him, or he would 
 corruD 
 

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 r>; 
 
 I 
 
 <?2&fr 
 
 =« 
 
 
 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 him by force, apparently, of his own 
 inward attraction. He loved study, 
 art, travel ; and he went free-footed 
 and sure-footed through a world 
 which set its choice food and wine 
 before him wherever he chose to 
 tarry. He was thirty years old 
 when he opened the door of John 
 Foster's bare little study, and he 
 had awakened more hopes than 
 gather about most men in the full 
 course of a lifetime. He knew so 
 much, had seen so many things, 
 lived in so many cities, made so 
 many friends, spoke so many lan- 
 guages, and was gifted with such su- 
 perb vitality and such ease and grace 
 that he seemed capable of all things, 
 and had become a glorious promise. 
 [106] 
 
 3 
 
 El 
 
 
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 KT& 
 
 * A C HI L D F N A T UR E 
 
 His had been a golden youth, and 
 
 now that it was passing from him, 
 ; Ralph Parkman was becoming 
 
 ' aware of the peril of his position. 
 He had given a draft for an unlim- 
 ited sum on the future ; could he 
 meet it when the day of payment 
 came? Everything solicited him, 
 but no voice had spoken to his 
 
 spirit ; he could turn his hand to §£ 
 
 H 
 many things, but no art had laid 
 
 its deep compulsion on him; he 
 
 had passed through many Melds of 
 
 knowledge, and his inward life had 
 
 grown rich by acquisition, but 
 
 there was no building power in his 
 
 soul, no divine necessity striving in 
 
 his heart for place and tool and 
 
 speech. Many things spoke through 
 
 [ JO" ] 
 
rS/. ^'MftfI/£>MM I ' -."-.; 
 
 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 him ; but he remained silent. 
 When this knowledge of the dis- 
 parity between his material and his 
 organising power became clear 
 there was a tumult in his soul 
 which marked the beginning of that 
 crisis which shapes a man's char- 
 acter and determines his fortunes. 
 He was rilled with a passionate de- 
 sire for silence and solitude ; for the 
 detachment and isolation in which 
 he might find himself; for he dis- 
 covered that though he knew hosts 
 of people, he had never met him- 
 self face to face. He remembered 
 the noble breadth of the landscape 
 in the mountain region where John 
 Foster lived ; he made his way to 
 the little village ; he found an un- 
 [108] 
 
 

 A CHI L I) OF NslT 
 
 occupied house; with a t 
 servant and a few hooks he 
 
 the fire on the old hearthstone and 
 set himself to search his heart to 
 the bottom, to understand his own 
 
 spirit and to learn what tool lite 
 meant to put into his hand and 
 what work he was to do. 
 The silence and loneliness of the 
 country oppressed him at first, for 
 he had never been alone before ; 
 but the splendour of the autumn 
 touched his imagination as if some 
 great presence, itself unseen, were 
 putting on coronation robes. There 
 were days of such ripeness and har- 
 mony of sky and earth and air that 
 it seemed as if Nature were making 
 her vast spaces splendid for the en- 
 [ io 9 ] 
 
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 /- .; 
 
 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 throning of some invisible spirit. 
 In such a radiant calm, with such 
 softness brooding over the fields, 
 and such majesty sleeping on the 
 hills, the stage seemed too noble 
 for the setting of human life, with 
 its few years and its pathetic uncer- 
 tainties. Ralph's thoughts passed 
 from himself to the beauty of the 
 world, and he began to feel the in- 
 ward peace which comes with that 
 self-forgetfulness which is the begin- 
 ning of self-knowledge. Emptied 
 of all egoism, there was room in his 
 spirit for Nature, and Nature brought 
 her repose, her sanity, her deep un- 
 consciousness. It is in such moods 
 that the finer influences search and 
 it is in such moods, 
 
A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 we are not empty and passive, but 
 harmonious witb tbe highest and 
 truest in thought and life, that the 
 great inspirations breathe upon us 
 and the invisible chords yield the 
 music which appeals to us with the 
 warmth and colour and passion of 
 the human and the pure and thrill- 
 ing intimations of the divine. It 
 may have been a fancy, but in that 
 mood of sensitiveness to the most 
 subtle and delicate influences Ralph 
 felt himself touched and quieted by 
 the air of the house ; as if within 
 those bare walls there lingered 
 some spiritual energy which had 
 survived the passing of the mortal 
 frame from which it issued. This 
 may have been fanciful, but the 
 
 Cm ] 
 
 *. 
 

 
 
 A CHILI) OF NATURE 
 
 impression was so persistent and 
 definite that the solitary student 
 sought out those who knew the 
 earlier occupants of the house, 
 and he was not slow to discover 
 that among them all his concern 
 was with the silent man who, with- 
 in a brief half year, had sat before 
 the same hearth and looked out 
 of the same windows to the hills 
 sweeping in a vast circle to the 
 north and east. Not much was 
 told him, but that little was enough ; 
 for the few and hard facts were 
 significant, and there was more in 
 the silence of those who were ques- 
 tioned than in the reports they 
 gave. And Ralph's imagination 
 was quickened as he recalled the 
 [112] 
 
 m 
 
 ^r 
 
 ■ 
 
i 
 
 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 
 vanished life, and reconstructed the 
 image of the vanished personalty, 
 by the interpretation of the house 
 and garden. The air of the old 
 house, mellowed by the long habit 
 of a man of hidden genius ; the 
 simple furnishings, supplemented 
 by the presence of a few books 
 o{ the kind which illumine the J\, 
 place where thev are gathered and 
 
 a reveal the affinities and interests of 
 the spirit to which they have min- 
 istered, plied the imagination of 
 
 - the sensitive student who had fallen 
 heir to this rich heritage ot simple 
 living and high thinking with sub- 
 tle but searching hints of a mind to 
 which, in its deep repose, the whole 
 world of spiritual experience had 
 
 J [»] [Mj] 
 
 # 
 
 1 
 
 JJttl 
 

 -j?za 
 
 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 ministered. Ralph had travelled far 
 and sought truth at the ends of the 
 earth ; here had lived and died one 
 to whom truth had come by force 
 of those deep affinities by which 
 the soul reaches out and draws to 
 itself the things which are its own. 
 When the nights lengthened and 
 the world was wrapped in the si- | 
 lence of those vast snowfalls which 
 descend out of hidden skies with 
 a hush that shuts man in with his 
 deepest self by the blazing fire, 
 the spirit of John Foster seemed 
 to pervade the house, as if seeking 
 every inlet into a consciousness akin 
 to its own, and swift to comprehend | 
 what all others had been slow to un- 
 derstand. Ralph felt as if a pathetic 
 
 w 
 
 ■s . 
 
 ^ 
 
 I 
 
 w? 
 
 W 
 
 m 
 
A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 appeal were being made from one 
 
 who had found freedom of utter- 
 ance alter the long silence of a lite- 
 time, but was not quite at rest for 
 longing to speak in the language 
 of those who thought him dumb 
 when his whole nature was aijlow 
 
 o 
 
 with thought and his whole heart 
 arlame with love. 
 
 X 
 
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 <i?(7 
 
 
 XIII 
 
 . . . Thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof 
 That they were born for immortality. 
 
sn 
 
 XIII 
 
 IT was in mid-winter — the 
 world afar off and his old life 
 
 \} withdrawn and lying like a mist 
 on the horizon — that Ralph came 
 upon the records of Foster's spirit ; 
 the taint and disconnected trac- 
 ings ot his inarticulate experience. 
 Broken and fragmentary as they 
 were he swiftly deciphered them ; 
 for the key to their meaning was in 
 his mind. He read the loose sheets 
 with an interest which deepened 
 into passionate sympathy and com- 
 prehension ; he retraced Foster's 
 long journey through the marvel- 
 [ 119] 
 
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 \ 
 
 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 
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 1 
 
 lous world which had gradually un- 
 folded about him, noting the broad- 
 ening outlook, the clarifying vision, 
 the penetrating thought. As he \-jf\ 
 read it seemed as if he were living 
 again in his own experience this 
 hidden life, reaching out in the 
 silence of quiet years for the most 
 far-reaching kinships with the 
 movement of universal thought, and 
 bringing itself into deep and final 
 harmony with the spiritual order. 
 As he penetrated into the secret 
 history of this solitary human soul, 
 sounding its perilous way without 
 companionship across the deeps of 
 life, the image of Foster became 
 more distinct and real and the path 
 he had taken more clear ; until the 
 [ I2 °] 
 
 &**J 
 
A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 living whs not possessed bv, but in 
 
 possession ot\ the spirit of the dead. 
 There was no subjugation ot per- 
 sonality, no passive surrender to 
 another will ; there was complete 
 sympathy and perfect compre- 
 hension. 
 
 In Parkman's rich but unrational- 
 ised experience the story told by 
 Foster's notes was a torch held aloft 
 in a dim treasure-house rilled with 
 things of priceless value brought 
 together from the ends of the earth, 
 but lying in contusion, without the 
 illumination of order or light. Its 
 effect upon his unripe intelligence 
 was like the quickening ol the sun 
 at the hour when the earth is in a 
 passion o{ fertility ; it brought him 
 
 [',2,] 
 
 ii 
 
 i- 
 
 tgt/0 . ■ -,,r 
 
A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 to swift and clear maturity; he 
 knew what was in his own spirit, 
 he discerned the specific meaning 
 of Nature and art and history for 
 him, he comprehended his relations 
 to the complex world about him, 
 and he saw by a lightning flash of 
 intelligence what he was to do and 
 with what tools he was to work. 
 This experience, for a man of his 
 type, was not unusual ; sensitive 
 spirits, whose growth is completed 
 by the extension of the imagination 
 to the very limits of knowledge and 
 experience, are always coming into 
 possession of themselves by the in- 
 terpretation of other and more ma- 
 ture spirits ; and acquaintance with 
 creative minds registers our own 
 [ I22 ] 
 
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 farm 
 

 
 A CHIL D 1 NATV R E 
 
 self-development. The constant 
 
 service of Homer, Dante, Shake- 
 speare and their fellows is the lib- 
 eration which they accomplish in 
 
 other mind-. 
 
 That which was peculiar in Park- 
 man's experience and gave it dra- 
 matic interot was the resurrection 
 of a buried soul which it effected. 
 Having discerned the spiritual vis- 
 ion, the intellectual richness of Fos- 
 ter's life, it became his first duty to 
 share these lost treasures with a 
 ^ world which is never too opulent 
 in these ultimate forms of wealth. 
 Betore he could uncover the springs 
 
 o 
 
 
 t his own genius the disciple felt 
 
 the searching necessity of setting 
 
 forth the teaching of the master. 
 [ ■ - J ] 
 
 y 
 
w 
 
 
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 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 It was a work of piety and of joy ; 
 there was in the doing of it the 
 same tender and passionate delight 
 which sometimes came to the 
 copyist in the scriptorium of the 
 monastery when, with rich em- 
 bellishment of trailing vine and 
 blossoming flower, he gave new 
 form to some old scripture ; adding 
 nothing which was foreign to the 
 text, but evoking its hidden truth in 
 fair images and fragrant traceries 
 which interpreted to the eye what 
 the mind read in the bare lettering. 
 In like manner, and with a kindred 
 'sgjjj^M joy, Ralph Parkman wrought the 
 miracle of resurrection on Joh 
 ter's detached and unripe thou 
 mere seeds of ideas, hard an 
 
 [ I2 4] 
 
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 it.. /■Iliftf '.uHH 
 
 A CHILI) OF NJ T i ' R E 
 
 and cold ; and vet husbanding all 
 the potentialities of life and beauty 
 
 in them. Upon this rude text 
 Parkman worked with the loving 
 skill of a monastic >cribe ; and these 
 
 dormant seeds, in the warm soil of 
 
 his imagination, yielded their secret 
 and imperishable vitality. 
 It was a little book which finally 
 went forth in the early summer 
 from the old house, but it was very 
 deep and beautiful ; like a quiet 
 mountain pool, it was tar from the 
 dust and tumult oi the highways, 
 and there were images oi stars in it. 
 With the generosity of a fine spirit, 
 the young man interpreted the lite 
 of the older man through the rich at- 
 mosphere of his own temperament 
 [1=5 J 
 
 i 
 
/ <■& 
 
 A CHILD OF NATURE 
 
 and with the clear vision of his own 
 genius ; but there was nothing in 
 the beautiful flowering and fruitage 
 which the world received from his 
 hand which was not potentially in 
 the mind and heart of John Foster. 
 The silent man had come to his 
 own ; for God had given him a 
 voice. After the long silence of a 
 lifetime he spoke in tones which 
 vibrated and penetrated, not like 
 great bells swung in unison in some 
 high tower, but like dear, familiar 
 bells set in old sacred places, whose 
 sweet notes are half-audible music 
 and half-inaudible faith and prayer 
 and worship. At first there were 
 few to listen, for the tones were low 
 and the noise of the time was great ; 
 
 [126] 
 
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 A CHILI) OF N.l-T UR E 
 
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 but in the end every man comes to 
 
 his own, and John Foster found 
 here and there one who heard and 
 understood ; and as the years went 
 In* the few became many, and the 
 lite sown in secret bore harvest in 
 the wide held of the world. 
 And the two never parted com- 
 pany ; tor as the horizon be^an to Jf^j 
 kindle with Ralph Park man s tame, 
 -i there, set like a steady flame, in the 
 dawn ot a great new time, men saw 
 the star of John Foster's pure and 
 radiant spirit. 
 
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 [12-1 
 
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OCT 17 1901 
 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 012 074 882 
 
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