of man is to be found on, and by means of, the green earth out of which
he was born, and that, as there is no ill of his body which may not be
healed by the magic juices of herb and flower, or the stern potency of
minerals, so there is no sickness of his soul that may not be cured by
the sound of the sea, the rustle of leaves, or the songs of birds.

Thirty or forty years ago the soul of the world was very sick. It had
lost religion in a night of misunderstood "materialism," so-called. But
since then that mere "matter" which seemed to eclipse the soul has grown
strangely radiant to deep-seeing eyes, and, whereas then one had to
doubt everything, dupes of superficial disillusionment, now there is no
old dream that has not the look of coming true, no hope too wild and
strange and beautiful to be confidently entertained. Even, if you wish
to believe in fairies, science will hardly say you nay. Those dryads and
fauns, which Keats saw "frightened away" by the prosaic times in which
it was his misfortune to be alive and unrecognized, are trooping back in
every American woodland, and the god whose name I have invoked has
become more than ever

the leaven
That spreading in this dull and clodded earth
Gives it a touch ethereal.

His worship is all the more sincere because it is not self-conscious.
If you were to tell the trout-fisher, or the duck-shooter, or the
camper-out, that he is a worshipper of Pan, he would look at you in a
kindly bewilderment. He would seem a little anxious about you, but it
would be only a verbal misunderstanding. It would not take him long to
realize that you were only putting in terms of a creed the intuitive and
inarticulate faith of his heart. Perhaps the most convincing sign of