Apart from this generally religious influence of Nature, she seems at
times in certain of her aspects and moods specifically to illustrate or
externalize states of the human soul. Sometimes in still, moonlit
nights, standing, as it were, on the brink of the universe, we seem to
be like one standing on the edge of a pool, who, gazing in, sees his own
soul gazing back at him. Tiny creatures though we be, the whole solemn
and majestic spectacle seems to be an extension of our own reverie, and
we to enfold it all in some strange way within our own infinitesimal
consciousness. So a self-conscious dewdrop might feel that it enfolded
the morning sky, and such probably is the meaning of the Buddhist seer
when he declares that "the universe grows I."

Such are some of the more august impressions made upon us by the
pictures in the cosmic picture-book; but there are also times and
places when Nature seems to wear a look less mystic than dramatic in its
suggestiveness, as though she were a stage-setting for some portentous
human happening past or to come--the fall of kings or the tragic clash
of empires. As Whitman says, "Here a great personal deed has room." Some
landscapes seem to prophesy, some to commemorate. In some places not
marked by monuments, or otherwise definitely connected with history, we
have a curious haunted sense of prodigious far-off events once enacted
in this quiet grassy solitude--prehistoric battles or terrible
sacrifices. About others hangs a fateful atmosphere of impending
disaster, as though weighted with a gathering doom. Sometimes we seem
conscious of sinister presences, as though veritably in the abode of
evil spirits. The place seems somehow not quite friendly to humanity,
not quite good to linger in, lest its genius should cast its perilous
shadow over the heart. On the other hand, some places breathe an
ineffable sense of blessedness, of unearthly promise. We feel as though