trees shows the low arch of the Saxons. In the woods in
a winter afternoon one will see as readily the origin of
the stained glass window, with which the Gothic cathedrals
are adorned, in the colors of the western sky seen through
the bare and crossing branches of the forest. Nor can any
lover of nature enter the old piles of Oxford and the
English cathedrals, without feeling that the forest
overpowered the mind of the builder, and that his chisel,
his saw and plane still reproduced its ferns, its spikes
of flowers, its locust, elm, oak, pine, fir and spruce.

The Gothic cathedral is a blossoming in stone subdued
by the insatiable demand of harmony in man. The
mountain of granite blooms into an eternal flower,
with the lightness and delicate finish as well as the
aerial proportions and perspective of vegetable beauty.

In like manner all public facts are to be individualized,
all private facts are to be generalized. Then at once
History becomes fluid and true, and Biography deep and
sublime. As the Persian imitated in the slender shafts
and capitals of his architecture the stem and flower of
the lotus and palm, so the Persian court in its magnificent
era never gave over the nomadism of its barbarous tribes,
but travelled from Ecbatana, where the spring was spent,
to Susa in summer and to Babylon for the winter.

In the early history of Asia and Africa, Nomadism and
Agriculture are the two antagonist facts. The geography
of Asia and of Africa necessitated a nomadic life. But