It thus indicates that the people who practise it are cut off from all
possible sources of healthy knowledge or natural delight; that they
have wilfully sealed up and put aside the entire volume of the world,
and have got nothing to read, nothing to dwell upon, but that
imagination of the thoughts of their hearts, of which we are told that
"it is only evil continually." Over the whole spectacle of creation
they have thrown a veil in which there is no rent. For them no star
peeps through the blanket of the dark--for them neither their heaven
shines nor their mountains rise--for them the flowers do not blossom--
for them the creatures of field and forest do not live. They lie bound
in the dungeon of their own corruption, encompassed only by doleful
phantoms, or by spectral vacancy.

Need I remind you what an exact reverse of this condition of mind, as
respects the observance of nature, is presented by the people whom we
have just been led to contemplate in contrast with the Indian race? You
will find upon reflection, that all the highest points of the Scottish
character are connected with impressions derived straight from the
natural scenery of their country. No nation has ever before shown, in
the general tone of its language--in the general current of its
literature--so constant a habit of hallowing its passions and
confirming its principles by direct association with the charm, or
power, of nature. The writings of Scott and Burns--and yet more, of the
far greater poets than Burns who gave Scotland her traditional
ballads,--furnish you in every stanza--almost in every line--with
examples of this association of natural scenery with the passions;
[Footnote: The great poets of Scotland, like the great poets of all
other countries, never write dissolutely, either in matter or method;
but with stern and measured meaning in every syllable. Here's a bit of