We feel
in each case that the strange thing is pure nature, as much nature as a
familiar English moor, yet so extraordinary that we might be in another
planet." But it would, I think, be easier to enumerate the Wonders of
Nature for which description can prepare us, than those which are
altogether beyond the power of language.
Many of us, however, walk through the world like ghosts, as if we were in
it, but not of it. We have "eyes and see not, ears and hear not." To look
is much less easy than to overlook, and to be able to see what we do see,
is a great gift. Ruskin maintains that "The greatest thing a human soul
ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a
plain way." I do not suppose that his eyes are better than ours, but how
much more he sees with them!
We must look before we can expect to see. "To the attentive eye," says
Emerson, "each moment of the year has its own beauty; and in the same
field it beholds every hour a picture that was never seen before, and
shall never be seen again.
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