Each
season brings its moods--Spring is hopeful; Summer luxurious; Autumn
contented; and then comes that strange time when our thoughts run on
solemn things. Can it be that we associate the long decline of the year
with the dark closing of life? Surely not--for a boy or girl feels the
same pensive, dreary mood, and no one who remembers childhood can fail
to think of the wild inarticulate thoughts that passed through the
immature brain. Nay, our souls are from God; they are bestowed by the
Supreme, and they were from the beginning, and cannot be destroyed. From
Plato downwards, no thoughtful man has missed this strange suggestion
which seems to present itself unprompted to every mind. Cicero argued it
out with consummate dialectic skill; our scientific men come to the same
conclusion after years on years of labour spent in investigating
phenomena of life and laws of force; and Wordsworth formulated Plato's
reasoning in an immortal passage which seems to combine scientific
accuracy with exquisite poetic beauty--
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us--our life's star--
Hath had elsewhere its setting
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, Who is our home.
Pages:
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409