XV. THE POET OF THE COSMOS 316 _The frontispiece, showing Mr. Burroughs at his woodpile at Riverby, is from a photograph taken in 1920 by_ Mr. HERBERT S. ARDELL ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE I SHALL WE ACCEPT THE UNIVERSE? I It is reported of Margaret Fuller that she said she accepted the universe. “Gad, she’d better!” retorted Carlyle. Carlyle himself did not accept the universe in a very whole-hearted manner. Looking up at the midnight stars, he exclaimed: “A sad spectacle! If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly; if they be na inhabited, what a waste of space!” It ought not to be a hard thing to accept the universe, since it appears to be a fixture, and we have no choice in the matter; but I have found it worth while to look the gift in the mouth, and convince myself that it is really worth accepting. It were a pity to go through life with a suspicion in one’s mind that it might have been a better universe, and that some wrong has been done us because we have no freedom of choice in the matter. The thought would add a tinge of bitterness to all our days. And so, after living more than four score years in the world, and pondering long and intently upon the many problems which life and nature present, I have come, like Margaret Fuller, to accept the universe, have come frankly to accept that first verdict pronounced upon creation, namely, that it is very good--good in its sum total up to this astronomic date, whatever phases it may at times present that lead us to a contrary conclusion. Not that cold and hunger, war and pestilence, tornadoes and earthquakes, are good in a positive sense, but that these and kindred things are vastly overbalanced by the forces and agencies that make for our well-being,--that “work together for good,”--the sunshine, the cooling breezes, the fertile soil, the stability of land and sea, the gentle currents, the equipoise of the forces of the earth, air, and water, the order and security of our solar system, and, in the human realm, the good-will and fellowship that are finally bound to prevail among men and nations.