Upon the whole, a certain vulgarity is inseparable from even the most respectable forms of magic,--an atmosphere of tinsel, of ostentation, of big cry and little wool. A child might have told us that matter is not almighty, that minds are sometimes transparent to one another, that love and faith can work wonders. And we also know that, in this mortal life, our means are exquisitely adapted to our ends; and that we can gain no solid comfort or advantage by striving to elbow our way a few inches further into the region of the occult and abnormal. Magic, however specious its achievements, is only a mockery of the Creative power, and exposes its unlikeness to it. "It is the attribute of natural existence," a profound writer has said, "to be a form of use to something higher than itself, so that whatever does not, either potentially or actually, possess within it this soul of use, does not honestly belong to nature, but is a sensational effect produced upon the individual intelligence." [Footnote: Henry James, in "Society the Redeemed Form of Man."] No one can overstep the order and modesty of general existence without bringing himself into perilous proximity to subjects more profound and sacred than the occasion warrants. Life need not be barren of mystery and miracle to any one of us; but they shall be such tender mysteries and instructive miracles as the devotion of motherhood, and the blooming of spring. We are too close to Infinite love and wisdom to play pranks before it, and provoke comparison between our paltry juggleries and its omnipotence and majesty. CHAPTER XI. AMERICAN WILD ANIMALS IN ART.