And first, of the normal development of the mystic feeling for nature in the case of the individual mind. "The child is father of the man," said Wordsworth. But in what sense is this true? Let us turn to the immortal Ode, which is undoubtedly a record of vivid personal experience. "Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing boy, But he beholds the light and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy; The youth who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At length the man perceives it die away And fade into the light of common day." Of course the poet was in dead earnest in writing thus; but the two last lines give us pause. How about "The light that never was on land or sea"? Was not that with the poet to the end? How about the "Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears"? Would those have been possible for the child or growing boy? If there had been a loss, had there not also been a very real gain as the years rolled over his head? Such questions are forced upon us by an examination of the records themselves. Somewhat of the brightness and freshness of "the vision splendid" might evaporate; but the mystic glow, the joy, the exaltation, remained--and deepened-- "So was it when I was a child, So is it now I am a man, So may it be when I am old, Or let me die"-- only that childlike fancy yields place to matured imagination. And if this was so with Wordsworth, whose childhood was so exceptional, still more shall we find it to be true of the average child. The early freshness of the senses may be blunted; the eager curiosity may be satiated; but where the nature remains unspoilt, the sense of wonder and of joy will extend its range and gain in fullness of content. If we compare Kingsley's development, he was in a way a great "boy" to the end--but a boy with a deepening sense of mystery mellowing his character and his utterances. And thus it was that he could say, looking back on his intercourse with the wonders of nature: "I have long enjoyed them, never I can honestly say alone, because when man was not with me I had companions in every bee and flower and pebble, and never idle, because I could not pass a swamp or a tuft of heather without finding in it a fairy tale of which I could but decipher here and there a line or two, and yet found them more interesting than all the books, save one, which were ever written upon earth." True, there is another range of experiences to be reckoned with, such as that of Omar Khayyam-- "Yet ah that Spring should vanish with the Rose! That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close! The Nightingale that on the branches sang, Ah whence, and whither flown again, who knows?"