The keener our realization of the human love that is in the flowers, in the trees, in all the wild life about us, the richer is our humanity, the fuller our reception of life and love, the more thoughtful our use of all the things of Nature becomes ❧ Once I saw an oriole weaving some bits of string into his nest. He hung head downwards, by one string, from a projecting branch, and worked, for nearly an hour, with beak and claws. Then he flew away, triumphant. Later I saw his nest and understood his action. He tied two pieces of string together in a very respectable sort of knot: had wound the long cord thus obtained in and out among the meshes of his nest and then, giving it a half-hitch about a twig, had brought the free end up and tied it securely to another small branch ❧ I felt grateful for what that bird had accomplished. All human achievements seemed to me worthier after seeing him do this thing. Nature teaches us so much if we will but keep still long enough to let her: if we will only empty ourselves of conceit and knowingness, and get rid of the notion that all things, Nature included, are made for us. We are not the lords of creation. We are only a small part, albeit the highest part, of it all, and the better we learn this lesson the better men and women we shall become. [Illustration: ❦] [Illustration] I was sitting here beside the stream, watching the bees swarm in and out at the entrance to their hive, when Hercules passed by. “Come and watch the bees,” I called as he passed. “They are interesting.” ☘ He stood and studied the busy workers, intent upon the business of their miniature society ☘ “I wonder,” he said at last, “if our human reason shall ever evolve a system half so perfect as the one that mere instinct has taught these feeble insects.” As I was silent he continued: “Well, at all events, I can learn one lesson from the bees, and be about my business. If society is ever to be freed from its burdens every soul must do its full duty. One life wasted means a whole world hindered just that much.” And Hercules was gone to his labors ❧ How fearful we all are of wasting our lives, yet so rarely fearful for the results of the ceaseless activity with which we crowd them ❦ But Hercules’ words are full of suggestiveness. Is our boasted human reason really less adequate to the needs of our life than is what we call the instinct, this thing that looks so much more reasonable than our reason, of the lower orders? What if, after all, we are making a desperate mistake in supposing that it is this faculty which we call reason that distinguishes us from the brute creation?