Nature's Independence Day T HE day was as it should be-intense. with the solar, and the spots on the horoscope of the country were less conspicuous than those on the face of the sun. Why should we be asked to worry over petty villainies and wrongs, within so small and transitory a sphere of days, when a storm 50,000 miles across,-larger than two earths stretched out flat the longest way round,―is careering over the vast orb that makes our life and our country's possible? We are but a speck upon a little ball, in one of the least among myriads of universes,-and why fret on a day that in itself forbids such a temper, and would have us indolent and content? As the Swan of Usk wrote to his friend: "Why should we Vex at the land's ridiculous miserie?" Let us go rest and breathe slow, and dream, where trees bend over shady waters that cool the hot winds. For indeed in this very stress and splendour of summer even the light zephyrs are distempered, their wings as it were shriveled, and their lips fevered as they kiss our brows. Only where water is do they revive their sweetness and comfort, and in the deep hearts of pines and hemlocks, where they roam like bees in clover, these hot hours, stirring the balsamic odours which the sun coaxes forth, and bestowing them on weary men and women. The holiday is one of Nature's own adoption; therefore let us withdraw into her generous society, and be at ease. The country is to be served any day and all days, and for the sanity that brings her good service there is no food better than the forest shades afford. Seen from the coverts the very fervours of the sun bestow their aid. Look out upon the fields that faint in the keen rays, and over the meadows of drooping clover, to where"Far in the fierce sunshine tower the hills." Then the wind comes, tossing the trees, bending the grasses, and the clouds swiftly sweep up the sky, dark and threatening. Suddenly an ominous silence falls, the rush of winds upgathered breaks forth upon the heat and scatters all the warm fragrance of the day; man and all creatures haste to shelter; the birds with quick |