But the sun has come out again. The rain is over and gone. Only the last treasured drops chase one another along the leaves and down the stems of the plants. Our picnickers are venturing forth
The wet blades of grass sparkle in the sunlight. Over on the bank a ruby-throated hummer is flying back and forth across a tiny stream that patters and splashes against a rock. These morsels of birds love a shower-bath and this fellow now has one exactly to his mind. The clouds have drifted down the sky and everything seems glad and grateful for “the useful trouble of the rain.”
Once upon a time man conceived the belief that this universe, with its many worlds swinging through space, was created for him. He fancied that the sun shone by day to warm and vivify him; that the stars of night were none other than lamps to his feet; that the other animals existed to afford him food and clothing—and sport; that the very flowers of the field blossomed and fruited and were beautiful for his gratification. In fact, man conceived the belief that instead of being the wise brother and helper of this creation amidst which he moves, he was the great central pivot upon which all revolves
A sorry lesson, surely, for man to read into the broad, open page of Nature’s great book. Small wonder that to him in his meanness its message came as “the painful riddle of the earth.” But it was the best he could do: it is the best any of us can do until we have learned the great lesson which the ancient Wise One has written out for us—which she will teach us, in time, through death, if we will not let her teach it through life: the lesson that use is not appropriation; that appropriation sets use to groan and sweat under fardels of evil