This is the impression—the impression of steadfastness, constancy, and reliability—which a nightly contemplation of the stars makes upon us. At the foundation of things is something dependable, something in which we can repose our faith. And so the sense of calm and confidence we feel.
And in the desert we have no feeling that the stars pursue their course in cold indifference to us—that the Power which sustains them works its soulless way unregardful of the frettings of us little men. Not thus are we who watch the desert stars impressed. Quite otherwise. For nowhere do we feel the Influence nearer, more intimate or more beneficent. We seem in the very midst of the great Presence. We are immersed in it. It is pervading us on every side. We do not expect it to alter the whole course of Nature for our private good. But we feel confident that the course of Nature is for good—that Nature is a beneficent and no callous Power, and has good at heart. Because the foundations are so sure and good we can each pursue our way in confidence. This is the impression we get.
And the Power which guides the stars upon their heavenly way, and which, in guiding them, guides us across the desert, does not reside, we feel, in lonely grandeur in the empty places of the heavens, but in the stars themselves—in their very constitution—in each individually and in all in their togetherness. It burns in each star and shines forth from it, and yet holds the whole together as we see it every night in that circling vault around us. The Activity does not appear to us to emanate from some Invisible Being dwelling wholly apart and isolated from the stars and this Earth, and sending forth invisible spiritual rays, as the Sun stands apart from the Earth but sends out rays of sunlight to it. It seems rather to dwell in the very heart and centre of each star, and the stars seem spiritual rather than material beings. So this Power, as we experience it in the desert, does not impress us as being awful and remote, gloomy and inexorable, enforcing unbending law and exacting terrible penalties. Our impression of it is that, though it preserves order with unfailing regularity, it is yet near and kindly, radiating with light and warmth. We not only feel it to be something steadfast, something on which we can rely and in which we may have confidence; we also feel warmed and kindled by it.
So what we get from a nightly contemplation of the stars is a sense of happy companionship with Nature. The Heart of Nature as here revealed is both dependable and kindly. Nature is our friend. And in her certain friendship the balm of peace falls softly on us. Our hearts blend tenderly with the Heart of Nature; and in their union we see Beauty of the gentlest and most reassuring kind.
CHAPTER IX
HOME BEAUTY
The Artist in his quest for Natural Beauty will have pursued it in the remotest and wildest parts of the Earth, where he can see Nature in her primeval and most elemental simplicity. He will have seen her in many and most varied aspects—the grandest, the wildest, and the most luxuriant. And from these numerous and so different manifestations of Nature he will have been enabled more fully to understand her meaning and comprehend her soul. Moreover, this contemplation of Nature will have evoked from within himself much that he had never suspected he possessed, and thereby his own soul also he will have learned to understand. And from this completer comprehension of his own soul and hers will have emerged a fuller community of heart between him and Nature. He will have come to worship her with a still more ardent devotion, and through the intensity of his love discovered richer and richer Beauty in her.
But even yet he has not seen Natural Beauty where it can be found in its highest perfection. Only when there can be the most intimate possible relationship between him and the natural object he is contemplating can Beauty at its finest be seen. And this closest correspondence of all between him and Nature will only be when he is in the natural surroundings with which he has been familiar from childhood, and which have affected him in his most impressionable years.
The Artist will have seen Nature as she manifests herself in the teeming life of a tropical forest and the most varied races of men; in the highest mountains and the widest deserts; in the glory of sunsets and the calm of stars. But it is in none of these that he will see deepest into the true Heart of Nature and understand her best. It is amid scenery which he has loved since boyhood, in the hearts of his own countrymen in their own country, that he will see deepest into Nature. And deepest of all will he see when from among his countrywomen he has united himself to the one of his own deliberate choice, and in this union realised in its fulness, strength, and intensity that Creative Love which springs from Nature's very heart, and is the ultimate fount and source of all Natural Beauty.