The simplicity of the universe is very different from the simplicity of a machine. The simplicity of nature is not that which may be easily read but is inexhaustible. The last analysis can no wise be made.
Those whose days are consumed in the low pursuits of avarice, or the gaudy frivolties of fashion, unobservant of nature's lovelinessof demarcation, nor on which side thereof an intermediate form should lie.
Genius has infused itself into nature. It indicates itself by a small excess of good, a small balance in brute facts always favorable to the side of reason.
On the motionless branches of some trees, autumn berries hung like clusters of coral beads, as in those fabled orchards where the fruits were jewels . . .
For Nature is love, and finds haunts for true love, Where nothing can hear or intrude; It hides from the eagle and joins with the dove, In beautiful green solitude.
All things are flowing, even those that seem immovable. The adamant is always passing into smoke. The plants imbibe the materialswhich they want from the air and the ground. They burn, that is, exhale and decompose their own bodies into the air and earth again. The animal burns, or undergoes the like perpetual consumption. The earth burns, the mountains burn and decompose, slower, but incessantly.