Page:OptimismBlood.djvu/95

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SECTION XVI.

VARIETY.

There is a proverb among men that no two things are exactly alike; "You cannot bathe twice in the same river," said the ancient; but in the course of ordinary thought we do not reflect upon the truth and beauty of the saying. Let us dwell upon it, for it is blessed.—Turn not to the stars of differing glory, symbols of the human race, and ranging from the golden sun through a myriad galaxies whose snowing numbers drift into the Milky Way, but turn to our own star. Earth. Say first, thou sceptic of divine benevolence, why, in that revolution which brings light for all labor, and darkness for all rest,—why does she not turn plumb upon her axis, like all the wheels that man has put in motion? What dull mechanic boxed her widely-oscillating journals?—Glorious ecliptic! beauty of the material universe! thy designer is the friend of man : Winding, in the "line of beauty," the green and white around the varied world, bringing bright summer and gray winter to him who could love neither one alone. Would he have all cold, he can have it. Would he have all hot, he can have it. Would he stand still, and have every grade of hot and cold that his nature can endure, he can have them in one year's passage. Is a year too long—the steamers that round Cape Horn can put him almost a year into a month : Or let him climb a tropical mountain to its icy scalp, and encoun-

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