Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-04-01


silent Voices.
To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she
speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has voice of gladness and smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings with mild
And gentle sympathy that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware.
-[William Cullen Bryant
1t is the church bells with thei.
varied notes, the organs with theil
majesty Of power, and the finest sing
ers whom art and nature can pro-
duce, which, in the snow-clad, ice.
bound east, proclaim that Spring has
come. In California it is the silent
voices Of the Easter lilies that chant
the oratorio. To those who have
lived long in the eternal radiance Of
the sunset State, who for years have
beheld roses bloom from the LIST OF
January to the 31st Of December, win
ter must have become something of
a tradition. Yet, even along the Pa
cific slope, nature, more in-
spired than any other muse, sweeps
the Tyre with passion which
vibrates through every blade of grass,
every bud and blossom, and which is
taken up and repeated by the ever
lasting mountains, like the echo of a
grand refrain composed of the Deity
himself. The more we see OF human
ity the less we admire and respect it !;
but the closer we get to nature the
more we love and and reverence it.
The man whom we believe, and who
indeed is the truest, may surprise and
disappoint us; but nature never does
either. We cannot always tell when
the wind will blow the rain will fall or
the frost will be untimely; yet we
always know what to expect of
the sun, the seasons, and all other i'm
mutable laws by which the universe is
governed. Emerson says, Rude and
invincible, except by themselves, are
the elements, 80 let man be. Let him
empty his breast of his windy con-
ceits, and show his lordship by man
ners and deeds on the scale OF nature.
Let him hold his purpose as with the
tug of navigation. No power, no per-
suasion, no bribe shall make him give
up his point. A man ought to COM
pare advantageously with river, an
oak or a mountain. He shall not
have less the flow, the expansion
and the resistance of these. "
Men like Emerson always stand
face to face with nature, with
reverent lip and worshipful eye. But
was there ever man like Emerson
A man who could inspire other men
with such hope and courage, and
whose ideas flow with such limitless
inspiration and force through myriad
minds, not as George Elliot said,
''made bitter by his presence" but
by his thoughts. Children are un-
conscious in their appreciation OF
nature, the ignorant and brutal are
blind and deaf and dumb to
it, while "fools rush ip where
angels fear to tread" But
what are the songs that these
silent voices thes eEaster lilies sing
Patience. dignity and hope. A firm
belief in the fitness of things and the
promise of nature that he who wishes
to win must learn to wait. To day
stately and beautiful in their ,epose
they stand like a sacred choir in thei
white array; tomorrow they shal
have passed away, but on their empt.
stalks their histories will be written
just as upon the tombs of men. Thei
names and deeds, too, are inscribed
But they have lived their live
and done their work. Their day
are numbered, 80 are ours
and as surely as other lille
within another spring bloom abov
their graves, so at the allotted time
other men will fill our places in th
worlds bazaar. The only difference is
that the lilies perfectly enact thei
roles; and that we imperfectly enac
ours; that their memories are abov
reproach and that ours are shadowe
by mistakes and embittered witt
regrets.
A Mothers Duty
To her daughters is so teach them tt
be useful and charming, and to dis
miss from their minds all desire t
shine. except as household queens
Her duty to her sons is different. sh
should help them to prepare not onl
to battle with the world, but to shap
their lives to whatever vocation the
seem most likely to adopt. The sur
calling of any man is, unless he
oyertaken by sickness or accident, o
allows himself to be shipwrecked b
dissipation, the sure passport to sut
cess. The mother who is wise wi
realize this, and as anxiously as SD
watches for the first tooth
will watch for the signs OF he
boys aptitude. They do not always
ID is true, show themselves as unml
takably as the whooping-cough
the measles; but a soffcitous eye ca
almost invariably trace some mark
fitness even in the dullest lad. III
trouble is, though, that few mothe
are trained up to this point OF obse
yation and that they are ignorant
the need of all such forethought al
education. Sometimes parents, fathe
particularly, seek to force their DO
to walk in their footsteps, or in pat
chosen by them but this seven . gre'
er mistake than to leave the questi
81 vocation entirely unexplore
Calling Is n Of heritage BY any meal
tor although b the craft of the tatn
.'sSISs 4 III s. .ss s.f>- 4 s X IS II q a. M (.