He recognized that what in the stream had drawn him from earliest childhood, with an infinite pleasure, was the vague sense, for a long time an ever growing one, of its MYSTERY--the form the infinite first takes to the simplest and liveliest hearts.

It was because it was ALWAYS flowing that he loved it, because it could not stop: whence it came was utterly unknown to him, and he did not care to know.

And when at length he learned that it came flowing out of the dark hard earth, the mystery only grew.

He imagined a wondrous cavity below in black rock, where it gathered and gathered, nobody could think how--not coming from anywhere else, but beginning just there, and nowhere beyond.

When, later on, he had to shift its source, and carry it back to the great sky, it was no less marvellous, and more lovely; it was a closer binding together of the gentle earth and the awful withdrawing heavens.