Those intimations of the ideal and endless perfectness which are dimmed within us by the meaner aspects of human life, or by the sordid difficulties of thought which a sensual and wealth-seeking society present to us, are restored to us by her quiet, order and beauty.

When he wrote _Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Red Cotton Nightcap Country_, and _The Inn Album_, Nature had ceased to awaken the poetic passion in him, and his poetry suffered from the loss.
Its interest lies in the narrow realm of intellectual analysis, not in the large realm of tragic or joyous passion.

He became the dissector of corrupt bodies, not the creator of living beings.
Nevertheless, in _Fifine at the Fair_ there are several intercalated illustrations from Nature, all of which are interesting and some beautiful.

The sunset over Sainte-Marie and the lie Noirmoutier, with the birds who sing to the dead, and the coming of the nightwind and the tide, is as largely wrought as the description of the mountain rill--the "infant of mist and dew," and its voyage to the sea is minute and delicate.

There is also that magnificent description of a sunset which I have already quoted.