Nature was a solemn mother to the worshippers of Isis and Cybele.

Nature was a solemn mother to Wordsworth or to Emerson.

But Nature is not solemn to Francis of Assisi or to George Herbert.

To St.Francis, Nature is a sister, and even a younger sister: a little, dancing sister, to be laughed at as well as loved.
This, however, is hardly our main point at present; I have admitted it only in order to show how constantly, and as it were accidentally, the key would fit the smallest doors.

Our main point is here, that if there be a mere trend of impersonal improvement in Nature, it must presumably be a simple trend towards some simple triumph.