Our side of the earth never turns suddenly toward the sun at night,
giving us flashes of day in the darkness. When it is night, it is
night steadily, quietly, until the time comes for day. A tree in
winter, its time for rest, never starts out with a little bud here
and there, only to be frost bitten, and so when spring-time comes,
to result in an uneven looking, imperfectly developed tree. It rests
entirely in its time for rest; and when its time for blooming comes,
its action is full and true and perfect. The grass never pushes
itself up in little, untimely blades through the winter, thus
leaving our lawns and fields full of bare patches in the warmer
season. The flowers that close at night do not half close, folding
some petals and letting others stay wide open. Indeed, so perfectly
does Nature rest when it is her time for resting, that even the
suggestion of these abnormal actions seems absolutely ridiculous.
The less we allow ourselves to be controlled by Nature's laws, the
more we ignore their wonderful beauty; and yet there is that in us
which must constantly respond to Nature unconsciously, else how
could we at once feel the absurdity of any disobedience to her laws,
everywhere except with man? And man, who is not only free to obey,
but has exquisite and increasing power to realize and enjoy them in
all their fulness, lives so far out of harmony with these laws as
ever to be blind to his own steady disobedience.
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