MY NATIVE HORIZON
Nature and say farewell. He utters his last speech and makes his exit with grand Thespian effect. And as his last echo dies away beyond the nascent warmth of the first sun-kissed cedar bough, the footsteps of Spring are heard in every glen, are seen in bud and clove, are sensed in the unsealed spices of copse and dale. She comes anon with her singing gardens and sighing zephyrs, with her verdant fields and dancing bowers. Yea, she is punctual and refulgent in her appearance as Venus or Jupiter in the Lebanon sky. Here is order, equableness, continuity;—a training, indeed, that mars not art;—a discipline that shakes even the incense in its terebinth sack from its sleep and brings the very salamander to attention. Here Nature beautifully performs the Master-Dramatist's masterpiece. And here too the weather prophets are safe in pursuing their business. They can forecast with the utmost precision, without offending either Dramatist or Actors. Between Nature in my native hills and the learned folk who
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