But it is of prime importance to observe that the aforementioned mature
fruit, which so falls at the tenderest touch into the hand, is no
sudden, no idle product. It comes, on the contrary, of a depth of
operation more profound, and testifies to a genius and sincerity in
Nature more subtile and religious, than we can understand or imagine.
This apple that in fancy we now pluck, and hardly need to pluck, from
the burdened bough,--think what a pedigree it has, what aeons of
world-making and world-maturing must elapse, all the genius of God
divinely assiduous, ere this could hang in ruddy and golden ripeness
here! Think, too, what a concurrence and consent of elements, of sun and
soil, of ocean-vapors and laden winds, of misty heats in the torrid zone
and condensing blasts from the North, were required before a single
apple could grow, before a single blossom could put forth its promise,
tender and beautiful amidst the gladness of spring!--and besides these
consenting ministries of Nature, how the special genius of the tree must
have wrought, making sacrifice of woody growth, and, by marvellous and
ineffable alchemies, co-working with the earth beneath, and the heaven
above! Ah, not from any indifference, not from any haste or indolence,
in Nature, come the fruits of her seasons and her centuries!
Now he who has any faculty of thinking must see that thoughts are before
things in the order of existence.
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