Auguste Sancteque

Do not vex the violet
Perfume to afford—
Else no odour thou wilt get
From its little hoard.

In thy lady's gracious eyes
Look not thou too long
Lest the glory from them flies
And thou dost her wrong.

Ordinary readers might easily miss the meaning of George Macdonald's words quoted above — coarse minds might read into them even the coarsest of meanings — but his thought is fully expressed in the first verse though taken alone, and is but elaborated in the following. What then is his meaning? To put it into bald prose would render us guilty of the very blunder he is warning US against: the rough handling of spiritual things.

Readers of Wordsworth, however, will place alongside the above verses the lines entitled "Nutting," where after full appreciation of the beauty, in the woods, of a virgin scene—such as only a poet could fully appreciate or fitly describe—he tells how he came to defile and sully it in a rash endeavour to fully enjoy it, and in so doing effectually robbed it of its very being and himself of all enjoyment—experiencing instead a sense of loss. His eon-eluding advice

Move along these shades
In gentleness of heart; with gentle hand
Touch—for there is a spirit in the woods.

is that of George Macdonald's warning against rough handling of spiritual things. Both poets felt the same thing—have we not all done so more or less?

Is not reverence—shall we not even say worship—an essential, if it is to be lasting, in aesthetic pleasure? As in much besides, should it not find fuller recognition in our college life?

Let knowledge grow from more
to more But more of reverence in us dwell,
That, mind and heart according well
May make one music as before.