| The Life of Dr. J.R. Miller |
Chapter 12 |
Page 5 |
Many paragraphs of these letters were devoted to vivid descriptions of the scenery. But they were composed in such a manner that a reader familiar with the writer’s devotional books would have recognized his hand. For instance, who could mistake this sentence?
“We all know how much genuine human interest adds to the enjoyment of any place or any natural beauty. A visitor at a jeweler’s looking at an opal remarked that it seemed dead and lusterless. The jeweler took it in his hand and held it a few moments, and when he laid it down again, it flashed with all the iridescence of the rainbow. It needed the warmth of the human hand to bring out its splendours. This country would seem to need nothing to give full life to its scenery. One might drive along through the streets and wander through the canyons and climb the mountains and breathe the wonderful air, and without receiving a mark of hospitality or the touch of a human hand he could not but be charmed. But when a party is received into the home life and social life as we were, a warm, rich glow is added to all the loveliness of the place. The opal was made to glow before our eyes with richest beauty by the warmth of the hospitality we enjoyed.”
Again an illustration was used most happily in connection with the narrative of natural beauty made more than ever memorable by reason of the loving greetings of friend of other days:
“Love is never lost. Nothing that love does is ever forgotten. Long, long afterwards the poet found his song, from beginning to end, in the heart of a friend. Love shall find some day every song it has ever sung, sweetly treasured and singing yet in the hearts into which it was breathed. It is a pretty legend of the origin of the pearl which says that a star fell into the sea, and a shellfish, opening its mouth, received it, when the star became a pearl in the shell. The words of love’s greeting as we hurry by fall into our hearts, not to be lost, but to become pearls and to stay there forever.”
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