CHAPTER V
ENTHUSIASM FOR NATURE AMONG THE DISCOVERERS AND CATHOLIC MYSTICS
The great achievement of the Italian Renaissance was the discovery of the world within, of the whole deep contents of the human spirit. Burckhart, praising this achievement, says:
If we were to collect the pearls from the courtly and knightly poetry of all the countries of the West during the two preceding centuries, we should have a mass of wonderful divinations and single pictures of the inward life, which at first sight would seem to rival the poetry of the Italians. Leaving lyrical poetry out of account, Godfrey of Strassburg gives us, in his _Tristram and Isolt_, a representation of human passion, some features of which are immortal. But these pearls lie scattered in the ocean of artificial convention, and they are altogether something very different from a complete objective picture of the inward man and his spiritual wealth.
The discovery of the beauty of scenery followed as a necessary corollary of this awakening of individualism, this fathoming of the depths of human personality. For only to fully-developed man does Nature fully disclose herself.
This had already been stated by one of the most philosophic minds of the time, Pico della Mirandola, in his speech on the dignity of man. God, he tells us, made man at the close of creation to know the laws of the universe, to love its beauty, to admire its greatness. He bound him to no fixed place, to no prescribed form of work, and by no iron necessity; but gave him freedom to will and to move.
'I have set thee,' said the Creator to Adam, 'in the midst of the world, that thou mayest the more easily behold and see all that is therein. I created thee a being neither heavenly nor earthly, neither mortal nor immortal, only that thou mightest be free to shape and to overcome thyself. Thou mayest sink into a beast, and be born again to the Divine likeness. The brutes bring with them from their mothers' body what they will carry with them as long as they live; the higher spirits are from the beginning, or soon after, what they will be for ever. To thee alone is given a growth and a development depending on thine own free will. Thou bearest in thee the germs of a universal life.'
The best men of the Renaissance realized this ideal of an all-round development, and it was the glory of Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, that she found a new realm in the inner man at the very time that her discoveries across the seas were enlarging the boundaries of the external world, and her science was studying it. Mixed as the motives of the discoverers must have been, like those of the crusaders before them, and probably, for the most part, self-interested, it is easy to imagine the surprise they must have felt at seeing ignorant people, who, to quote Peter Martyr (de rebus oceanicis):[1]
Naked, without weights or measures or death-dealing money, live in a Golden Age without laws, without slanderous judges, without the scales of the balance. Contented with Nature, they spend their lives utterly untroubled for the future.... Theirs is a Golden Age; they do not enclose their farms with trench or wall or hurdle; their gardens are open. Without laws, without the scales of the balance, without judges, they guard the right by Nature's light.
And their wonder at the novelties in climate and vegetation, the strange forests, brilliant birds, and splendid stars of the tropics, must have been no less.
Yet it is one thing to feel, and another to find words to convey the feeling to others; and the explorers often expressed regret for their lack of skill in this respect.
Also, and this is more important in criticizing what they wrote, these seamen were mostly simple, unlettered folk, to whom a country's wealth in natural products and their practical value made the strongest appeal, and whose admiration of bays, harbours, trees, fields of grain, etc., was measured by the same standard of utility. Even such unskilled reporters did not entirely fail to refer to the beauty of Nature; but had it not been for the original and powerful mind of Christopher Columbus, we should have had little more in the way of description than 'pleasant,' 'pretty,' and such words.
Marco Polo described his journey to the coast of Cormos[2] in very matter-of-fact fashion, but not without a touch of satisfaction at the peculiarities of the place:
You then approach the very beautiful plain of Formosa, watered by fine rivers, with plantations of the date palms, and having the air filled with francolins, parrots, and other birds unknown to our climate. You ride two days to it, and then arrive at the ocean, on which there is a city and a fort named Cormos. The ships of India bring thither all kinds of spiceries, precious stones, and pearls, cloths of silk and gold, elephants' teeth, and many other articles.... They sow wheat, barley, and other kinds of grain in the month of November, and reap them in March, when they become ripe and perfect; but none except the date will endure till May, being dried up by the extreme heat.
Elsewhere he wrote of scenery in the same strain: of the Persian deserts, and the green table-lands and wild gorges of Badachshan, Japan with its golden roofed palaces, paradisaical Sunda Islands with their 'abundance of treasure and costly spices,' Java the less with its eight kingdoms, etc.; but naturally his chief interest was given to the manners and customs of the various races, and the fertility and uses of their countries.
In Bishop Osorio's _History of Emmanuel, King of Portugal_, we see some pleasure in the beauties of Nature peeping through the matter-of-fact tone of the day.
Thus, speaking of the companions of Vasco da Gama, he says that they admired the far coast of Africa:
They descried some little islands, which appeared extremely pleasant; the trees were lofty, the meadows of a beautiful verdure, and great numbers of cattle frisked about everywhere; they could see the inhabitants walking upon the shore in vast numbers....
Of Mozambique he says:
The palm trees are of a great height, covered with long prickly leaves; broad-spreading boughs afford an agreeable shade, and bear nuts of a great size, called cocoes.
Of Melinda:
The city stands in a beautiful plain, surrounded with a variety of fine gardens; these are stocked with all sorts of trees, especially the orange, the flowers of which yield a most graceful diffusive smell. The country is rich and plentiful, abounding not only with tame and domestic cattle, but with game of all kinds, which the natives hunt down or take with nets.
Of Zanzibar:
The soil of this place is rich and fertile, and it abounds with springs of the most excellent water; the whole island is covered with beautiful woods, which are extremely fragrant from the many wild citrons growing there, which diffuse the most grateful scent.
Of Brazil, which is 'extremely pleasant and the soil fruitful':
Clothed with a beautiful verdure, covered with tall trees, abounding with plenty of excellent water ... and so healthy that the inhabitants make no use of medicines, for almost all who die here are not cut off by any distemper, but worn out by age. Here are many large rivers, besides a vast number of delightful springs. The plains are large and spacious, and afford excellent pasture.... In short, the whole country affords a most beautiful prospect, being diversified with hills and valleys, and these covered with thick shady woods stocked with great variety of trees, many of which our people were quite strangers to: of these there was one of a particular nature, the leaves of which, when cut, sent forth a kind of balsam. The trees used in dyeing scarlet grow here in great plenty and to a great height. The soil likewise produces the most useful plants.
Of Ormuz, near Arabia:
The name of the island seems to be taken from the ancient city of Armuza in Caramania ... the place is sandy and barren, and the soil so very poor that it produces nothing fit for human sustenance, neither by nature nor by the most laborious cultivation ... yet here you might see greater plenty of these, as well as all luxurious superfluities, than in most other countries of a richer and more fertile soil, for the place, poor in itself, having become the great mart for the commodities of India, Persia, and Arabia, was thus abundantly stocked with the produce of all these countries.
Peter Martyr's[3] point of view was much the same. He was full of surprise at the splendour round him, and the advantages such fertility offered to husbandry:
Thus after a few days with cheerful hearts they espied the land long looked for....
As they coasted along by the shore of certain of these islands, they heard nightingales sing in the thick woods in the month of November.
They found also great rivers of fresh water and natural havens of capacity to harbour great navies of ships.... They found there wild geese, turtle-doves, and ducks, much greater than ours, and as white as swans, with heads of purple colour. Also popinjays, of the which some are green, some yellow, and having their feathers intermingled with green, yellow, and purple, which varieties delighted the sense not a little.... They entered into a main large sea, having in it innumerable islands, marvellously differing one from another; for some of them were very fruitful, full of herbs and trees, other some very dry, barren, and rough, with high rocky mountains of stone, whereof some were of bright blue, or azurine colour, and other glistening white.
He filled a whole page with descriptions of the wonderful wealth of flowers, fruit, and vegetables of all kinds, which the ground yields even in February. The richness of the prairie grass, the charm of the rivers, the wealth of fruit, the enormous size of the trees (with a view to native houses), the various kinds of pines, palms, and chestnuts, and their uses, the immense downfall of water carried to the sea by the rivers--all this he noted with admiration; but industrial interest outweighed the æsthetic, even when he called Spain happier than Italy. There is no trace of any real feeling for scenery, any grasp of landscape as a whole; he did not advance beyond scattered details, which attracted his eye chiefly for their material uses.
But there is real delight in Nature in the account of a journey to the Cape Verde Islands, undertaken on the suggestion of Henry the Navigator by Aloise da Mosto,[4] an intelligent Venetian nobleman:
Cape de Verde is so called because the Portuguese, who had discovered it about a year before, found it covered with trees, which continue green all the year round. This is a high and beautiful Cape, which runs a good length into the sea, and has two hills or little mountains at the point thereof. There are several villages of negroes from Senega, on and about the promontory, who dwell in thatched houses close to the shore, and in sight of those who sail by.... The coast is all low and full of fine large trees, which are constantly green; that is, they never wither as those in Europe do, for the new leaves grow before the old ones fall off. These trees are so near the shore that they seem to drink out of the sea. It is a most beautiful coast to behold, and the author, who had sailed both in the East and West, never saw any comparable with it.
As Ruge says:
The delight of this solid and prudent citizen of Strasburg in the beauty of the tropics is lost in translation, but very evident in the original account.[5]
After reading it, we cannot quite say with Humboldt that Columbus was the very first to give fluent expression to Nature's beauty on the shores of the New World; none the less, and apart from his importance in other respects, he remains the chief representative of his time in the matter. Humboldt noted this in his critical examination of the history of geography in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in which he pointed out his deep feeling for Nature, and also, what only those who know the difficulties of language at the time can appreciate, the beauty and simplicity of his expression of it.[6]
Columbus is a striking example of the fact that a man's openness to Nature increases with his general inner growth. No one doubts that uneducated sailors, like other unlettered people, are vividly impressed by fine scenery, especially when it is new to them, if they possess a spark of mental refinement. They have the feeling, but are unable to express it in words. But, as Humboldt says, feeling improves speech; with increased culture, the power of expression increases.
We owe a debt of gratitude to Fernandez de Navarrete[7] for the Diary in which we can trace Columbus' love for Nature increasing to 'a deep and poetic feeling for the majesty of creation.'
He wrote, October 8th, 1492, in his diary:
'Thanks be to God,' says the Admiral, 'the air is very soft like the April at Seville, and it is a pleasure to be there, so balmy are the breezes.'
And Humboldt says:
The physiognomy and forms of the vegetation, the impenetrable thickets of the forests, in which one can scarcely distinguish the stems to which the several blossoms and leaves belong, the wild luxuriance of the flowering soil along the humid shores, and the rose-coloured flamingoes which, fishing at early morning at the mouth of the rivers, impart animation to the scenery,--all in turn arrested the attention of the old mariner as he sailed along the shores of Cuba, between the small Lucayan Islands and the Jardinillos.
Each new country seemed to him more beautiful than the last; he complained that he could not find new words in which to give the Queen an impression of the beauty of the Cuban coast.
It will repay us to examine the Diary more closely, since Humboldt only treated it shortly and in scattered extracts, and it has been
## partly falsified, unintentionally, by attempts to modernize the
language instead of adhering to literal translation. What Peschel says, for instance, is pretty but distinctly exaggerated:
Columbus was never weary of listening to the nightingales, comparing the genial Indian climate with the Andalusian spring, and admiring the luxuriant wilderness on these humid shores, with their dense vegetation and forests so rich in all kinds of plants, and alive with swarms of parrots ... with an open eye for all the beauties of Nature and all the wonders of creation, he looked at the splendour of the tropics very much as a tender father looks into the bright eyes of his child.[8]
The Diary of November 3rd says:
He could see nothing, owing to the dense foliage of the trees, which were very fresh and odoriferous; so that he felt no doubt that there were aromatic herbs among them. He said that all he saw was so beautiful that his eyes could never tire of gazing upon such loveliness, nor his ears of listening to the songs of birds.
November 14th:
He saw so many islands that he could not count them all, with very high land covered with trees of many kinds and an infinite number of palms. He was much astonished to see so many lofty islands, and assured the Sovereigns that the mountains and islands he had seen since yesterday seemed to him to be second to none in the world, so high and clear of clouds and snow, with the sea at their bases so deep.
November 25th:
He saw a large stream of beautiful water falling from the mountains above, with a loud noise.... Just then the sailor boys called out that they had found large pines. The Admiral looked up the hill and saw that they were so wonderfully large, that he could not exaggerate their height and straightness, like stout yet fine spindles. He perceived that here there was material for great store of planks and masts for the largest ships in Spain ... the mountains are very high, whence descend many limpid streams, and all the hills are covered with pines, and an infinity of diverse and beautiful trees.
November 27th:
The freshness and beauty of the trees, the clearness of the water and the birds, made it all so delightful that he wished never to leave them. He said to the men who were with him that to give a true relation to the Sovereigns of the things they had seen, a thousand tongues would not suffice, nor his hand to write it, for that it was like a scene of enchantment.
December 13th:
The nine men well armed, whom he sent to explore a certain place, said, with regard to the beauty of the land they saw, that the best land in Castille could not be compared with it. The Admiral also said that there was no comparison between them, nor did the Plain of Cordova come near them, the difference being as great as between night and day. They said that all these lands were cultivated, and that a very wide and large river passed through the centre of the valley and could irrigate all the fields. All the trees were green and full of fruit, and the plants tall and covered with flowers. The roads were broad and good. The climate was like April in Castille; the nightingale and other birds sang as they do in Spain during that month, and it was the most pleasant place in the world. Some birds sing sweetly at night, the crickets and frogs are heard a good deal.
All this shews a naive and spontaneous delight in Nature, as free from sentimentality as from any grasp of landscape as a distinct entity.
In a letter about Cuba, which Humboldt gives, he says:
The lands are high, and there are many very lofty mountains ... all most beautiful, of a thousand different shapes, accessible and covered with trees of a thousand kinds of such great height that they seemed to reach the skies. I am told that the trees never lose their foliage, and I can well believe it, for I observed that they were as green and luxuriant as in Spain in the month of May. Some were in bloom, others bearing fruit, and others otherwise according to their nature. There were palm trees of six or eight kinds, wonderful in their beautiful variety; but this is the case with all the other trees; fruits and grasses, trees, plants and fruits filled us with admiration. It contains extraordinary pine groves and very extensive plains.
Humboldt here comments that these often-repeated expressions of admiration prove a strong feeling for the beauty of Nature, since they are concerned with foliage and shade, not with precious metals. The next letter shews the growing power of description:
Reaching the harbour of Bastimentos, I put in.... The storm and a rapid current kept me in for fourteen days, when I again set sail, but not with favourable weather.... I had already made four leagues when the storm recommenced and wearied me to such a degree that I absolutely knew not what to do; my wound re-opened, and for nine days my life was despaired of. Never was the sea seen so high, so terrific, and so covered with foam; not only did the wind oppose our proceeding onward, but it also rendered it highly dangerous to run in for any headland, and kept me in that sea, which seemed to me a sea of blood, seething like a cauldron on a mighty fire. Never did the sky look more fearful; during one day and one night it burned like a furnace, and emitted flashes in such fashion that each time I looked to see if my masts and my sails were not destroyed; these flashes came with such alarming fury that we all thought the ship must have been consumed. All this time the waters from heaven never ceased, not to say that it rained, for it was like a repetition of the Deluge. The men were at this time so crushed in spirit, that they longed for death as a deliverance from so many martyrdoms. Twice already had the ships suffered loss in boats, anchors, and rigging, and were now lying bare without sails.
These extracts shew how feeling for Nature in unlettered minds could develop into an enthusiasm which begot to some extent its own power of expression. Columbus was entirely deficient in all previous knowledge of natural history; but he was gifted with deep feeling (the account of the nocturnal visions in the _Lettera Rarissima_ is proof of this)[9], mental energy, and a capacity for exact observation which many of the other explorers did not possess, and these faculties made up for what he lacked in education.
In Cuba alone, he distinguishes seven or eight different species of palm more beautiful and taller than the date tree; he informs his learned friend Anghiera that he has seen pines and palms wonderfully associated together in one and the same plain, and he even so acutely observed the vegetation around him, that he was the first to notice that there were pines in the mountains of Cibao, whose fruits are not fir cones but berries like the olives of the Axarafe de Sevilla.
(_Cosmos._)
Most of Vespucci's narratives of travel, especially his letters to the Medici, only contain adventures and descriptions of manners and customs. He lacked the originality and enthusiasm which gave the power of the wing to Columbus.
That imposing Portuguese poem, the _Lusiad_ of Camoens, is full of jubilation over the discovery of the New World. Camoens made his notes of foreign places at first hand; he had served as a soldier, fought at the foot of Atlas in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, had doubled the Cape twice, and, inspired by a deep love for Nature, had spent sixteen years in examining the phenomena of the ocean on the Indian and Chinese shores. He was a great sea painter. His poetic and inventive power remind one at times of Dante--for instance, in the description of the Dream Face; and he pictures foreign lands with the clearness and detail of the discoverers and later travellers. Here and there his poetry is like the Diary of Columbus translated into verse--epic verse.
He had the same fiery spirit, nerve, and fresh insight, with the poet's gift added.
(None the less, the classic apparatus of deities in Thetys' _Apology_ is no adornment.)
Comparisons from Nature and animals are few but detailed:
E'en as the prudent ants which towards their nest Bearing the apportioned heavy burden go, Exercise all their forces at their best, Hostile to hostile winter's frost and snow; There, all their toils and labours stand confessed, There, never looked-for energy they show; So, from the Lusitanians to avert Their horrid Fate, the nymphs their power exert.
Thus, as in some sequestered sylvan mere The frogs (the Lycian people formerly), If that by chance some person should appear While out of water they incautious be, Awake the pool by hopping here and there, To fly the danger which they deem they see, And gathering to some safe retreat they know, Only their heads above the water show--So fly the Moors.
E'en as when o'er the parching flame there glows A flame, which may from some chance cause ignite, (All while the whistling, puffing Boreas blows), Fanned by the wind sets all the growth alight, The shepherd's group, lying in their repose Of quiet sleep, aroused in wild afright At crackling flames that spread both wide and high, Gather their goods and to the village fly; So doth the Moor.
E'en as the daisy which once brightly smiled, Plucked by unruly hands before its hour, And harshly treated by the careless child, All in her chaplet tied with artless power. Droops, of its colour and its scent despoiled, So seems this pale and lifeless damsel flower; The roses of her lips are dry and dead, With her sweet life the mingled white and red.
The following simile reminds us of the far-fetched comparison of Apollonios Rhodios[11]:
As the reflected lustre from the bright Steel mirror, or of beauteous crystal fine, Which, being stricken by the solar light, Strikes back and on some other part doth shine; And when, to please the child's vain curious sight, Moved o'er the house, as may his hand incline, Dances on walls and roof and everywhere, Restless and tremulous, now here now there, So did the wandering judgment fluctuate.
He says of Diana:
And, as confronted on her way she pressed, So beautiful her form and bearing were, That everything that saw her love confessed, The stars, the heaven, and the surrounding air.
The Indus and Ganges are personified in stanza xiv. 74, the Cape in v. 50.
His time references are mostly mixed up with ancient mythology:
As soon, however, as the enamelled morn O'er the calm heaven her lovely looks outspread, Opening to bright Hyperion, new-born, Her purple portals as he raised his head, Then the whole fleet their ships with flags adorn.
and:
So soon, however, as great Sol has spread His rays o'er earth, whom instantly to meet, Her purple brow Aurora rising shews, And rudely life around the horizon throws.
He is at his best in writing of the sea.
He says of the explorers on first setting sail:
Now were they sailing o'er wide ocean bright, The restless waves dividing as they flew; The winds were breathing prosperous and light, The vessels' hollow sails were filled to view; The seas were covered o'er with foaming white Where the advancing prows were cutting through The consecrated waters of the deep.... Thus went we forth these unknown seas to explore, Which by no people yet explored had been; Seeing new isles and climes which long before Great Henry, first discoverer, had seen.
Now did the moon in purest lustre rise On Neptune's silvery waves her beams to pour, With stars attendant glittered all the skies, E'en like a meadow daisy-spangled o'er; The fury of the winds all peaceful lies In the dark caverns close along the shore, But still the night-watch constant vigils keep, As long had been their custom on the deep.
To tell thee of the dangers of the sea At length, which human understanding scare, Thunder-storms, sudden, dreadful in degree, Lightnings, which seem to set on fire the air, Dark floods of rain, nights of obscurity, Rollings of thunder which the world would tear, Were not less labour than a great mistake, E'en if I had an iron voice to speak.
He describes the electric fires of St Elmo and the gradual development of the waterspout:
I saw, and clearly saw, the living light Which sailors everywhere as sacred hold In time of storm and crossing winds that fight, Of tempest dark and desperation cold; Nor less it was to all a marvel quite, And matter surely to alarm the bold, To observe the sea-clouds, with a tube immense, Suck water up from Ocean's deep expanse.... A fume or vapour thin and subtle rose, And by the wind begin revolving there; Thence to the topmost clouds a tube it throws, But of a substance so exceeding rare.... But when it was quite gorged it then withdrew The foot that on the sea beneath had grown, And o'er the heavens in fine it raining flew, The jacent waters watering with its own.
The storm at sea reminds us of Æschylus in splendour:
The winds were such, that scarcely could they shew With greater force or greater rage around, Than if it were this purpose then to blow The mighty tower of Babel to the ground.... Now rising to the clouds they seem to go O'er the wild waves of Neptune borne on end; Now to the bowels of the deep below; It seems to all their senses, they descend; Notus and Auster, Boreas, Aquila, The very world's machinery would rend; While flashings fire the black and ugly night And shed from pole to pole a dazzling light.... But now the star of love beamed forth its ray, Before the sun, upon the horizon clear, And visited, as messenger of day, The earth and spreading sea, with brow to cheer....
And, as it subsides:
The mountains that we saw at first appeared, In the far view, like clouds and nothing more.
Off the coast of India:
Now o'er the hills broke forth the morning light Where Ganges' stream is murmuring heard to flow, Free from the storm and from the first sea's fight, Vain terror from their hearts is banished now.
His magic island, the Ilha of Venus, could only have been imagined by a poet who had travelled widely. All the delights of the New World are there, with the vegetation of Southern Europe added. It is a poet's triumphant rendering of impressions which the discoverers so often felt their inability to convey:
From far they saw the island fresh and fair, Which Venus o'er the waters guiding drove (E'en as the wind the canvas white doth bear).... Where the coast forms a bay for resting-place, Curved and all quiet, and whose shining sand Is painted with red shells by Venus' hand.... Three beauteous mounts rise nobly to the view, Lifting with graceful pride their sweeling head, O'er which enamelled grass adorning grew. In this delightful lovely island glad, Bright limpid streams their rushing waters threw From heights with rich luxuriant verdure clad, 'Midst the white rocks above, their source derive, The streams sonorous, sweet, and fugitive.... A thousand trees toward heaven their summits raise, With fruits odoriferous and fair; The orange in its produce bright displays The tint that Daphne carried in her hair; The citron on the ground its branches lays, Laden with yellow weights it cannot bear; The beauteous melons, which the whole perfume The virgin bosom in their form assume. The forest trees, which on the hills combine To ennoble them with leafy hair o'ergrown, Are poplars of Alcides; laurels shine, The which the shining God loved as his own; Myrtles of Cytherea with the pine Of Cybele, by other love o'erthrown; The spreading cypress tree points out where lies The seat of the ethereal paradise.... Pomegranates rubicund break forth and shine, A tint whereby thou, ruby, losest sheen. 'Twixt the elm branches hangs the jocund vine, With branches some of red and some of green.... Then the refined and splendid tapestry, Covering the rustic ground beneath the feet, Makes that of Achemeina dull to be, But makes the shady valley far more sweet. Cephisian flowers with head inclined we see About the calm and lucid lake's retreat.... 'Twas difficult to fancy which was true, Seeing on heaven and earth all tints the same, If fair Aurora gave the flowers their time, Or from the lovely flowers to her it came; Flora and Zephyr there in painting drew The violets tinted, as of lovers' flame, The iris, and the rose all fair and fresh E'en as it doth on cheek of maiden blush.... Along the water sings the snow-white swan, While from the branch respondeth Philomel.... Here, in its bill, to the dear nest, with care, The rapid little bird the food doth bear.
Subjective feeling for Nature is better displayed in the lyric than the epic.
The Spaniard, Fray Luis de Leon, was a typical example of a sixteenth-century lyrist; full of mild enthusiasm for Nature, the theosophico-mystical attitude of the Catholic.
A most fervid feeling for Nature from the religious side breathed in St Francis of Assisi--the feeling which inspired his hymn to Brother Sun (_Cantico del Sole_), and led his brother Egidio, intoxicated with love to his Creator, to kiss trees and rocks and weep over them[12]:
Praised by His creatures all, Praised be the Lord my God By Messer Sun, my brother above all, Who by his rays lights us and lights the day-- Radiant is she, with his great splendour stored, Thy glory, Lord, confessing. By Sister Moon and Stars my Lord is praised, Where clear and fair they in the heavens are raised By Brother Wind, etc....
His follower, Bonaventura, too, in his verses counted--
The smallest creatures his brothers and sisters, and called upon crops, vineyards, trees, flowers, and stars to praise God.
Bernard von Clairvaux made it a principle 'to learn from the earth, trees, corn, flowers, and grass'; and he wrote in his letter to Heinrich Murdach (Letter 106):
Believe me, I have proved it; you will find more in the woods than in books; trees and stones will teach you what no other teacher can.
He looked upon all natural objects as 'rays of the Godhead,' copies of a great original.
His contemporary, Hugo von St Victor, wrote:
The whole visible world is like a book written by the finger of God. It is created by divine power, and all human beings are figures placed in it, not to shew the free-will of man, but as a revelation and visible sign, by divine will, of God's invisible wisdom. But as one who only glances at an open book sees marks on it, but does not read the letters, so the wicked and sensual man, in whom the spirit of God is not, sees only the outer surface of visible beings and not their deeper parts.
German mystics wrote in the same strain; for instance, the popular Franciscan preacher, Berthold von Regensburg (1272),
Whose sermons on fields and meadows drew many thousands of hearers, and moved them partly by the unusual freshness and vitality of his pious feeling for Nature,
in spite of many florid symbolical accessories, such as we find again in Ekkehart and other fifteenth-century mystics, and especially in Tauler, Suso, and Ruysbroek.
The northern prophetess and foundress of an Order Birgitta (1373) held that the breath of the Creator was in all visible things: 'We feel it pervading us in her visions,' says Hammerich,[13]
Whether by gurgling brook or snow-covered firs. It is with us when the prophetess leads us along the ridges of the Swedish coast with their surging waves or down the shaft of a mine, or to wander in the quiet of evening through vineyards between roses and lilies, while the dew is falling and the bells ring out the Ave Maria.
Vincentius von Beauvais (1264) in his _Speculum Naturæ_ demonstrates the value of studying Nature from a religious and moral point of view; and the Carthusian general, Dionysius von Rickel (1471), in his paper _On the beauty of the world and the glory of God (De venustate mundi et de pulchritudine Dei)_ says in