There is a devil's meaning to everything in nature, and a God's meaning too. As I read nature's parable to-night I find nothing in it but hope. What if there be darkness, the sun will rise to-morrow; what if there seem chaos, the great organic world is still living and growing and feeding, unseen by us all the night through; and every phosphoric atom there below is a sign that in the darkest night there is still the power of light, ready to flash out wherever and however it is stirred.

Prose Idylls. 1849.