I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a child quieted at its mother's breast;
like a child that is quieted
is my soul ...
~ Psalm 131:3
The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, a stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied by biologists and antiquarians chiefly, but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit — not a fossil earth but a living earth.