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 Boston, Mas*.. U. S. A.
 
 To My Teacher and Friend 
 George Robert Parkin 
 
 SINCE you are on the other side of the 
 world, my dear Parkin, I must offer you my 
 new book without your leave. This is not 
 really so venturesome as it may seem. You 
 never were one of those aloof and awesome 
 Head Masters, who exercise a petty reign of 
 terror over the effervescence of youth; and I 
 cannot recall that we ever tried to steal a 
 march on you, except on a few occasions in the 
 history of the school or of your own life, when 
 we wished to surprise you with some token of 
 our bashful affection. 
 
 When this page comes under that glowing 
 eye, which has since compelled so many audi- 
 ences, in so many places larger than any 
 schoolroom, on weightier matters than any 
 
 v
 
 £o (T,rovac liotrvt jJavlUn 
 
 school discipline, let me ask you to recall those 
 occasions long ago, and to think of this prefa- 
 tory letter as an echo of that happy time. I 
 even feel myself lapsing (or more properly 
 stiffening) into the formal style of an address, 
 to be read to you, with much stumbling and 
 a quaking heart, before the assembled school. 
 But I dare say you will find it none the worse 
 on that account. As you sit now turning these 
 leaves, whether in London or South Africa, 
 you must pretend that you are still in the chair 
 behind the high desk, where we all came for 
 counsel and reproof, and that here is one of 
 your boys come to tender you an offering 
 long overdue, making acknowledgment of 
 most grateful indebtedness never really to be 
 repaid. For the service you did him is, next 
 to the gift of life, the greatest that one man 
 can render another. 
 
 Those were the days when we were all 
 young together, whether at Greek or football, 
 tramping for Mayflowers through the early 
 spring woods, paddling on the river in intoxi- 
 
 vi
 
 £o George Hoticrt JMrfciu 
 
 eating Junes, or snowshoeing across bitter 
 drifts in the perishing December wind, — 
 always under the leadership of your indomita- 
 ble ardour. In that golden age we first real- 
 ized the kinship of Nature, whose help is for 
 ever unfailing, and whose praise is never out- 
 sung. I must remind you, too, of those hours 
 in the class-room, when the Mneid was often 
 interrupted by the Idyls of the King or 
 The Blessed Damozel, and William Morris 
 or Arnold or Mr. Swinburne's latest lyric 
 came to us between the lines of Horace. 
 
 I shall not fasten upon you the heavy 
 responsibility of having turned more than one 
 young scholar aside into the fascinating and 
 headlong current of contemporary poetry, 
 never to emerge again, nor of having helped 
 to make anything so doubtful as a minor bard. 
 It is certain, however, that you gave us what- 
 ever solace and inspiration there is in the 
 classics and in modern letters, and set our 
 feet in the devious aisles of the enchanted 
 groves of the Muses. And I for one have to 
 
 vii
 
 £o <&totQt i&otirrt JJarfcfu 
 
 thank you for a pleasure in life, almost the 
 only one, that does not fail. 
 
 We learned from you, or we might have 
 learned, to be zealous, to be fair, to be happy 
 over our work, to love only what is beautiful 
 and of good report, and to follow the truth 
 at all hazards. If you find any good, then, 
 in these pages, take much of the credit for it 
 to yourself, I beg you. And whatever you 
 come upon of ill, attribute to that original 
 perversity for which our grandsires had to 
 make allowance in their theology, and from 
 which no master in the world can quite free 
 even his most desirous pupil. 
 
 The essays which go to make up this volume 
 were written at different times during the past 
 six or seven years. In revising them for pub- 
 lication in their present form, a good deal 
 that was purely ephemeral has been cut away; 
 so that while they may not appear to contain 
 very much that is of great significance, neither 
 will they, I hope, be found altogether trivial. 
 
 Under the circumstances of their produc- 
 
 viii
 
 STo &eorge liobtrt JSarttin 
 
 tion, they could scarcely follow any coherent 
 and continuous trend of thought. Perhaps, 
 indeed, it is not to be expected that a book of 
 essays should do this. They can only have 
 whatever unity of feeling and outlook attaches 
 to the writer's philosophy, as it passes from 
 day to day through the changing pageants of 
 Nature or through the varied pomps and 
 vanities of this delightful world. And yet, if 
 I must be my own apologist, perhaps I may 
 be excused for assuming that no work of the 
 sort, however random and perishable, will be 
 entirely futile, if it has been done in the first 
 place with loving sincerity and conviction. It 
 will have in the final analysis some way of 
 looking at life, some tendency or preference, 
 which in a more studied work would be more 
 formal, but not therefore necessarily more 
 true. It may attract only a handful of readers ; 
 it may not outlive the hour; but after all, that 
 may be enough, if only it carry with it some 
 hint of the experience which prompted it. 
 A book is only written for him who finds it; 
 
 ix
 
 STo (RiovQt Mobtvt JJarftiu 
 
 and should carry to the finder some palpable 
 or even intimate revelation of the man who 
 made it. It is as if, by a tone of the voice or 
 a turn of the head, a stranger should suddenly 
 appeal to us as a comrade. And while it is 
 true that the offices of friendship are not fully 
 accomplished until we have eaten our bushel of 
 salt together, it is also certain that the flavour 
 of friendship may be recognized with the 
 smallest grain. A book may be a cry in the 
 night, like Carlyle's; or a message from " the 
 god of the wood," like Emerson's; or a song 
 of the open, like Whitman's; or the utterance 
 of a scholar like Newman from the schools of 
 ancient learning; or it may be no more than 
 the smiling salutation of a child in the street. 
 Let him receive it whom it may serve. 
 
 It is a long way from the little Canadian 
 town on the St. John, in the early seventies, 
 to the centres of the world in the beginning 
 of a new era; but it is good to remember and 
 to take courage. And while we who always 
 must think of you with a touch of hero- 
 
 x
 
 £o George lioucrt jjaviUu 
 
 worship, look on with pride at your achieve- 
 ments in that larger workroom of responsi- 
 bility to which you have so deservedly come, 
 — while we kindle as of old at your unflinch- 
 ing and strenuous eagerness, — I hope that 
 you will be able to read with satisfaction, and 
 with some little pleasure, these latest tasks 
 which I bring for your approval. 
 
 School will not keep for ever. By the feel 
 of the sun it must be already past noon. Be- 
 fore very long the hour must strike for our 
 dismissal from this pleasant and airy edifice, 
 a summons less welcome than the four o'clock 
 cathedral bell in that leafy Northern city in 
 old days, and we shall all go scattering forth 
 for the Great Re-creation. Before that time 
 arrives, only let me know that, in your impar- 
 tial and exacting judgment, I have not alto- 
 gether failed, and I shall await the Finals 
 with more confidence than most mortals dare 
 enjoy. 
 
 B. C. 
 
 New York, June, IQOJ. 
 
 xi
 
 Contents 
 
 w 
 
 
 
 F*GF 
 
 The Art of Life i 
 
 On Being Strenuous 
 
 i • - < 
 
 
 
 II 
 
 The Crime of Ugliness 
 
 
 
 
 23 
 
 Miracles and Metaphors 
 
 
 
 
 
 33 
 
 Haste and Waste . , 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 1 
 
 At the Coming of Spring 
 
 
 
 
 
 5» 
 
 The Vernal Ides . 
 
 
 
 
 
 6i 
 
 The Seed of Success . 
 
 
 
 
 
 7i 
 
 Fact and Fancy . 
 
 
 
 
 
 8i 
 
 Easter Eve . . . i 
 
 
 
 
 
 9 1 
 
 The Cost of Beauty . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 IOI 
 
 Rhythm .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 109 
 
 April in Town . 
 
 
 
 
 
 119 
 
 Careless Nature . 
 
 
 
 
 
 125 
 
 The Wandering Word „ 
 
 
 
 
 
 131 
 
 The Friendship of Nature 
 
 
 
 
 
 139 
 
 Subconscious Art . 
 
 
 
 
 
 H5 
 
 Seaboard and Hillward 
 
 
 
 
 
 i55 
 
 The Courtesy of Nature 
 
 
 
 
 
 163 
 
 The Luxury of Being Poor 
 
 
 
 
 
 173 
 
 " Solitary the Thrush " 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 183 
 
 i rees • • • • 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 
 191
 
 <£on tents 
 
 The Ritual of Nature . 
 
 Concerning Pride . 
 
 Of Breeding 
 
 Of Serenity 
 
 Play .... 
 
 The Scarlet of the Year 
 
 Good Fortune 
 
 The Debauchery of Mood 
 
 Of Moderation . 
 
 Atmosphere . . . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 20 1 
 
 21 I 
 221 
 
 231 
 
 239 
 247 
 
 263 
 
 271 
 
 281 
 
 289
 
 %$t grt of ILtfe
 
 EJe 0ft of fife 
 
 We have come to look upon art and life as 
 separate things. We have come to think of 
 art as a peculiar form of activity practised by 
 a very few and enjoyed by a few more. There 
 is a tacit belief in the bottom of the mind of 
 most of us that art really has not very much 
 to do with life. Even those who love art well 
 are shaken in their faith at times by the uni- 
 versal skepticism around them. They are not 
 unwilling to speak deprecatingly of art as a 
 cult, to make concessions to the average stand- 
 ard of thought; they help to put art farther 
 and farther away from life. 
 
 But what is the reason of this divorce of 
 art from life? Is it only that we feel the too 
 frequent lack of vitality in art? As every- 
 
 3
 
 Stye Irtnsfttp of Itf atmr* 
 
 day people we cannot help seeing that a great 
 deal of artistic energy is expended idly away 
 from the main issues of life. The original artis- 
 tic sin was the conception of art as something 
 aloof and exceptional; and when once that 
 pernicious poison had entered the human soul, 
 naturally there were not a few adherents to 
 the sect of the dreamers. Their number in- 
 creased; the estrangement between life and art 
 grew; the devotees of expression even became 
 supercilious and fanatical in their sectarian- 
 ism; until to-day the name artist is a syno- 
 nym for the impractical bystander, the man of 
 inaction, the contemplator of the actual, the 
 workman who is a stranger among equals. It 
 is nothing new to say that this vicious secession 
 of one state of mind from the great republic 
 of thought has worked sorry havoc to art. 
 One sees that only too clearly every day in the 
 really slight hold which art has on the public. 
 In the days of the blessed innocence of art it 
 never occurred to the artist that he was not 
 a layman like the rest of his toiling fellows. 
 
 4
 
 &l)t Urt of mn 
 
 But if the evil to art was great, the evil to 
 life was not less so. The idea that art is some- 
 thing that does not quite concern us in our 
 every-day affairs, at last breeds the belief that 
 in a natural state we should have no need of 
 art. The truth is that in a natural state we 
 should never know what art means, as distinct 
 from life. Art is expression, we say. Very 
 well, but nothing we can do or say can possibly 
 be done or said without expression, without 
 revealing the person behind the action and 
 the word. You lift a finger or drop an inflec- 
 tion, and the stranger in the room has gathered 
 a volume of characteristics of your personality. 
 Yet expression is more than this; it is part of 
 our work, too. Consider the truth of this 
 statement, that nothing we do or say can be 
 without expression; and then see how all trade 
 and commerce and manufacture, — the whole 
 conduct of civilization, — has its artistic as- 
 pect. And because of the original artistic 
 sin, the divorce of art from life, we suffer in 
 a life without joy. For work, like art, is noth- 
 
 5
 
 ing but natural function, and the natural joy 
 of the one is as great as the natural joy of the 
 other; for they are only different aspects of 
 the same energy, and not different kinds of 
 energy. 
 
 No one ever heard of an artist complaining 
 of the tedium of his work. Of course not; for 
 him art and work are one; he tastes the blessed 
 joy of a natural inclination having free play. 
 He is expressing himself after his kind, as 
 nature intended. On the other hand, how 
 often does one hear a toiler (as the non-artistic 
 worker is called) rejoicing in his work? His 
 life is one long complaint. Why? Because 
 false conditions and false ideals have so com- 
 pletely separated his work from all artistic 
 possibility. It has been made impossible for 
 him to find any expression for himself in his 
 work. The hands must keep their aimless, 
 weary energy, while the soul is stifled for an 
 outlet. 
 
 " The heart in the work " is not a motto for 
 the artist alone; it is for the labourer as well. 
 
 6
 
 &$t &rt of Hift 
 
 With that possibility before him, the meanest 
 toiler may grow beautiful; without it, the 
 veriest giant of energy will grow petty and 
 warped and sad. The commonest work is 
 ennobling when it provides any avenue of ex- 
 pression for the spirit, any exit for the heavy, 
 struggling, ambitious human heart out of its 
 prison house of silence into the sunshine of fel- 
 lowship. Set me a task in which I can put 
 something of my very self, and it is task no 
 longer; it is a joy; it is art. 
 
 To make such a condition of work universal 
 seems to me a sufficient aim for modern en- 
 deavour. How soon things would cease to be 
 ugly and become beautiful, if only every 
 stroke of work in the world had some expres- 
 sion in it! Of course, we cannot have that 
 under existing conditions. Any improvement 
 of society in that direction implies a cure more 
 radical than has yet been attempted. It im- 
 plies freedom for the common worker as well 
 as freedom for the thinker and artist. Not 
 until the term artisan has come to be as hon-
 
 Z$t itiusljiji of Nature 
 
 ourable as the term artist will we have real 
 freedom. But I am afraid that with all our 
 talk of freedom very few of us believe in it, 
 after all. We seem to think it is dangerous. 
 But freedom is not an acquisition of power; 
 it is merely the disimprisonment of spirit. 
 And not to believe in freedom is to believe in 
 the ultimate evil of the spirit. For if the good 
 is stronger than the bad, the less repression 
 we have the better. Since it is impossible to 
 discriminate between them, we can only un- 
 lock the doors and call forth every human 
 energy, — give it opportunity, give it work 
 in which there is some chance for expression, 
 — believing that the better powers will tri- 
 umph over the worse. 
 
 The art of life, then, is to make life and art 
 one, so far as we can, for ourselves and for 
 others, — to find, if possible, the occupation 
 in which we can put something of self. So 
 should gladness and content come back to 
 earth. But now, with the body made a slave 
 to machinery, and the spirit defrauded of any 
 
 8
 
 2Tt)C ^tt of Hifc 
 
 S 
 
 scope for its pent-up force, we have nothin 
 to hope for in the industrial world; and the 
 breach between art and life will go on widen- 
 ing until labour is utterly brutalized and art 
 utterly emasculated.
 
 <&n Being Strenuous
 
 (§n JSctnjj Strenuous 
 
 In Lafcadio Hearn's book, " In Ghostly 
 Japan," there is a remarkable chapter on silk- 
 worms. 
 
 " In Numi's neighbourhood, where there 
 are plenty of mulberry-trees, many families 
 keep silkworms. ... It is curious to see hun- 
 dreds of caterpillars feeding all together in 
 one tray, and to hear the soft, papery noise 
 which they make while gnawing their mul- 
 berry leaves. As they approach maturity the 
 creatures need almost constant attention. At 
 brief intervals some expert visits each tray to 
 inspect progress, picks up the plumpest feed- 
 ers, and decides by gently rolling them between 
 his forefinger and thumb, which are ready to 
 
 *3
 
 Wtyt liiusljtp of TSTatttre 
 
 spin. ... A few only of the best are suffered 
 to emerge from their silky sleep — the selected 
 breeders. They have beautiful wings, but can- 
 not use them. They have mouths, but do not 
 eat. They only pair, lay eggs, and die. For 
 thousands of years their race has been so well 
 cared for that it can no longer take care of 
 itself." 
 
 The moral to be deduced from this instance 
 is obvious. Compare with the silkworms our 
 mortal selves. These happy grubs are tended 
 by a kindly boy, who supplies their every 
 need; they have not a wish unsatisfied. By a 
 sort of miracle, a supernatural power (as it 
 would seem to them) , they have been removed 
 from the field of competition. For them the 
 struggle for existence no longer exists. One 
 imagines that if they were capable of prayer 
 they could ask no more perfect gift than that 
 which has been bestowed upon them — im- 
 munity from strife and security in the com- 
 forts of existence. What more do we our- 
 selves ask? Our prayer is almost never that 
 
 14
 
 <&u Eeftt0 Strenuous 
 
 we may persist, endure, and overcome, but 
 rather that we may be removed by a kindly 
 providence from the region of struggle to 
 some benign sphere where all the delights of 
 life may fall to our lot without an effort. 
 
 It is probably an idle and wicked dream. 
 Witness the case of the silkworms. If you 
 would form some notion of what the imagined 
 heaven might do for us, consider the case of 
 our small friends among the mulberry leaves. 
 When we think of the lilies of the field, and 
 promise ourselves a state like theirs according 
 to the word, " Shall He not much more clothe 
 you, O ye of little faith?' we are prone to 
 forget that every moment of their life for 
 untold ages has been filled with a strenuous 
 purpose, quiet and unperceived, yet none the 
 less strong on that account. Yes, we may have 
 the motive and the vesture of our little sisters 
 of the field, but we must have their tenacity 
 and their indomitable endurance as well. To 
 cease to strive is to begin to degenerate. As 
 Mr. Hearn says: 
 
 »5
 
 2Tfje fttnsl)ij) of Nature 
 
 " An early stage of that degeneration would 
 be represented by total incapacity to help our- 
 selves — then we should begin to lose the use 
 of our higher sense organs — later on, the 
 brain would shrink to a vanishing pin-point of 
 matter; still later we should dwindle into 
 mere amorphous sacs, mere blind stomachs. 
 Such would be the physical consequence of 
 that kind of divine love which we so lazily 
 wish for. The longing for perpetual bliss and 
 perpetual peace might well seem a malevolent 
 inspiration from the lords of death and dark- 
 ness." 
 
 Then follow these memorable sentences: 
 " All life that feels and thinks has been, and 
 can continue to be, only as the product of 
 struggle and pain — only as the outcome of 
 endless battle with the Powers of the Universe. 
 And cosmic law is uncompromising. What- 
 ever organ ceases to know pain — whatever 
 faculty ceases to be used under the stimulus of 
 pain — must also cease to exist. Let pain and 
 its effort be suspended, and life must shrink 
 
 16
 
 <&n WtiviQ Strenuous 
 
 back, first into protoplastic shapelessness, 
 thereafter into dust." 
 
 Then we turn to a modern poet, and read: 
 
 " Calm soul of all things ! make it mine 
 To feel, amid the city's jar, 
 That there abides a peace of thine, 
 Man did not make and cannot mar. 
 
 " The will to neither strive nor cry, 
 
 The power to feel with others give ! 
 Calm, calm me more ! nor let me die, 
 Before I have begun to live." 
 
 How is one to reconcile Arnold's prayer 
 for calm with the remorseless law of perpetual 
 trial, perpetual endeavour? Is there indeed, 
 a peace " man did not make and cannot mar? ' 
 Is the tremendous strain of modern life, its 
 killing excitement, its relentless rush, its 
 breathless haste, its eager and ruthless com- 
 petition, a part of the inevitable development 
 of man's existence? Or should we combat 
 these things as temporary aberrations from 
 the normal? Shall I serve my hour and gen- 
 
 17
 
 art)* lunaJjij) of Nature 
 
 eration best by combating the idea of strife 
 and by insisting on peace and repose in my 
 own surroundings or by entering heart and 
 mind into the race and battle of the strong? 
 Certainly I shall best serve my fellows by fol- 
 lowing my own conviction in the matter. 
 That at least is sure ; that at least is the cosmic 
 law; to each individual his own ideal and 
 the will to follow it. But how to know in 
 the first place? How to tell the best ideal 
 from the second best? Or is there, perhaps, 
 some way of harmonizing both ideals in a 
 single line of action? 
 
 In that great pageant of the seasons which 
 passes by our door year after year, in the 
 myriad changes of the wonderful spectacle 
 of this greening and blanching orb, in all the 
 processes of that apparition we call Nature, 
 do I not see both strife and calm exemplified? 
 That " calm soul of all things," which Arnold 
 invokes, is really in constant strife. Every 
 moment the apparent calm of nature covers a 
 relentless battle for existence, tribe against 
 
 18
 
 <Dn iJrtufi Strenuous 
 
 tribe, species against species ; and the price of 
 life in unceasing struggle, the whole earth 
 groaning and travailing together. So that 
 the appearance of calm which settles on the 
 face of our mother earth, in the long, slow 
 summer afternoon, is in reality but the veil 
 and deception of the truth. Is it? Or may 
 we think that the unaccounted powers of life 
 at play through the world partake of a uni- 
 versal peace as well as of a universal strain? 
 
 How is it with ourselves? Is there any man 
 who can wholly possess his heart in patience? 
 Is there any who must always be striving? Is 
 it not rather true that to the most strenuous of 
 us there come fleeting moments when calm 
 and self-possession seem good? And does 
 there live the most confirmed quietist who has 
 not at times been roused to action by love or 
 patriotism or generous indignation? 
 
 It may very well happen that circumstances 
 have placed you in the forefront of the fight, 
 where all your splendid life long you shall 
 have never a minute to call your own, where 
 
 19
 
 &fje ftiusijil) of Nature 
 
 you shall never once be able to rest or meditate 
 or sun your spirit in a basking hour of leisure. 
 Complain not. This is the fortune of the 
 captains of humanity; be glad the good God 
 has laid upon you a work as great as your 
 powers. The stern struggle and victorious 
 achievement can never be cramping to the 
 soul. And the vast cisterns of repose may be 
 opened to you in another incarnation; indeed 
 they were possibly yours long since and from 
 them you have derived this burning energy. 
 
 It may be, on the other hand, that inactive 
 doubt and timorous incertitude beset me, and 
 that I am becoming stale for lack of use. 
 Never mind, the hour will one day strike, 
 and the lethargic torpor of temperamental in- 
 capacity will be broken up, and I shall be 
 remoulded into something more trenchant and 
 available for the forwarding of beneficent 
 designs. 
 
 Meanwhile for both of us, it may be, we 
 shall find solace in a wise philosophic blending 
 of the two ideals. It is somehow possible, 
 
 20
 
 <®n iiting Stvcuuous 
 
 I think, to be as strenuous and efficient as 
 nature herself in action, and yet to have in 
 mind always, as a standard of normal being, 
 the inflexible serenity of the wheeling sun. 
 
 ai
 
 Cfie Crime of ^gltness
 
 Cije Crime of Mfllineas 
 
 ONE hardly assents without question to the 
 statement that ugliness is a crime. That the 
 love of beauty is a pleasure we know, but why 
 place it among the moral obligations? Is it 
 not straining the use of language a little to 
 speak of the morality or immorality of inani- 
 mate objects? Beauty is nothing but a condi- 
 tion of matter. And how can matter be either 
 good or evil? Surely beauty is one of the 
 things we may leave outside the pale of ethics! 
 
 Beauty, however, is really only another 
 name for goodness, and the maintenance of 
 beauty is as much a moral duty as the main- 
 tenance of goodness. And I come to believe 
 this in the following way: 
 
 I perceive that we call things beautiful 
 
 *5
 
 5Tije Irtugtjip of ISTattttf 
 
 which are most pleasing to our senses at their 
 best, just as we call things good which are 
 most satisfying to our emotional nature at its 
 best, and still other things true which con- 
 form to the requirements of our mental nature. 
 You may, if you wish, say that we have a 
 special faculty for the apprehension of truth, 
 which we call reason ; that we have a special 
 faculty for the perception of right and wrong, 
 which we call conscience; and so you may 
 say, too, that we have a special faculty for the 
 appreciation of beauty, which we call taste, for 
 want of a better name. 
 
 Again, since I cannot make any discrimina- 
 tion between my three natures, nor call one 
 higher or nobler than the others, but am com- 
 pelled to do equal reverence to body, mind, 
 and soul, paying them equal heed and equal 
 care, I conclude that taste and conscience and 
 reason are of equal importance, equally to be 
 obeyed. I know, moreover, that happiness 
 only results from the exercise of our faculties, 
 and the highest happiness only results from 
 
 26
 
 Etjr Crime of JBLQUntn* 
 
 the equal exercise of all our faculties to a 
 normal degree in a normal way. When I 
 exercise my reason, I am controlling and 
 directing my curiosity in order to arrive at 
 the truth; for in no other way can I attain 
 pleasure or happiness of mind. When I exer- 
 cise my conscience, I am controlling and 
 directing my emotions, in order to attain and 
 preserve the good, for I cannot have happiness 
 of soul in any other way. And when I exer- 
 cise my taste, I am controlling and directing 
 the work of my hands and the acts of my 
 body in sue 1 ' 2 way as to produce the most 
 beautiful result. I know that unless I am 
 allowed to work in this way, I can have no joy 
 in my work. 
 
 Now furthermore I may conclude, surely, 
 that joy in one's work, pleasure in one's emo- 
 tions, and satisfaction in one's thoughts, go to 
 make up the sum of happiness. And I am 
 profoundly skeptical of the validity of any 
 theory of conduct which can countenance the 
 cultivation of any one of these forms of hap- 
 
 27
 
 &l)t Zunsi)tj) of Xatttre 
 
 piness at the expense of the others. If it were 
 not true that we can only reach happiness by 
 a degree of cultivation of all our faculties, 
 there would certainly be many more happy 
 people in the world. All people who culti- 
 vate their mind assiduously and exclusively 
 would be happy, and all those who cultivate 
 their taste, with no regard to thought or sin- 
 cerity of emotion, would be happy. But this 
 is not the case. And more than that, we per- 
 ceive that piety is by no means a sure bringer 
 of happiness. The blameless life is often hid- 
 den under a mask of woebegone unloveliness. 
 Our good friends are not happy because they 
 have made the mistake of thinking goodness 
 the only aspect of the universe, whereas it is 
 only one of the three aspects. God does not 
 exist as goodness alone; any more than man 
 exists as soul alone; but He exists as beauty 
 and truth also, just as man also exists as body 
 and mind. 
 
 We are not constituted to find pleasure in 
 falsehood or wrong, however much our 111- 
 
 28
 
 STije ©rime of ^lintss 
 
 balanced natures may seem to do so at times. 
 There is always within us the capacity for ap- 
 proving what is noble and for believing what 
 is true. No more are we constituted for de- 
 riving benefit from what is ugly, however we 
 may tolerate it. For once show us something 
 beautiful in its place, and instantly we are 
 influenced by it. Now certainly the love of 
 truth and the love of goodness are great vir- 
 tues; yet they are no greater, I take it, than 
 the love of beauty. And when we allow our- 
 selves to act without regard for truth and 
 goodness, our acts become injurious to our 
 fellow beings, and are called crimes. For the 
 same reason I call ugliness, or the creation 
 of what is not beautiful, a crime. That it is 
 not so considered generally is only too evi- 
 dent. When any one creates a beautiful ob- 
 ject he is thought to have added to our luxu- 
 ries. When a millionaire gives a library to a 
 town, he is even thought to have conferred a 
 benefit upon the community. This, however, 
 is rather from the idea that townspeople are 
 
 29
 
 W§t Ztfusljip of Ttfatttre 
 
 getting something for nothing than from any 
 sense of the beauty of their town being en- 
 hanced. Indeed, the library is too often but 
 another crime against taste. But any general 
 sense of the value of beauty or any general 
 sense of the hurtfulness of ugliness, I fear, 
 we shall look for in vain. Yet that is not 
 true, either; for we all feel the harm of ugli- 
 ness. Only we have not been taught to recog- 
 nize it as an offence against the public wel- 
 fare. The only instance of such recognition 
 in recent days is the legislation against the 
 disfigurement of the landscape with adver- 
 tising signs. Certainly the perpetration of 
 these hideous enormities all over the fair earth 
 cannot be considered a crime in the ordinary 
 sense of the term ; they cause no material injury 
 to any one. Yet they do offend every one of 
 us, whether we are conscious of it or not; and 
 that common, widespread injury, that hurt to 
 every man's innate sense of beauty, is of the 
 very nature and essence of crime. Public art, 
 
 30
 
 Wtyt dtvimt of WQlinttiu 
 
 or rather public work, is much more rightly 
 the subject of censorship than private morals. 
 
 Of course, the cure for the disease does not 
 lie in censorship at all ; it lies in securing free- 
 dom for the workman. The appalling ugli- 
 ness of our civilization in the mass, its monot- 
 ony, its lack of cheerfulness, is only the reflec- 
 tion of our own lack of joy and elasticity. Our 
 works are hideous, because we have no pleas- 
 ure in them ; and we have no pleasure in them, 
 because we are slaves to commercialism. 
 
 But we must not scold. Only to rail against 
 conditions that seem false and unlovely, is to 
 be unlovely and false one's self. If we do 
 not like things as they are, and do not believe 
 in them, let us change them. Let us go about 
 it with some degree of good nature and tact; 
 for tact is only good taste in matters of con- 
 duct. If ever a burden of conviction hurries 
 us away into angry speech, let us repent of our 
 haste. We shall accomplish little for the good 
 cause of beauty by the sacrifice of beauty in 
 our own works and words. 
 
 3i
 
 piracies antr ^letapfjors
 
 jftf hmJea atrtr iHetapijore 
 
 NOT the spring only is the time of miracles 
 in the natural world, but the year round, day 
 and night. The moon comes up behind the 
 spruce-trees like a great bubble of crimson 
 glass, swelling and rolling slowly southward, 
 until it is detached ever so imperceptibly 
 from the edges of the dark hill-caldron where 
 it was born, and floats away toward the bluish 
 roof of stars. When the trees have done 
 their gracious tasks of summer, gradually 
 they suffer change from one glory to another, 
 put off the green, put on the festal liveries of 
 autumn, sanguine and yellow and bronze. 
 How is the transformation accomplished? 
 And all the teeming ephemeral creatures of 
 marsh and twilight, what becomes of them, 
 
 35
 
 &t)t Isinsfjfj) of TJCatttre 
 
 when the time of croaking and buzzing and 
 zizzing is over? Where do they go and how 
 do they return? 
 
 These are child's questions. Science knows 
 many things about them, and by and by will 
 tell us more. But always, even to science, 
 there is a margin of unknown which makes 
 the known seem to wear the guise of the mi- 
 raculous ; while for the humbler eyes of the 
 toiling world the lovely ordered rotations of 
 nature must keep their actually miraculous 
 seeming still. 
 
 It is a religious feeling, this special love of 
 the natural world, and entirely modern. Per- 
 haps it is our contribution to the evolution 
 of spirit through spheres of religion, our step 
 in the long process of emancipation, as little 
 by little we grow toward that service which is 
 perfect freedom. Lanier has a significant 
 paragraph in one of his lately published pa- 
 pers, which bears on this consideration. 
 
 " Nothing strikes the thoughtful observer 
 of modern literature more quickly or more 
 
 36
 
 jWraclrs auti JHetajjfjots 
 
 forcibly than the great yearning therein dis- 
 played for intimate companionship with 
 nature. And this yearning, mark, justifies it- 
 self upon far other authority than that which 
 one finds in, for example, the Greek nature- 
 seeking. Granted the instinctive reverence for 
 nature common to both parties: The Greek 
 believed the stream to be inhabited by a 
 nymph, and the stream was wonderful to him 
 because of this nymph, but the modern man 
 believes no such thing. One has appeared who 
 continually cried love, love, love — love God, 
 love neighbours, and these ' neighbours ' have 
 come to be not only men-neighbours, but 
 tree-neighbours, river-neighbours, star-neigh- 
 bours." 
 
 I am not quite sure that the Greek's per- 
 sonification of the stream was so different 
 from our own; I fancy his imaginary divinity 
 in it was much the same as ours; but we are 
 glad to extend that universal gospel of love 
 to our patient fellows in the sub-human do- 
 minions and to the half-animate and inani- 
 
 37
 
 K^t ftinsijftf of Nature 
 
 mate apparitions of beauty in a still lower 
 realm. 
 
 Then there are the miracles of art, not so 
 common as those of nature, more clouded by 
 failures and mistakes, but just as marvellous, 
 just as potent, and more significant as well. 
 There comes a master, unheralded, from an 
 obscure corner of the globe; the clay is liv- 
 ing in his hands, or the colours take life at 
 his touch, or he marshals the tones and sylla- 
 bles of sound, and at once a new creation 
 springs into almost immortal existence for our 
 delighted senses. The tune or the story 
 spreads across two continents like the sun, and 
 every mortal heart beats faster for keen zest, 
 renewed and invigorated as at some miracle 
 of nature. Our enjoyment of art is a religion, 
 too, for it is the worship of the manifestations 
 of spirit taking shape in forms of beauty, just 
 as our enjoyment of nature is the worship of 
 spirit manifested in the plasticity of sap and 
 cell, — the lovely forms of the outer world. 
 
 These two religions are the worship of na- 
 
 38
 
 i-Hfvadrs autr i^ttapjjore 
 
 ture and the worship of art, — the reverence 
 of the form and the adoration of the spirit 
 behind the form. Art, if you care to say so, 
 is all made of metaphors, — is itself the uni- 
 versal metaphor of the soul. And who shall 
 prove that nature is not a metaphor, too? The 
 metaphor of miracles in nature is only sup- 
 plemented by the miracle of metaphors in 
 art. To each this striving, diligent, eager soul 
 in us gives allegiance. 
 
 39
 
 Haste anti 5^aste
 
 iiaste atrtr fflaztt 
 
 It is a common dictum of proverbial phi- 
 losophy that " haste makes waste," that in 
 hurry we rush upon confusion and miss our 
 aim, making less progress than the tardy. But 
 it is not so commonly recognized that haste 
 really is waste, that it not only causes entangle- 
 ment of affairs but wrecks the individuality 
 as well. Haste is the fever of power, a malaria 
 of the soul; and you will find that the great 
 characters of the earth, in history or in our 
 own day, are those who have been able to hold 
 themselves undistracted and undismayed, — 
 without haste. They have had that sanity or 
 balance of mind which could perceive the 
 futility of hurry and the ultimate triumph of 
 serene endeavour. They never allowed them- 
 
 43
 
 3Ti)t Ziinssijij] of Nature 
 
 selves to be flustered, there was nothing in their 
 blood of the " fluttered folk and wild." Each 
 moment was sufficient for itself and its task. 
 If there was more to do in an hour than hu- 
 man force could accomplish, then it must 
 wait the next hour; one thing only was cer- 
 tain, no accumulation of duties and obliga- 
 tions must be allowed to astound the spirit for 
 an instant. For the spirit, the central power 
 within us, our self's very self, is in its essence 
 and in its quality if not in reality eternal, and, 
 when we do not hurry it, dwells in eternity 
 amid the fleeting minutes and shows of time. 
 This is not the frothy grist of fanciful preci- 
 osity; it is common truth. Think for a mo- 
 ment. Stop now, as you are reading this 
 recent volume, and notice how absolutely un- 
 hurried and unperturbed your inmost spirit 
 may be. True, you have to hurry at times. 
 You may have had to run for your train, or 
 you may be late for dinner, you may have a 
 stint of work to finish against time. The con- 
 sciousness of this has not only made you hurry 
 
 44
 
 Tl?astc autr 21las$tc 
 
 your steps, it has made you hurry your soul. 
 That is wrong. No matter how much of a 
 hurry we may be in upon occasion, there is 
 always the central consciousness which we 
 must try to control and keep undisturbed. 
 Now, forget your haste, just for a second or 
 two, let go, stop pushing the train you are 
 riding in, stop trying to do all your work at 
 once; and perceive how deliberate, how regal 
 and indolent your soul is, how sure of itself, 
 how indifferent to the petty chances of punc- 
 tuality or accomplished toil. 
 
 Here and to-day we cannot live as our 
 fathers used. We cannot escape the pressure 
 of modern life altogether, mitigate it as we 
 may. But even supposing that you are under 
 the necessity of strain in your occupation, that 
 your hours are long and your work exacting, 
 nothing can excuse haste or hastiness. It seems 
 as if there were two selves, — the lower 
 humble, obedient, toiling self, who occupies 
 your body, sits in it at the table, rides in it 
 on the train, walks in it through the street; 
 
 4 r
 
 Z$t luusijfjp of Nature 
 
 and the superior, commanding, thoughtful, 
 masterly self, who does none of these things, 
 but merely looks on and approves. Now, it 
 may often be necessary for the inferior self 
 to hurry, to drive on the willing body at top 
 speed in accomplishment of some good ob- 
 ject; but it can never be needful for the domi- 
 nant self to be in haste. It is the business 
 of the lower self to serve and bear about the 
 higher; it is the business of the higher self to 
 rule and direct the lower. And if I allow 
 my inner imperial self to descend and toil in 
 the servant's place, to become hurried and 
 anxious and fearful, I am degraded; I deteri- 
 orate every minute. I leave the throne un- 
 occupied, and yet the work of the scullery is 
 no better done. 
 
 Many a man makes a wreck of health and 
 happiness through worry. He cannot, as we 
 say, possess his soul in patience. He cannot 
 see the needs of the hour alone, he is looking 
 at the needs of the coming year at the same 
 time. No wonder he is abashed and disheart- 
 
 46
 
 2^a«m aim 2£lastt 
 
 ened. A piece of work is to be done. To put 
 his hand to it quietly and without worry or 
 hurry, would mean that it could be finished 
 in a day. If he would only hold his ruling 
 self still, and order that useful drudge, his 
 secondary self, to perform the labour, a day 
 would amply suffice to see it finished. But, no, 
 he does not do that. He is infected with the 
 modern plague of haste. His soul is nervous; 
 it is not content to sit by and see the work 
 performed; it must rush down and tire itself 
 out in tasks it was never meant to be occupied 
 with. So our friend frets and fumes over his 
 work for a week before he begins it; it keeps 
 him awake at night; it disturbs his appetite; 
 it makes him nervous and fanciful and incom- 
 petent; and when at last he does drag him- 
 self through the performance, the work is 
 ill done. 
 
 Yes, it is necessary, in order to secure good 
 work, that we should throw ourselves into 
 it whole-heartedly, as the phrase goes. There 
 must be no half-measures; we must be ab- 
 
 47
 
 £f)t Zuustjip of Mature 
 
 sorbed absolutely in the task before us. But 
 this does not mean that the directing soul, the 
 loftier self, must be engrossed. It means only 
 that all those powers and faculties are to be 
 employed which rightly can be employed in 
 labour. It is not the province of the soul to 
 labour. Its proper office is to exist, to be and 
 enjoy, to sorrow if it must, to rejoice when it 
 can, to direct, order, and govern. 
 
 It is absolutely necessary that we guard 
 against the intrusion of haste within the pre- 
 cincts of the spirit. If we have no habit of 
 easy work, no faculty for accomplishing 
 things without effort, we must try to acquire it. 
 For it is above all things desirable that we 
 should live without fret and strain and haste 
 in the inmost chambers of being. It does not 
 make the least difference what the occupation 
 may be. You enter a studio, perhaps, where 
 the walls are dim and reposeful, where the 
 atmosphere is quiet, and where you might 
 suppose no haste nor disquiet ever entered. 
 But what do you find? The occupant is a 
 
 48
 
 71>astc antr Wla&tt 
 
 modern painter. One glance condemns him; 
 he is doomed ; the blight of haste is upon him ; 
 every movement of his hand, every turn of his 
 head, reveals the fever of excitement under 
 which he is working. He cannot be himself 
 for a minute, no, not for a second. He is 
 bereft of control. He is consumed with haste. 
 The fatal malady of modern life against which 
 we must fight has taken hold on him. You 
 perceive at once that he is not living at the 
 centre of his being at all. His soul, instead 
 of remaining in its secret chamber, alone, 
 contemplative, kindly, serene, and glad, has 
 rushed into his haste-driven fingers. His work 
 is killing him, because he is not doing it prop- 
 erly, and the work itself is being ruined for 
 want of proper balance and control. 
 
 On the other hand, look at this workman 
 in a machine-shop. The belts are whirring 
 and the cogs roaring all around him; the 
 dingy house of iron and glass is a rattlebox of 
 noise and dust and ceaseless clang. You would 
 say that repose in such a place were impossi- 
 
 49
 
 £f)e Ztiugijf ji of Nature 
 
 ble. And yet he goes about his work with a 
 quiet pleasure, with a poise and deliberation, 
 that show he has learned the secret of work 
 and of repose. He is intent, zealous, and effi- 
 cient; you would even say he is absorbed in 
 his daily business. But you perceive that at 
 the centre of his being there is calm. He has 
 learned to possess his soul. He is without 
 haste. 
 
 
 5o
 
 &t tfte Coming of Spring
 
 &t ti)c Coming of Spring 
 
 As the natural year draws round to a finish 
 and the perished winter merges into spring, 
 the old impulses for recreation are revived. 
 Not a foot but treads the pavement a trifle 
 more eagerly, with more divine discontent, as 
 the hours of sunshine lengthen and soften at 
 the approach of April. How loving, alluring, 
 and caressing the air was the other day, — full 
 of rumours from the south, news of the vast 
 migrations already beginning and soon to en- 
 compass us with their unnumbered people. 
 Already the first summer visitors have ap- 
 peared in the hills and over the marshes, by 
 ones and twos, the vanguard of the hosts of oc- 
 cupation ; and even in the bad-lands of the city 
 canyons we have intimations of these miracu- 
 
 53
 
 Stye iuusiju) of Katttre 
 
 lous changes. There come to us, deep in the 
 heart, familiar but uncomprehended prompt- 
 ings to vagabondage, to fresh endeavour, 
 to renewal of life and wider prospects; hope 
 comes back with the south wind, and courage 
 comes in on the tide. Plodding is all very well 
 through streets of slush and under skies of 
 slate; but when the roads are dry underfoot 
 and day is blue again overhead, the methods 
 of mere endurance and drudgery will no 
 longer serve. The tramp instinct, which is 
 no respecter of respectability, wakes up and 
 has its due. On Sunday thousands of bicycles 
 appear, like flies in the sudden warmth; on 
 Monday there are carnations in the button- 
 holes of Wall Street; while every hansom on 
 the Avenue is freighted with the destruction 
 of another Troy. For this is early spring and 
 the time of recreation is come. 
 
 If we think of the affairs of the universe 
 as controlled by laws of rhythm, there seems 
 to be a rhythm here, too, — the rhythm of 
 creation and recreation, the contraction and 
 
 54
 
 &t tfje (Tomtnfi of Spriufl 
 
 expansion of the heart of humanity. In obedi- 
 ence to this law we flock cityward in the fall, 
 congregating and socializing ourselves for 
 mutual dependence of work, — the plodding, 
 uninspired necessary work of the world; but 
 when the confining forces of winter are with- 
 drawn, society disintegrates again, pouring 
 itself out into the wider regions of country, 
 out-door life, leisure, recreation. We have a 
 yearning to be desocialized, that the individual 
 may expand. Cooperation and dependence 
 become irksome. The simple human heart has 
 a call to care for its own greatest needs, and 
 must have fresh air and a bit of solitude, 
 time to think and room to breathe, a break in 
 the fence and an open road over the hill. 
 The desire of freedom is like a seed; once 
 lodged in a crack of the walls of circumstance, 
 it may disrupt the well-built order of con- 
 ventional progress, but it will have light and 
 space. Good ventilation is our only safeguard 
 against disaster in this direction. You cannot 
 kill the seed, you can only see to it that the 
 
 55
 
 walls have plenty of wide, airy crevices where 
 the wind and sun may penetrate freely. 
 
 There is another rhythmic flux and reflux in 
 the relation of art to life; the creations of the 
 one are the recreation of the other. It is the 
 business of art to furnish us an escape from 
 the actual, a spacious colony in the provinces 
 of beauty, and free transportation thither. A 
 new picture or a new volume of poems or a 
 new story is not worth much if it does not 
 give one a passage to some unexplored corner 
 of that far country. You think, perhaps, 
 this is a chimerical fancy, — the foolishness of 
 a visionary conception of art, calculated to 
 divorce art more and more from the actual. 
 No, for it is the business, as it is the wish, of 
 the actual to remould itself constantly nearer 
 and nearer some ideal, some model, some 
 normal standard ; and this model it is the busi- 
 ness of art to create. The earth has been 
 infected with epidemics of insanity before 
 now, — with the tulip craze and the South 
 Sea bubble, for instance. It is the madness 
 
 56
 
 &t ttje ComfuQ of Spring 
 
 of our time and country to fancy that benefits 
 are the greater as they are the more tangible, 
 and that happiness is inherent in material 
 things. But joy and elation and betterment 
 reside in appreciation, not in possession. The 
 owner of a picture is the man who can make 
 it his own, not the man in whose house it has 
 been immured. Our sedulous laws regulate 
 the transference of ponderable commodities 
 and the appearance of things; but the traffic 
 in realities, between mind and mind, is contra- 
 band and free. It is in this trade that the 
 artist is engaged; if his merchandise is inap- 
 preciable and invaluable, his returns must be 
 so, too. His visible compensation must be pre- 
 carious, — a matter of circumstance; his true 
 compensation will always be just and equi- 
 table. As no one knows how much his work 
 cost him, no one can know how well he was 
 repaid for it. But you may be sure that there 
 was no discrepancy in that transaction. 
 
 Our recreation should be not merely sport, 
 but a true recreation of forces. The best 
 
 57
 
 art)* 2ttit&i)f j) of Nature 
 
 recreation is that reengendering of the spirit 
 which takes place through the avenues of art. 
 To meet, to know, to assimilate perfectly some 
 fresh creation of art, is to be recreated thor- 
 oughly, — to be put in tune anew, and set in 
 harmony once more. 
 
 The best of wisdom in learning is to learn 
 the various cures and remedies to medicine the 
 mind. Poor volatile sensitive mind of man, 
 so easily thrown out of gear, so easily read- 
 justed! So when the time of the singing of 
 birds is come, and the months of application 
 are drawing to a close, and you begin to look 
 about for recreation, you must not take it at 
 haphazard. The recreation must be personal, 
 suited at once to self and to season. The art 
 most accessible to us all is folded between 
 covers of cloth or paper, and may be carried 
 with us to the mountains or the shore. If it 
 is well selected, it will serve to second the 
 athletic recreations of the body, and put us in 
 fine accord with the influences of nature and 
 thought. If it is ill selected, our holiday may 
 
 58
 
 &t tfje doming of Spring 
 
 result in dyspeptic days of unprofitable idle- 
 ness. For idleness is like everything else, it 
 may be either good or bad. True idleness con- 
 sists in doing nothing, with the grace and 
 mastery of an accomplishment; this is an art. 
 False idleness consists in doing nothing, but in 
 doing it with the ill-nature and sloth of dis- 
 content; this is criminal. A beautiful idle- 
 ness requires temper and genius; and though 
 people of means may fancy they can compass 
 it, you will nearly always find a discordant 
 restlessness somewhere in their leisure. It is 
 only the artist in life who can afford to be an 
 idler, and you may take it as sober earnest that 
 he is no debauchee of inactivity. 
 
 59
 
 Cf)t Wernal Bfoes
 
 S%e Vernal Sto 
 
 It is one of those happy phrases in which 
 Emerson abounds, fresh and racy without be- 
 ing slipshod, homely but distinguished. What 
 suggestions does it not carry of suns and warm 
 breezes, of mounting sap and wild bird calls, 
 and the purple evening hills! 
 
 There is a day in February which marks 
 off the gray time of winter from the green 
 time of spring as clearly as a line on a calendar. 
 Even the brightest December sunshine gives 
 no ray of hope; it is relentless, forbidding, 
 unpromising; the sky foretells only an eternity 
 of changeless cold ; one could never look upon 
 it and prophesy the miracle of summer. But 
 by and by there comes a February morning, 
 when the frost may not be less keen, nor the 
 
 63
 
 STfte musQU) of Mature 
 
 sunshine more bright, yet there is a different 
 expression on the face of the elements. Hope 
 has been born somewhere in the far south, and 
 there are premonitions of change, portents of 
 liberation and joy. It is the first faint rumour 
 of spring. And though the blizzard may 
 sweep down again out of the north in the next 
 hour, we know his victory will not be lasting; 
 " the vernal ides " are on their way; the old 
 Aprilian triumph is at hand. A little pa- 
 tience more, a few weeks or days, and we shall 
 behold the first signals of their advance; the 
 buds will be on the trees; a sudden wild song, 
 fleeting but unmistakable, will break across 
 the noon and be gone again almost before we 
 can recognize it. And then at last we shall 
 wake up in some golden morning, with a 
 blessed song-sparrow singing his litany of joy 
 in our enchanted ears, and know the vernal 
 ides at last are here. 
 
 It is only in the north that we fully love the 
 spring. After these iron months of unremit- 
 ting struggle with the giant cold, the spirit is 
 
 64
 
 glad when relief comes at length; and the 
 season of returning vitality has a festal charm 
 all its own. The day when the river breaks up 
 is a holiday in the heart, whether we work 
 or not. All winter long it has lain there before 
 our doors, a broad, white road between the 
 hills, swept with gusts of sparkling drift in 
 the hard, bleak sunlight, gleaming bluish and 
 mystical while the enormous moon stood over 
 its solitary wastes, — dumb, prisoning, im- 
 placable. But at last deliverance arrives, and 
 the bumping, crunching, jamming ice-floe is 
 starting seaward with a thousand confused 
 voices, while the old faithful blue appears 
 once more glimmering and golden and glad. 
 The first dip of the canoe's bow into that fa- 
 miliar flood, the first stroke of the paddle, the 
 first long sunny day afloat among the willow 
 stems in the overflowed meadow lands, and 
 the first call of the golden-wing, lone and 
 high, over wood and lake! The gladness of 
 such a season comes only to those who have 
 endured the gray storms, the low, cold suns 
 
 6j
 
 Efje mn^ip of TSTatttre 
 
 and the purple vaulted night, where every- 
 thing is sealed with the slumber of the 
 frost. 
 
 Little wonder that the vernal ides should 
 fill so large a place in the northern imagina- 
 tion. Long inheritance of April happiness 
 has given us that peculiar malady we call 
 spring fever; has given us, too, a special spir- 
 itual sympathy or wonder in the reviving year. 
 This truly religious sense has made itself 
 widely felt in the racial expression, in the arts 
 of poetry and painting. 
 
 " Oh, to be in England, now that April's there, 
 
 And whoever wakes in England sees some morning, 
 
 unaware, 
 That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf 
 Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, 
 While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough 
 In England — now ! " 
 
 These " Home Thoughts from Abroad," of 
 Browning, or Mr. Kipling's lyrical cry of the 
 exile in India, with their refrain, " It is spring 
 
 66
 
 &%t Vtvml Jftres 
 
 in England now," embody the northern senti- 
 ment, a worship which may be pagan, but is 
 certainly lovely and wholesome, for — 
 
 " Spring still makes spring in the mind, 
 When sixty years are told." 
 
 Of the mood which comes with the vernal 
 ides, are born those aspirations and outpour- 
 ings which have come to be a byword under 
 the name of spring poetry. Perhaps the fact 
 that the celebration is overdone to so ridicu- 
 lous an excess is really no discredit, though 
 one finds a new note seldom enough. Yet I 
 wonder whether the vernal ides are truly 
 a time favourable to artistic creation. If there 
 are seasons of the mind, its April should be a 
 month of starting and growth, of extended 
 horizons, renewed vigour, fresh inspirations. 
 But the month of fruitage is September or 
 October, and the achievements of art are ri- 
 pened to perfection in the Indian summer of 
 the soul. It is not under the immediate stress 
 of a great emotion that a great work is pro- 
 
 67
 
 Stye Ztf nsijU) of Mature 
 
 duced ; most often it is the result of the long, 
 silent cogitation, when the mind sits in au- 
 tumnal luxury thinking to itself. In the 
 vernal ides who would spend an hour on 
 remembrance? When those days return we 
 are too thankful for mere life, too sated with 
 the rapturous zest of being, to dwell with fond- 
 ling care over the swarming creations of fancy. 
 And yet, there is our father Chaucer with that 
 never stale opening of the prologue to his 
 wondrous tales. 
 
 Of the inspirational value of these vernal 
 ides there can be no doubt. They come back 
 to us year by year with messages and reminders 
 from the unfailing sources of life; they are 
 heathen Druidic Easter days, symbols of im- 
 mortal gladness and strength. When they 
 dawn, we must bring out the flame-coloured 
 robe of pleasure, and leave our old black 
 garment of distrust, our overshoes of doubt, 
 and our umbrella of skepticism in the closet. 
 No pessimist must stir abroad when April 
 comes. But we must all stand with bright 
 
 68
 
 Wtyt Vtvnal X&tB 
 
 faces and clapping hands, when the long pro- 
 cession with banners of green moves up from 
 the south. It is the feast of the vernal 
 ides. 
 
 69
 
 Cfte ^eeti of ^uccesa
 
 &ije &eefc of Sucee0S 
 
 After all is said and done, where does suc- 
 cess reside? In material advantages, in soli- 
 tary contentment, in lofty resignation? Is it 
 in securing an aim after long years of en- 
 deavour, or is it in the daily realization of ac- 
 complished toil? Shall we measure it by the 
 patent standard of the visible shows and cir- 
 cumstances of life, acknowledged by every 
 one, or by the inward silent sanction of the 
 individual conscience? 
 
 Perhaps before one answers one must recall 
 the ultimate aims and ambitions of this so 
 frail mortality. Ask yourself, ask your 
 friend, ask the first man you pass. I fancy 
 they will tell you in one word, happiness is 
 the end of man's endeavour. Just to be happy, 
 
 73
 
 £tjt mtugi)ij) of Mature 
 
 to taste even for a moment the zest of radiant 
 joy, is to partake of immortality. And to 
 secure for himself as many serene hours and 
 ecstatic moments as may be, this is the real aim 
 of every man. 
 
 Why do I desire estates, houses, display, 
 friends, a family, society, pomp, luxury, 
 power, ease, or amusement? Solely because 
 in these things there reside momentary pleas- 
 ures; because in them there are opportunities 
 of reviving hour by hour the fleeting instants 
 of unadulterated gladness; because in appre- 
 ciating or experiencing them, the unresting 
 spirit finds the very breath of its life. 
 
 You ask me whether I call So-and-So suc- 
 cessful; I must ask you whether he has been 
 happy. It may be he was poor and looked 
 down upon; but even so he was by no means 
 unsuccessful, unless he was dejected, unless 
 he longed for fame and wealth. It may be he 
 was crowned with every tangible evidence of 
 success, a man of note and influence, sur- 
 rounded by everything he had striven for; still 
 
 74
 
 &J)C Ssttti Of SttCttfiSS 
 
 I call him unsuccessful if there lurked at his 
 heart some faint reek of discontent. No, to 
 be successful is to be happy. Happiness is 
 success. If there can but permeate the spirit 
 some floating sense and savour of joy, as we 
 live, then is our success assured. If every 
 day we can feel, if only for a moment, the 
 elation of being alive, the realization of being 
 our best selves, of filling out our destined scope 
 and trend, you may be sure we are succeeding. 
 
 And for one I must fancy that this gladness 
 of life, this sure, radiant, happy sense of suc- 
 cess comes only to the loving heart. It is 
 very trite but very true to call love the seed 
 of success. 
 
 If anything can fill a human heart with that 
 sunny warmth of loving kindness, for that 
 individual success is already assured. Look at 
 the people in the street, the faces streaming 
 past you, as you walk. It is sad to note how 
 many are the sorry, dejected, sick, and dis- 
 pirited. But even as you look on these trans- 
 parent masks, do you not know intuitively 
 
 75
 
 £f)C Itmsfjtjj of Mature 
 
 that the reason of their unhappy plight is their 
 lack of success, and that the reason of their 
 lack is their want of love? It is not a question 
 of relative wealth. There are not more un- 
 happy faces in one class than another. Think 
 of the delicious thrill of encouragement one 
 has now and again simply in encounter- 
 ing a glad, happy human face passing in the 
 throng. Happiness, perhaps, comes by the 
 grace of Heaven ; but the wearing of a happy 
 countenance, the preserving of a happy mien, 
 is a duty, not a blessing. If I am so unloving 
 and embittered that there is no suffusion of 
 love in my heart which can show in my face, 
 at least I am bound by every sacred obliga- 
 tion to my fellows to maintain a smiling coun- 
 tenance. Yes, even if it be insincere. For 
 two reasons, for the sake of others, and for 
 the sake of myself. There is nothing more 
 potent than habit; and a sullen, hang-dog, 
 injured, resentful expression is not only an 
 unkindness to others but a menace to ourselves. 
 While he who continually wears a smile 
 
 7 6
 
 &tje S*rtr of Stuttss 
 
 must at times be betrayed into a smiling glad- 
 ness of spirit. 
 
 Let us remember the wisdom of the students 
 of expression, in this regard, and be sure that 
 if the inward habit of mind can control and 
 form the outward habit of the body, this same 
 outward habit of the features and frame im- 
 presses itself reflexly on the indwelling spirit. 
 It is a realization of this truth that makes the 
 Japanese insist so rigorously on the courteous 
 seeming in all their daily deportment. Cheer- 
 fulness is with them a social duty; and if every 
 man is not successful he is at least required to 
 assume the aspect of success, the guise of a 
 happy, contented spirit. How much might 
 we not add to the total sum of our happi- 
 ness as a people, if we, too, felt such an obliga- 
 tion. If you can find any justification for 
 putting an unhappy murderer to death, there 
 surely ought to be some punishment for that 
 unsocial creature who constantly shows a 
 gloomy face to the world. What right have 
 you to sulk or be sad of visage? Your sorrow 
 
 77
 
 STJje ZMustjfv of Xatttre 
 
 is, after all, no more than the common inheri- 
 tance of all our kind, and there is before us 
 still the old duty of brave, cheerful heroism. 
 In the name of all the saints, therefore, let us 
 pluck up a heart from somewhere and turn a 
 pleasant look upon the world! We shall thus 
 all become conspirators for happiness, each 
 man in collusion with his neighbour to in- 
 crease the sum of joy in the earth, to lighten 
 the burden of the days and to put far off the 
 night-time of inevitable natural sorrow. 
 
 Then, too, think how the seed of success in 
 all our artistic achievements is constantly re- 
 vealing itself as the spirit of loving cheerful- 
 ness. There is nothing but the warmth of 
 devotion which can irradiate and illumine the 
 crafts of our hands. No skill, no technique, 
 no device, no love of traditions, is competent 
 for an instant to take the place of the artist's 
 love and care. You will see it in every line 
 the painter draws, in every note the musician 
 sounds, or you will miss it sorely. And wher- 
 ever you are brought into touch with any piece 
 
 78
 
 artje Sect* of Success 
 
 of art that has the power to move you, you 
 may be certain it has influence over the frail 
 human heart because of the love in the heart 
 of its creator. This is true, not only of the 
 fine arts, but of all those less ambitious but no 
 less honest arts we call industrial, to which so 
 much untold toil has gone in the long history 
 of man. 
 
 79
 
 ifact ant» jfancp
 
 # act atrtr fancy 
 
 BETWEEN fancy and fact lies the dilemma 
 we call life. On the one hand, things as they 
 are; on the other, things as we would have 
 them be. On the one side, the solid, durable, 
 implacable circumstance; on the other, the 
 plastic will, the deviable desire, the incerti- 
 tude of mind. And yet the fact is not estab- 
 lished beyond the influence of fancy. We are 
 no more victims of circumstance than circum- 
 stance is the shadow of ourselves. We are 
 moulded, we say, by the conditions and sur- 
 roundings in which we live; but we too often 
 forget that the environment is largely what 
 we make it. We are like children living in 
 fear of the fabulous giant, if we do not remem- 
 ber that fact is solidified fancy. What is the 
 
 83
 
 2TJ)t ftiuaftU) of ^Nature 
 
 form and substance of our daily life but the 
 realization of countless years of aspiration and 
 resolve? 
 
 There is nothing accomplished that is not 
 just the impalpable breath of dream, a sug- 
 gestion, a hint of spirit; on this the active 
 self lays hold, and forges it into the more per- 
 manent shape. We make our habits, our cus- 
 toms, our possessions, as spiders spin their airy 
 nets. The massive fabrication of civilized 
 communities is reared from stuff more vola- 
 tile than the clouds, only half of it is solid. 
 And yet it is in awe of these floating appari- 
 tions that we pass so much time. 
 
 This is unwholesome. Fear is a malarial 
 germ in the soul. If only the world could cast 
 out fear and establish hope in its place, the 
 morning of the millennium would be already 
 far advanced. But if we would not fear, then 
 we must love. If we would not shrink from 
 the facts of life, we must love them. We are 
 creatures so strangely compounded of dust and 
 dream, that we can never wholly give our 
 
 84
 
 iFact au*r jfmt£ 
 
 allegiance to either one. We are neither ani- 
 mal nor angel, at present; and wherever our 
 trend of aspiration may lead us in future, 
 certainly this life is in some sense a compro- 
 mise. Desirable as the angelic ideal appears, 
 beautiful as it is for an ultimate goal, there 
 is the fact of the physical to be taken count 
 of, to be respected, to be reverenced, to be 
 loved, equally with the spiritual. They miss 
 the very core and gist of human life, it seems 
 to me, who forget this miracle, the union of 
 mind and matter. And certainly we shall 
 accomplish little by an undivided devotion to 
 the one side of life at the expense of the other. 
 It sometimes appears that every human ill can 
 be traced to the divergence between fancy and 
 fact, between what we have done and what 
 we would do. And this again is traceable to 
 the faulty idea in the first instance. 
 
 It is evident, then, how loyal we need be 
 to the promptings of fancy, to the inspiration 
 to the glimmering of genius. For if we mis- 
 interpret or disregard this word of the spirit, 
 
 »5
 
 &%t liiustjlp of Mature 
 
 we are but setting out toward disaster. Our 
 wrong initiative gradually takes more and 
 more solid form in fact; the fact closes in 
 moment by moment, and we are taken in the 
 toils of our own weaving, which we too often 
 call inevitable fate. But if a loyalty to the 
 intimations of spirit is so large a part of wis- 
 dom, a loyalty to fact is needed, too, — a loy- 
 alty to those past ideas we have made perma- 
 nent. It is good at times to let fancy be, to 
 disregard the restless urgings of the inner 
 life and dwell with the comfortable lower 
 kingdoms, with the trees and the cattle. 
 
 That is one reason why we must take care 
 to have our ideals right, so that when they 
 have become crystallized into circumstance 
 and conditions we shall be able to live with 
 them. It is an unhappy soul that cannot live 
 with its facts. If my outward material sur- 
 roundings and my relations with my fellow 
 beings are such that I cannot live with them 
 quietly, normally, and frankly, as the weeks go 
 by, but must depend on the intellectual and 
 
 86
 
 spiritual life wholly, then I am on the road 
 to sickness and sorrow. For fact and fancy 
 cannot be long divorced; the one cannot live 
 without the other; they are the body and soul 
 of the universe. To the materialist must be 
 said: "Cleave close to your fancy. Never 
 forsake for a moment that generous and faith- 
 ful guide. Be not overengrossed with the 
 visible and solid beauty of being." To the 
 overstrenuous idealist must be said: "Hold 
 hard to fact. Live near the comforting, un- 
 restless blessings of the actual. Never stray 
 too far from the physical phase of existence, 
 lest you wander and be lost for ever." 
 
 Men and women who take upon themselves 
 the tasks of the intellectual life, who try ever 
 so humbly to help forward the work of under- 
 standing the world, who wish to illumine and 
 cheer the dark recesses of being, are peculiarly 
 in danger of ignoring the fact. Eager and 
 sedulous in the pursuit of this dream or that, 
 as artists or preachers or teachers or reform- 
 ers, they become wholly absorbed in the emo- 
 
 87
 
 Efjr itfnsijtj) of Nature 
 
 tional and mental life, neglecting the material. 
 They are forerunners of better facts which 
 they wish to see established and for which they 
 too easily die. It is better to live for a purpose 
 than to die for it, — unless to die is necessary. 
 But our friends the enthusiasts who secure for 
 us so much good, who are in the last analysis 
 the authors of all the good deeds of man, 
 should be content to hasten slowly, and, while 
 they strive for perfection, to hold the sadly 
 imperfect we have already gained. It will 
 avail you nothing to stand face to face with 
 the vision, if you cannot in some way make 
 actual and apparent to men the beauty you 
 have beheld. Let aspiration be as ethereal as 
 you will, the spirit of beauty must be made 
 manifest to be fully enjoyed. 
 
 Are you sick or sorry or dejected, or un- 
 fortunate, or overwrought? There may be 
 one of two reasons for it; either you are living 
 too far away from your ideal or too far away 
 from your facts. If you are world-sick, retreat 
 into the chamber of your own heart, be quiet 
 
 88
 
 iFact autr iFatug 
 
 and obedient to your genius, and summon to 
 your aid the great and kindly master's thought. 
 A little solitude, a little contemplation, a little 
 love, is the cure for your malady. But if you 
 are soul-sick from too much stress of the eager 
 indomitable spirit, then put all thought aside; 
 vegetate, animalize, be ordinary, and thank 
 God there are easy, unambitious things to do. 
 Curl up close to some fact, if it is only a 
 dog, or a wood fire, or the south side of a 
 barn, and forget your immortal soul. Your 
 mortal body is just exactly as important, and 
 deserves just as much care and consideration. 
 Be wise, be indolent, try to live in your body 
 and not merely inhabit it, and do not fuss over 
 the Great Tangle. " Who leans upon Allah, 
 Allah belongs to him." 
 
 89
 
 Caster Cte
 
 (Basin <&U 
 
 PERHAPS one must say that Christmas Day 
 is the happiest festival of the Christian year, 
 but certainly none has more fine subtle glad- 
 ness than Easter. On Christmas morning we 
 celebrate the great fact of being human; we 
 commemorate the coming of One who was 
 intensely a man, known, seen, touched, and be- 
 loved of our own very kind, a perfect comrade 
 and son, the embodiment of all we know to be 
 best in mortal beings. At Easter we celebrate 
 the immortal fancy of an imperishable life. 
 It is the season of rapture, of lyric belief in 
 more than human possibility, the day on which 
 the timorous soul is summoned to put trust 
 in the very frailest probability, yet with the 
 stoutest, most stubborn faith. Laying aside 
 
 93
 
 2Tfje 2dusS)i4) of Nature 
 
 doubt and the prosy mind, the soul now and 
 again asserts her right to an hour of pure ideal- 
 ism where the solid and safe of actuality can 
 have no part. She insists that conviction is 
 enough, that proof is not necessary, that her 
 beloved dream must come true because she has 
 dreamed it so often and so hard. She will 
 hear no cold discouragement from her scien- 
 tific sister mind; she persists in being fondly 
 wilful in her own sweet way. What do the 
 plain deductions of all the doctors, of all the 
 schools count with her? Is not her own in- 
 tuition more reliable? Shall she forsake the 
 warm, comfortable doctrine of a beautiful 
 immortality for the barren desolation of the 
 fleeting fact? It is moods of the spirit such as 
 this, that one commemorates in the Easter 
 celebrations. 
 
 Apart from the accepted religious signifi- 
 cance of the day, there is still a whole cult of 
 lovely and encouraging natural religion cling- 
 ing about the Easter holiday which we ought 
 to be very loath to discard. Rather, indeed, 
 
 94
 
 let us foster all its gentle associations and cus- 
 toms. For if we are compelled to change our 
 way of thinking on religious themes, we are 
 not compelled to change our way of feeling 
 about them. And the essence of religion is the 
 emotion, not the thought, — the sure and cer- 
 tain conviction, not the logical conclusion. 
 The foundations of life are still far beyond 
 the reach of investigation; but among the 
 realities of life as we perceive it is the sense 
 of trust in continual goodness and abiding 
 love. Why should you and I vex ourselves 
 about the problem of immortality for the soul? 
 You, with all your old-time religious certain- 
 ties, are not more joyously convinced of it than 
 I, though I can offer you not a single proof. 
 On the eve of such a festival in the midst of 
 spring, what memories return with the April 
 winds! The breath of approaching life sifts 
 through the trees and grasses, the sound of 
 running water stirs in the wild places, the birds 
 make songs as they fly, there is everywhere the 
 renewal of the ancient rapture of earth; 
 
 95
 
 arfte lunatjtji of Katitre 
 
 yet in the twilight one remembers all those 
 glad experiences which are to be repeated no 
 more, and the faces of unreturning compan- 
 ions. 
 
 So that if Easter is the gladdest of days, the 
 eve of Easter is the saddest. It is now that I 
 remember my vanished friend. In vain you 
 speak to me of comfort or solace; in vain you 
 offer me the consolations of some supreme 
 faith. It is not lofty nobility of resignation 
 that will aid me; I care not for all the sacra- 
 ments and sanctions of your oldest religion; 
 neither dogma nor theory can avail to help me 
 here; for after all I ask so little. I only want 
 to see my friend again, to run my arm about 
 his shoulder, to see his slow, comfortable smile, 
 to hear that gracious, melodious voice. It is 
 just these common, human, earthly, unecstatic 
 things I crave. And yet they are denied. Is 
 it not hard? Time, you say, will assuage this 
 desolation? No, for as time goes on I shall 
 only need him the more. I shall be more and 
 more impoverished by his absence, for hardly 
 
 9 6
 
 a day goes by that I would not have profited 
 by his friendship. In this crisis, in that di- 
 lemma, I should be so enriched by his encour- 
 agement, his fortitude, his calm, his sympathy, 
 his insight. And wanting all this, I am poorer 
 every minute that he is away. 
 
 Yet you tell me it is the fairest of April days, 
 in the best of worlds. Yes, I know; I know 
 all that; and I yield to no one in this foolish 
 modern devotion to nature; but I tell you 
 the universal human experience is right; 'tis 
 friends and not places that make the world. 
 You can not fool my heavy heart with the 
 windy consolations of the pines, nor the sol- 
 emn anthem of the sea. I want something 
 more common, less stupendous, more human. 
 Ah, but give me one more day with the man 
 who was my friend! 
 
 No, it is not the law. The gods themselves 
 cannot control the Fates. I shall not find his 
 like again. But every April as the earth 
 revives, and the returning forces of the grain 
 and the sun and the vital air bring renewal of 
 
 97
 
 W$t Wtinut}ip of ttfatttrt 
 
 joys to the creatures of this globe, I shall feel 
 the renewed want of him, and I shall listen for 
 him in vain in our accustomed haunts. There 
 is no mitigation to that sorrow. But in the 
 memory of his great, human, loving kindness 
 there is the seed of an imperishable joy, the 
 sufficient foundation for at least one man's 
 faith. His influence remains; indeed, it grows 
 and ripens about me; and as it has become 
 invisible, it has also become more strong. 
 Through the subtle avenues of affection I par- 
 take somewhat of his generous endowments. 
 You .shall find that I and all his friends are 
 tempered by the quality of his personality. If 
 he is no longer here as an apparent force in 
 the world of affairs, those whom he loved are 
 made the unconscious vessels of his imperish- 
 able power, the instruments of that potent 
 spirit. Even while we grieve for him, his 
 influence is transforming us to the likeness 
 of something better than our former daily 
 selves; and we begin to share in the imper- 
 
 98
 
 I=astrv 22uc 
 
 sonal greatness, however imperfectly, with 
 which he is invested. 
 
 Is not this true for you as well as for me? 
 Have you not some such friend to recall at 
 the great spring festival? And glad as you 
 have been for the actual fact of sober existence, 
 are you not equally glad for the unsubstantial 
 fancy of immortality? Do you not assent to 
 the fine and ancient faith which is embodied 
 in the celebration of Easter? 
 
 
 99
 
 %%t Cost of 3Seautp
 
 Efte Cost of ifamtttj 
 
 BEAUTY, you would say at first guess, is like 
 genius; it is above cost and without price. It 
 is, in the outward and manifest world of ap- 
 pearance, what genius is in the inward and 
 spiritual world of imagination. Each in its 
 own realm is the miraculous phenomenon of 
 perfection, exhibited in the midst of a multi- 
 tude of imperfections, arousing our wonder 
 and enthusiasm to heights beyond the usual; 
 so that around beauty or genius we are always 
 ready to form the rudiments of a cult, to invest 
 it with something of reverence, to begin to 
 make it an object of worship. Indeed our 
 attitude toward it has the elements of a relig- 
 ious feeling, and implies a tacit belief in its 
 divine origin, as we express it. 
 
 103
 
 Efje fttngljii) of Nature 
 
 Into our limited view, surrounded every- 
 where by restrictions and laws, beauty and 
 genius come as supra-legal apparitions, com- 
 pelling allegiance, stimulating joy, exciting 
 reverence. They are, it seems to us, messen- 
 gers and envoys extraordinary, accredited with 
 intimations from the unknown, to which we 
 gladly give ear. They embody and fore- 
 shadow those traits of winning loveliness 
 toward which we aspire; they already are 
 what we would be, — our aspirational and en- 
 nobled selves. One glimpse of beauty, one 
 hint of genius, is sufficient illumination for a 
 single day, — yes, perhaps for a lifetime, as 
 we simple mortals are constituted. How old a 
 story that is, wherein some loved form of 
 beauty, early known and lost, has served as the 
 enduring inspiration for a lifelong human 
 experience! And how often we have heard of 
 the trend of a character changed utterly by a 
 single thought, a single gleam of genius! 
 
 Small wonder, then, if we have come near 
 to making genius a demigod and beauty a 
 
 104
 
 artjc (fost of iirautp 
 
 divinity. It is on the basis of this superhuman 
 conception that our regard for them has been 
 fostered. 
 
 In a more modern, scientific aspect, what 
 are we to say to the appearance of beauty 
 manifest to the senses, of genius revealed in 
 thought? Merely that they are the natural 
 outcome of natural law, in no way more mi- 
 raculous than the imperfect and tentative com- 
 monplace world about us. But how, in that 
 case, is my enthusiasm to be retained, my devo- 
 tion and respect to be held? It is a trite 
 enough question. There is no fear that revela- 
 tions of new knowledge can make the further 
 unknown seem paltry or familiar. Once let 
 us accept reverence for law in place of a rever- 
 ence for the supernatural, as it was called, — 
 once let us acquire the habit of free belief in 
 place of the habit of credulous timidity, and 
 the borders of wisdom will seem infinite; the 
 horizon of wonder will enlarge at each step of 
 knowledge ; and what we see will appear even 
 more wonderful than we could faintly imag- 
 
 105
 
 2Ttje ILihistjip of Nature 
 
 ine. We shall come to think of beauty as the 
 complete realization of some typical thought 
 under the restraint of law; and of genius 
 as the partial manifestation of thought itself 
 under a like restriction. 
 
 Beauty, then, and genius will seem no longer 
 priceless; their value will be very definite. It 
 will appear that they are produced under the 
 most exact and exacting operations of the great 
 economy of nature. We shall see that they 
 have been priced at an enormous cost, just 
 as we knew they could be sold for a song, — 
 beauty the most perishable and fleeting of 
 things, genius the most volatile and imponder- 
 able; this we knew; but we supposed they 
 came as easily as they went. Ah, no ! far from 
 that. 
 
 You find some object of art, some beautiful 
 thing the hands of man have fashioned, and 
 ask what it cost. Here is a wooden tobacco- 
 box made by a Japanese artist generations ago. 
 You mark the loving care expended on it; you 
 see it never could have been created by rule; 
 
 1 06
 
 <ITljr <£ost of Vtauxij 
 
 you notice how the humble love of the crafts- 
 man utilized every grain and knot of the wood, 
 how he accommodated his talent to the un- 
 yielding exigencies of the material, yet in the 
 end compelled it to serve his expressional 
 need; it is nothing short of a masterpiece of 
 genius. And what do you think it cost? Love, 
 devotion, restraint, self-denial, endurance, 
 fidelity, patience, faith, humility, diligence, 
 serenity, scrupulous living, and an untarnished 
 mind. Do you recall the years of ungrudging 
 privation, of unquestioning toil, that made that 
 inspiration of beauty possible? Or here is a 
 modern binding, not remarkable perhaps, yet 
 bearing evident traces of loving craftsman- 
 ship. Do you know how long the binder must 
 sit at his bench before he can learn to master 
 the cunning gold for tooling and edges? A 
 friend of mine asked an old gilder the other 
 day how long it would take to learn his art. 
 " Well," he answered, " some can learn it in 
 five years, and some never learn it." More 
 patience, more devotion, more love and faith. 
 
 107
 
 £fje Itfnsfjfj) of Katute 
 
 Yes, all art, the product of genius, comes of 
 toil. And the previous question behind that, 
 — the explanation of natural beauty and 
 genius itself. The first spring flower, or the 
 first bluebird in the orchard; are they the 
 creations of a moment, the inspiration of na- 
 ture on the instant? Think of the endless 
 unrecorded history implied in that word evo- 
 lution, — the ages of endurance, of failure, 
 of submission, of tentative and countless varia- 
 tion, of changing type and perishing order, and 
 this one frail individual emerging at last, to 
 hang in the sun for so brief a heart-beat ! Your 
 Easter lilies cost more than a voyage from Ber- 
 muda. To bring them to perfection the earth 
 must swing like a pendulum in space, and the 
 sun and moon operate the machinery of the 
 tides for more aeons than we know. 
 
 108
 
 &i)£tf)m
 
 Itytjtfjm 
 
 Now that spring is returning, there comes 
 again the old wonder at its loveliness, the old 
 radiant sense of joy, the old touch of sadness, 
 — the sorrow of the world. If we awake in 
 the serene sunlight of some still April dawn, 
 and find our life on the flowery earth very 
 good, we also feel the question which underlies 
 the murmurous twilight, — the disturbing 
 question of the universe to which there is no 
 reply. 
 
 In the morning, as you stroll from the house, 
 the buds are breaking, the grass is springing 
 green and new; there is no need for intro- 
 spection; it is enough to be alive; self-con- 
 sciousness is folly. Only the sick are self- 
 conscious; and the first step on the road to 
 
 in
 
 Zfyt luusDij) of Mature 
 
 health is forgetfulness of self. You realize 
 this as the beauty of April comes over you 
 once more, and all your senses become ab: 
 sorbed in nature and forget to brood idly on 
 themselves. 
 
 But in April there is more than the mere 
 robust delight of the morning; there is the 
 profound sorrow of the spring, the ancient 
 and unutterable loneliness and sadness of hu- 
 man life, which has been going on for so many 
 untold ages, renewing itself in confidence each 
 spring and yet always doomed to imperma- 
 nence and transiency. Even before we can 
 have our heart's fill of the dandelions, they 
 are gone; even before we are accustomed to 
 the vanishing music of the birds, it has ceased 
 for another year ; and before we are attuned to 
 beauty, that beauty is a thing of remembrance. 
 Then, in the spring, who does not think of 
 things that are never to return, — the hand- 
 clasps of lovers, the conversations of our 
 friends? Where is the princely comrade with 
 whom we lunched at the country club last 
 
 I 12
 
 April? Where is the loyal little companion 
 who went Mayflowering with us last year? 
 Last year? It is twenty years ago. It matters 
 not, one year or twenty; the oblivion of the 
 April rain has borne them all away, with their 
 griefs and delirious joys, to the country over 
 the hill where all the dead centuries have gone 
 before them. 
 
 When the hosts of the rain come back they 
 do not bring the friends they led captive in 
 former years. They come for some of us, and 
 we, like the others, shall not return. Children 
 of the dust, travelling with the wind, " Ah," 
 we say, " if only the April days would tarry 
 always! " or " If only June would stay! " It 
 seems such a mal-adjustment of time, when 
 there are twelve long months in the year, only 
 to have one June! All the gray winter 
 through, and even all through the spring, we 
 are waiting for the June days, the perfection 
 of the year, and when they come there is not 
 time enough to apprehend them. June goes 
 by every year like an express train, while we 
 
 "3
 
 Et)t Irtusfjfj) of Xatttre 
 
 stand dazed at some little siding. In splendour 
 and power it sweeps by; a gasp of the breath 
 as we attempt to realize its flight, and then 
 June is gone, and there is only another dreary 
 year ahead. It is only in June that life reaches 
 its best, and yet he is a very fortunate man who 
 gets four or five years of June in his lifetime. 
 There are not six years of June in the appor- 
 tioned three score and ten. And that seems 
 a very modest amount of the perfection of 
 summer for any mortal to possess, does it not? 
 I know I shall never be reconciled to this; but 
 in the Elysian fields I am sure it is arranged 
 differently. 
 
 Well, the meaning of it all? What excuse 
 can Providence have to offer for so niggardly 
 a distribution of happiness through the year? 
 Why so much ice of winter and so little wine 
 of spring? Why not all June and roses? That 
 is a babbler's question, and the babbler's 
 answer is " We do not know." 
 
 As the earth vibrates in her course from 
 autumnal to vernal equinox our heart vibrates 
 
 114
 
 between misgiving and elation. The long 
 swing of the planets through their orbits is no 
 more than a single beat of their endless vibra- 
 tion. The pendulum of the sun has a longer 
 arm than the pendulum of the kitchen clock, 
 yet the law of rhythm holds in both. The 
 moon glowing and darkening in the purple 
 night and the firefly gleaming and then extin- 
 guished in the meadow have different periods 
 of rhythm, that is all. Not only music is 
 rhythm, but all sound is rhythm. Colour, too, 
 is rhythm, — the light rays of varying length 
 in their vibrations. We are only made up of 
 a mass of vibrations, all our senses being but 
 so many variations of the power of perceiving 
 and measuring rhythm. 
 
 Rhythm is primarily motion from one point 
 to another. This is the beginning of life, the 
 first evidence of anything more potent than 
 inert matter. You see how faithfully the 
 rudimentary idea of rhythm is maintained in 
 nature. In her most subtle and complex per- 
 formances she never resigns that first mode of 
 
 "5
 
 £f)e ZUusfjiJ) of ^atttrt 
 
 essential life, but does all things according to 
 ordered rhythm and harmony. So that there 
 could not be any June at one side of the Zodiac 
 without December at the other. The year in 
 its ebb and flow is the pulse-beat of the uni- 
 verse. If I am depressed to-day I know I 
 shall be elated to-morrow. And, as I under- 
 stand nature, it is wisdom to use her kindly 
 forces for our own good. In unhappiness, 
 therefore, or distress, or misfortune, it is idle 
 to curse or repine ; it is more sensible to abide, 
 to wait until the earth has got round to the 
 other side of her annual course and see how 
 the event will appear from over there. 
 
 If to-day we are having an era of war and 
 greed and barbarism, by and by we shall have 
 an era of art and civilization again. Our 
 Mother Nature does not glide ahead like an 
 empty apparition, but walks step by step, like 
 any lovely human, constantly moving in 
 rhythmic progress. 
 
 We must not interfere with nature, to do 
 
 116
 
 violence to her rhythm. We must not hold 
 the pendulum back. But we shall best serve 
 ourselves by serving the rhythmic tide of natu- 
 ral force, taking the current as it turns, and 
 enduring in patient faith when it is adverse. 
 And we must notice how all our own small 
 lives imitate the great pattern of Nature, going 
 rhythmically forward and not steadily, from 
 gloom to gladness, despair to elation, success 
 to failure, and back to success again. This 
 knowledge should make us more ready and 
 willing to profit by the favouring periods, to 
 throw ourselves into the opportunity with 
 unreluctant zest, and also to endure with forti- 
 tude the backward play of the rhythm of 
 power within us. It should save us from ulti- 
 mate hopelessness and the profoundness of 
 despair. 
 
 Since it is April, then, let me think most of 
 the gladness and surging life of April, and 
 let me not think sad thoughts on Easter eve. 
 Let me have the confidence of all the spring 
 
 ii7
 
 £f)e mmfyip of ^Catutir 
 
 things, and abandon my spirit without a single 
 fear or a moment's misgiving to the great, 
 sure, benign power which walks the world this 
 April day. 
 
 118
 
 9prtl in Ccfom
 
 &pnl in Eofow 
 
 As April draws to an end one finds the 
 encompassment of streets and walls more and 
 more irksome. As the sweet wind goes over 
 the city roofs of a morning you look up into 
 the pale warm spring sky and say, " Some- 
 where there is more of this; I remember a 
 world whose horizon was round and vague 
 and far away; I recall the real red colour of 
 the earth — yes, red and green, not this sickly 
 gray of granite and asphalt. Where is that 
 country? " And there comes to you Whit- 
 man's great phrase, " Afoot and light-hearted, 
 I take to the open road." The ancient imme- 
 morial joy of a thousand departed Aprils 
 stirs from its lurking sleep in those placid 
 veins of yours, and would lure you away 
 
 121
 
 Wtyt Ximstjijj of Mature 
 
 beyond the limits of the town. It is the old 
 spring fret that moved myriads of your fel- 
 lows long before, and will move others when 
 we are gone. But for the ample moment, the 
 large sufficient now, our glad elasticity of 
 spirit, our rapturous exhilaration of life, are 
 as keen as if they were to be eternal. Indeed, 
 they are the eternal part of us, of which we 
 partake in these rare instants of existence. 
 
 Then as the dim desire for change, the wild- 
 ing wander-lust, shapes the spring-madness 
 in our brain, the longing grows definite. The 
 slumbering love of sea or mountain, marsh or 
 dune or orchard land — places we have 
 known, where we have really lived — puts off 
 the lethargy of winter and kindles the pulses 
 of the soul anew. How fruitless and wrong 
 and ineffectual our tawdry city lives appear! 
 Of what use is it to toil with so much dili- 
 gence, to dress with such elaborate care? 
 Surely we have been spending months in vain, 
 when one soft spring morning can give our 
 whole scheme of living the lie! Where is that 
 
 122
 
 ajuru in Eomn 
 
 bright hour when we loitered by the idle wash 
 of a June tide along the coast of Maine, or 
 that other memorable breathing-spell when 
 we saw the frail circle of the harvest moon 
 among the tall hill-birches? What became 
 of the hermit thrush we once heard sending 
 his anthem down the twilight of the firs, while 
 the air was burdened with apple bloom? And 
 where are those changing sea-pictures, with 
 the white-sailed moving ships, which we used 
 to watch from deep verandas through the 
 lilac-trees? Ah, that is the greatest memory 
 of all, — the summer sea! All its wonder is 
 calling to us to-day, as we tarry in grimy 
 routine and dyspeptic indolence. It almost 
 seems as if one would be justified in breaking 
 all obligations for the sake of a day by the 
 shore, when the buds are unfolding. But if 
 so great a rebellion as that cannot be excused, 
 there are always the docks and the ferries and 
 the ocean liners unlading in the East River. 
 You may get a breath of freedom there at the 
 expense of an idle hour any afternoon. 
 
 123
 
 Careless j&ature
 
 Careless Hature 
 
 AFTER all, Nature takes very little thought 
 of herself. It is our human minds that are 
 retrospective, brooding, careworn. One may 
 question whether it were not better largely to 
 forsake our habit of questioning and live more 
 like the creatures. If wisdom lies inside the 
 door of studious thought, madness is also sleep- 
 ing there; and the mortal who knocks does 
 so at his peril. We may become as gods to 
 know good from evil ; but are we sure that 
 happiness inheres in that knowledge? 
 
 Once having turned his gaze inward, and 
 discovered himself, man is in the perplexity 
 of those adventurous souls who leave the old 
 world and emigrate to the new. Having 
 come to their destination, the novelty and 
 
 127
 
 Wfyt ¥Mmt)i# of Mature 
 
 spirit and brightness of the fresh life fascinate 
 and hold them for a time ; then they tire of it, 
 and long for the old home, where they are sure 
 they will be happy once more. The same rest- 
 less longing that sent them forth on the quest, 
 sends them back again, seekers still. So " over 
 the sea the thousand miles " they fare after a 
 few years, with their hearts set on the old 
 ways, the old customs, the old friendships, the 
 old simple life. Do they find it? Not at all. 
 The old country is not only different from the 
 new; it is different from its old self; it has 
 changed, they think, while they were away. 
 And yet it has not changed; it is they them- 
 selves who have been changed by their experi- 
 ence. For it is not altogether true that " caelum 
 nan animum mutant qui trans mare currunt;' 
 and travel does unfold and modify the mind. 
 Having beheld new worlds, we cannot be as 
 we were before. So our emigrants find them- 
 selves as dissatisfied with the old home as 
 they were with the new. Thenceforth they 
 live for ever the victims of distraction, 
 
 128
 
 Careless Nature 
 
 touched with uneasiness if they remain in the 
 old world, not wholly at rest if they reemigrate 
 to the new. 
 
 Is this our mortal predicament since we left 
 the green world of nature and entered the 
 gray world of thought? Do we not every day 
 long to return, and tell ourselves tales of the 
 sweet simplicity of that natural life? Do we 
 not profess to despise the self-conscious and 
 introspective existence? And what is our love 
 of the trees and the birds, the sea and the hills 
 and out-of-doors, but a hankering for the old 
 creature life? 
 
 Go into the park or the woods any morn- 
 ing now, and listen until you hear a single 
 rainbird soloing plaintively above the dimmer 
 sounds. At that one touch of wild wood 
 magic, how uncontemporaneous and primi- 
 tive we become! How little matter our 
 worldly state, our clothes and carriages, our 
 bills and bank accounts! That is a strain 
 which pierces to the heart and plays upon the 
 soul. It finds us as we are, not as we seem. 
 
 129
 
 £fje lifusijtj) of ttfatttre 
 
 And unless we are wholly corrupted and sod- 
 den with civilization, it wakens glimmerings 
 of the golden age within us, making us 
 
 " walk the earth in rapture ; 
 Making those who catch God's secret 
 Just so much more prize their capture." 
 
 As that pealing cadence thrills on the damp 
 air, the world is renewed for us; we pass 
 backward a thousand years to the morning of 
 earth, before care and sorrows were begotten, 
 before ever we bethought ourselves of retro- 
 spect or inquiry. 
 
 130
 
 %ty ^antsmng Woxti 
 
 S3
 
 Cije ^atrtrerincj ^ortr 
 
 SOMETIMES it seems as if words were the 
 only realities, as if everything else were fleet- 
 ing and perishable as dew. We say in house- 
 hold phrase that the word that is written re- 
 mains, and we think of our heritage of litera- 
 ture. But the unwritten word has an inde- 
 structible life as well. 
 
 In the Old Book, where the story of the 
 creation is told, how the heavens and the earth 
 were made in the beginning, it is written 
 " God said." No other way of promulgating 
 the vast elemental fiat could occur to the 
 imagination. By simple word of mouth the 
 revolving firmament was created, so that beau- 
 tiful poem has it; and the conception is a 
 tribute to the power of the word. When you 
 
 *33
 
 2Tf)t liinmjip of ^Catttrt 
 
 come to revise that primitive notion, and sub- 
 stitute for it some slow gigantic idea of evo- 
 lution, rational but ponderous and lumbering, 
 much of the wonder at first escapes. The 
 process seems so logical, the periods of time 
 are so immeasurably enormous, that one 
 hardly travels back to " in the beginning; " 
 the mind is so sufficiently occupied with the 
 revelations of scientific method, it does not 
 note the old ever-present marvel. For the 
 sphinx has only retreated behind another 
 question; and our solution of the riddle has 
 been found in terms of still another conun- 
 drum. 
 
 Follow the evolutionary idea, the new idea 
 of the creation, to its limits, and there the 
 ancient wonder resides as fresh and inscrut- 
 ably smiling as it was in the Hebrew poem. 
 The reason at last runs back to the power of 
 the word. For, think of the infinite tribes of 
 the earth and the sea, and the breeds of the 
 air; if no voice said, "Let these creatures 
 appear, each after its kind," they must have 
 
 *34
 
 said to each other, " Let us go forth and pos- 
 sess the earth;" or at least they must have 
 said to themselves, each in his heart, " Go to, 
 I will become." A world without words is 
 an unthinkable world. 
 
 And, again, in the New Book you may read 
 " In the beginning was the word, and the 
 word was with God, and the word was God." 
 This is a more illumined, modern, and sym- 
 bolistic way of saying the same thing that 
 the author of the first chapter of Genesis said. 
 There was no time, it seems to imply, when 
 expression and the power of communication 
 did not exist; more than that, there never was 
 a time when anything more potent than a 
 word held sway over being. In the Scots 
 usage, " The word is with you," shifts the 
 obligation from speaker to hearer, and places 
 the credit where it is due. And in the phrase, 
 " The word was with God," I read the attri- 
 bution of all moral force. Also, if " the word 
 was God," and God is unchanging, the word 
 is still Lord of the Earth. Thought, senti- 
 
 i3S
 
 £f)e 2;tngl)tj) of Kattttt 
 
 ment, desire, these are our rulers, and they 
 have their only embodiment in expression. It 
 is by the help of the wandering word that they 
 hold sway and move in power. 
 
 Before the written speech was the sound 
 of the voice, prevailing, urging, convincing, 
 obtaining the individual's wish and swaying 
 multitudes to a single will. Then with print- 
 ing came the multiplying of the word, the 
 increase of the powers of the unseen. All of 
 the fine arts are only differing phases of the 
 word; they are only so many modes of ex- 
 pression, signals of the spirit across gulfs of 
 silence. And our Titan of the century, me- 
 chanical invention, what is the end of all its 
 labour but to bring men face to face more 
 rapidly, that they may speak what they know, 
 or to carry their thought abroad with the 
 swiftness of light? 
 
 So now, when the vernal sun is warming the 
 earth, and April is spreading up the sloping 
 world with resurrection, by what magic is the 
 transformation wrought? In the dim nether 
 
 136
 
 glooms of the deep sea all the fin people have 
 received the summons; the unrest has taken 
 hold of them, — the fever of migration; and 
 the myriad hosts from the green Floridian 
 water and azure Carib calms gather and 
 move; surely and swiftly they come, through 
 the soundless, trackless spaces under the 
 broken whitish day, up to the cool fresh rivers 
 and the pools of the North. How did they 
 know the date? By instinct? But what is 
 that? The communication came to them, in- 
 explicably as it comes to us, — the unuttered 
 word, the presage, the portent. And their 
 brothers the birds, too; already they are here, 
 hard on the heels of the retreating frost, every 
 tribe with its cohorts full and overflowing; 
 from tree to tree, from state to state, the long 
 unnoted procession comes up through the 
 night. How they started, how they guessed 
 the hour of departure, we can only dimly sur- 
 mise. Their movements are as mysterious as 
 our own, their whim as undiscoverable. Yet 
 to them, too, the message must have gone 
 
 *37
 
 ED* Mn#t)ip of Xatttre 
 
 abroad. To say that the word went forth 
 among them is to use the simplest and most 
 elemental imagery. 
 
 The word is that which has both meaning 
 and melody, both sense and semblance; it is 
 that which informs us; it is neither matter 
 alone, nor spirit alone, but the dual manifesta- 
 tion of the two in one. It is the symbol of the 
 universe that we perceive, and the universe 
 that we are. The Word is the Lord of Crea- 
 tion, the unresting master of life, the great 
 vagabond, our substantial brother and ghostly 
 friend. 
 
 I knew a man who was a writer by trade, 
 and one day in conversation I heard a friend 
 say to him in the course of their talk, " Don't 
 you really love a word better than anything 
 else in the world?" But this monstrous no- 
 tion he stoutly repudiated, almost with indig- 
 nation, I thought. Years afterward, however, 
 he reminded me of the incident, and said that 
 he had never quite escaped from that sugges- 
 tion, — that he often feared it was true. 
 
 13*
 
 Cije jfrtettUsijtp of Jlature
 
 Ci)£ fwntejjip of Hature 
 
 Is not our love of Nature only the sentiment 
 of abounding vitality and rugged self-reli- 
 ance? In his prime a man is unacquainted 
 with fear, his look is outward upon the bright 
 changing face of the earth, so fresh, so beau- 
 tiful, so untouched by time, so vigorous, so 
 unafraid. He may have a genius for society 
 and spend his useful life in one of a thousand 
 glittering successful ways, with hardly a 
 thought for nature; or he may have a genius 
 for solitude and introspection, and walk apart 
 from his fellows, " a lover of the forest ways." 
 The trees and the hills may appeal to him, 
 and the sea tell him wonderful stories with 
 its old monotonous voice, so that he is content 
 and even happy by himself with little human 
 
 141
 
 ftfje Wtintyip of Xatttre 
 
 companionship. To-day is enough for him; 
 the birds are his musicians, and he has said 
 in his heart, " I will commune with the Great 
 Mother." And so long as he is young and 
 well, with that temperament, his solitary 
 habit may suffice, and in lonely silence he 
 may find solace for the common griefs and 
 disappointments of men. 
 
 But let him fall for an hour below the 
 normal level of health, let the sudden sweeping 
 cut of sickness come upon him, and the pith 
 of all his brave credulity will melt away. His 
 adored monitor and mistress cannot break her 
 adamantine silence for the sake of one poor 
 mortal; he no longer finds in her countenance 
 the sympathy he fancied was resident there; in 
 truth it was no more than the shadow of his 
 own exceeding great desire and superabun- 
 dant vitality; and now that the need of help 
 or sympathy or understanding is come, he 
 must turn to his own kind. 
 
 There is in reality a power in Nature to 
 rest and console us; but few are so strong as 
 
 142
 
 &$* iFrfmlrsfjijj of Nature 
 
 to be able to rely on that lonely beneficence; 
 and we must seek the gentler aid of our fellow 
 beings. Indeed, only those who are humane 
 at heart can rightly hear the obscure word of 
 Nature; while those who have been reared 
 not far from the wild school of the forest 
 make the best citizens and friends. 
 
 Perhaps the greatest boon that we can re- 
 ceive from Nature is health. Our friendship 
 with her should give us sanity first of all. The 
 strain of life in these days in our cities is apt 
 to become excessive in two directions: We are 
 apt to become wholly engrossed in affairs and 
 suffer from sheer physical exhaustion, or we 
 may become too completely and dangerously 
 detached from the current interests of exist- 
 ence. Either one may mean madness and 
 death. But a daily contact with the elements, 
 with elemental conditions of being — sun- 
 shine, and rain, and roads, and honest grass, 
 and the swish of winds in the trees — is a 
 sedative and tonic in one. To know the kind- 
 liness of Nature we must take constant care to 
 
 -43
 
 Stye Irtnsljfii of Nature 
 
 abide by her customs, not to hurry over duty 
 nor to tarry too long, but to move with the 
 appointed rhythm she has bestowed upon us, 
 each man true to his own measure, and so in 
 accord with his fellows and not at variance 
 with the purpose of creation. 
 
 144
 
 >ttbconsctous Srt
 
 Sufrcottsriotts gfrt 
 
 THERE is a general recognition of the fact, 
 but no clear comprehension of the power, of 
 subconsciousness expressing itself in various 
 forms of art. We readily recognize in a 
 painting, a poem, a piece of music, the pres- 
 ence of a force (" a something" we are likely 
 to call it), which we do not readily define. 
 We say perhaps that the picture has soul; it 
 sways us, we know not why; it allures us, we 
 cannot tell how. A too exact critic might per- 
 haps ridicule our susceptibility to a vague 
 charm we could not pretend to understand. 
 His very philosophic and rational mind would 
 insist on clarity, on definiteness. For him the 
 painting must be logical, conclusive, limpid. 
 But somehow, we say, we do not care whether 
 
 H7
 
 it means anything or not, so long as it moves 
 us pleasurably. We can enjoy Browning's 
 " Child Roland " or William Morris's " Blue 
 Closet " without asking what they mean. And 
 we are right, too. Art does not always have 
 to mean something obvious. Some poetry is 
 addressed to the mind and some is not. The 
 best poetry, of course, addresses the mind and 
 emotions as well. But just as a deal of good 
 poetry has been written which appeals chiefly 
 to the rational self in us (nearly all of Pope 
 and Dryden, for example), so a good deal 
 has been written which appeals to our irra- 
 tional instinctive self. And indeed, in all 
 poetry, even the most rational, there are cer- 
 tain qualities which pass the threshold of the 
 outer mind and pass in to sway the mysterious 
 subconscious person who inhabits us. 
 
 The most obvious of the qualities in poetry, 
 is the metre or rhythm. The measure of verse 
 has an influence on us beyond our reckoning, 
 potent and ever present, though unrecognized. 
 So that the simplest, most unexalted statement 
 
 148
 
 of truth, commonplace though it be, if once 
 thrown into regular verse, comes to us with 
 an added force. Perhaps I should say with 
 a new force. It may not make a statement 
 any plainer to our mind, to versify it; it may 
 not make it any stronger mentally; but it gives 
 it a power and influence of a sort it did not 
 possess before. This added power is one of 
 the things that distinguish poetry from prose, 
 — art from science. Now the principle of re- 
 currence is the underlying principle of rhythm 
 and metre and rhyme and alliteration. And 
 I wonder whether this constant reiteration, 
 this regular pulsing recurrence in poetry, does 
 not act as a mesmeric or hypnotic agent. 
 
 It is quite true that good art is the expres- 
 sion, not only of the rational waking objective 
 self, the self which is clever and intentional 
 and inductive, but of the deeper unreasoning 
 self, as well. It is also true that good art 
 impresses the deeper as well as the shallower 
 self. The outer objective self may be ex- 
 tremely brilliant, may master technique and 
 
 149
 
 2Ttje Xiiustjip of Xatttre 
 
 become skilled in every lore of the craft, may, 
 indeed, become as masterful in execution as 
 the masters themselves, and yet if it have not 
 the aid of a great strong inner subjective, un- 
 conscious self, it can do nothing of permanent 
 human interest. You know how accurate a 
 draughtsman may be, and how learned in 
 anatomy, and yet how dismal and uninspired 
 his paintings after all. You know what bril- 
 liant execution a pianist may have, and yet 
 how cold his recitals may leave you. This is 
 the achievement of intentional mind unas- 
 sisted by the subconscious spirit. And neces- 
 sary as it is, it is not alone sufficient. 
 
 To attain the best results in art we must 
 have both the personalities of the artist work- 
 ing at once. All the skill which training and 
 study can give must be at his command, to 
 serve as the alphabet or medium of his art, 
 and at the same time the submerged, unsleep- 
 ing self must be set free for active creation. 
 Scientific formulae are an admirable means of 
 communication between mind and mind, but 
 
 150
 
 Subconscious &rt 
 
 art is a means of communication for the whole 
 being, — mind, body and spirit. 
 
 This being so, it is necessary, in doing any 
 creative work, to cultivate the power of sub- 
 merging our useful, objective self far enough 
 to give free play to the greater subjective self, 
 the self beyond the threshold. This is exactly 
 what occurs in hypnosis, and I dare say the 
 beat and rhythm of poetry serves just such a 
 purpose. 
 
 " Dearest, three months ago, 
 When the mesmerizer Snow 
 With his hand's first sweep 
 Put the earth to sleep — " 
 
 In these lines of Browning's there resides, I 
 am certain, a power like that that he describes. 
 It resides in all poetry. It is the magic we feel 
 but cannot fathom, the charm we must follow, 
 discredit it as we may. 
 
 Apply this test to any good piece of poetry 
 of which you are fond. Take Tennyson's 
 " Crossing the Bar," for instance. That poem 
 appeals to our mind with a definite idea, a 
 
 l S l
 
 &ije l\im\yw of Mature 
 
 definite image, which you may easily trans- 
 pose into prose. The poem might be trans- 
 lated without loss of the thought. But what 
 of the magic charm of the lines: 
 
 " For though the flood may bear me beyond the bound- 
 ary of time, 
 
 I hope to see my Pilot's face when I shall have crossed 
 the bar." 
 
 I have not altered the thought, but I have 
 destroyed the stanza. The spell has vanished 
 with the metre. The reason that Tennyson's 
 verse is more pleasing than our mangled ver- 
 sion of it is this — simply that it speaks to us 
 more completely. It not only appeals to our 
 intelligence, but it appeals to our sense and 
 soul as well. The soul has memories of regions 
 and lives of which we have never heard. The 
 soul dwells with us as tacitly as a silent com- 
 panion who should share our habitation for 
 years, yet never reveal the secrets of his earlier 
 life. And good poetry and good art have 
 much to say to this work-a-day understanding 
 
 152
 
 Subconscious 3rt 
 
 of ours; yet they have more to say to the soul 
 within us, which comprehends everything. 
 The difficulty is in obtaining access to the 
 soul and securing egress for it. The creative 
 artist must subordinate cunning to intuition, 
 and he must embody his beautiful creations in 
 some form that will be able to elude the too 
 vigilant reason of his fellows and gain instant 
 access to their spirit. 
 
 If I were a poet I should not merely wish 
 to set down my conclusions about life and the 
 universe; I could accomplish that better by 
 being a trained philosopher. I should not 
 merely want to convey to you new and impor- 
 tant facts of nature; I could do that better 
 by being a scientist. I should not want to con- 
 vince your mind only, for I could do that bet- 
 ter by logic and rhetoric. But I should wish 
 to do all these things and to win your sympa- 
 thy as well. I should not only wish to make 
 you believe what I say, but to believe it pas- 
 sionately, — with your whole heart. In order 
 to do this I should have to secure free com- 
 
 iS3
 
 Efje liin$t)i& of Nature 
 
 munication of spirit, as well as of mind. I 
 should not only have to satisfy reason, I 
 should have to lull and charm it. I should 
 have to hypnotize that good warder of your 
 house before he would allow me to enter. Just 
 as I had to mesmerize myself with the cadence 
 of my lines before I could fully make them 
 express my whole nature, so you in your turn 
 as reader would have to feel their undefinable 
 magic before you could appreciate and enjoy 
 my poems to the utmost capacity of your na- 
 ture. I could only secure this result through 
 the senses, through the monotonous music of 
 my verse. 
 
 This may seem to you nothing more than the 
 wisdom of the snake-charmer. Well, that is 
 all it is. But that is enough. 
 
 «54
 
 ta&oarti an* Utiitoarti
 
 Seafioartr atrtr ilillipartr 
 
 If it ever happens to you to pass quickly 
 from the sea to the mountains, and if you care 
 to note the subtler psychical phenomena, I 
 am sure you must have experienced more than 
 the gross change of air; you must have been 
 conscious of a translation from the emotional 
 realm to the realm of pure thought, from the 
 region of feeling to the region of mentality. 
 
 That there are three and only three zones 
 of life, the physical, the mental, and the spir- 
 itual, is quite certain; and that the last two 
 of these correspond to the zones of ocean and 
 hill, I think very probable; but whether the 
 other, the physical zone, corresponds to the 
 zone of plain and level, I am not so sure. 
 
 '57
 
 STJjt Irtufityiji of Xaturt 
 
 Think, however, how evidently true it is 
 that the sea is the great nourisher of imagina- 
 tion, the stimulator of romance, and how all 
 her border people have been the originators 
 and creative artists of the world. There is 
 something in the sea's air which breeds emo- 
 tion; it is strong and vitalizing; those who 
 breathe it have bulk and stamina; while the 
 dwellers on mountains must content them- 
 selves with the thin dry stimulant which 
 blows between their pine slopes. Your hills- 
 man is proverbially lanky, more a creature of 
 moods than of passions; and in the elemental 
 sorrow which seems to invest him, you may 
 detect the overweight of thought, the lack of 
 emotion. For generations aloof from the 
 business of the world below him, he has main- 
 tained the solitary and egocentric life; he has 
 found little outlet for his selfhood either in 
 action or passion; the free intercourse with 
 his kind has been lacking; and that portion of 
 his nature which flourishes most easily alone, 
 the mental part of him, has held its own un- 
 
 158
 
 diminished and undiverted existence, com- 
 menting with the lofty solitude about it and 
 brooding through vast stretches of leisurely 
 silence on its own being. He is become the 
 shy, sensitive, individualized creature to 
 whom sociability is a panic, and achievement 
 a miracle. He undertakes almost nothing and 
 accomplishes still less. A hunter and trapper 
 all his days, he is willing to do with a bare 
 subsistence, if only he be not forced to mingle 
 with men, to merge his identity with that of 
 his fellow, to pass from his own wilding 
 sphere, into the hurly-burly of competition 
 and association. The advance of civilization 
 leaves him out; he watches with bright eyes 
 from his roadside solitude, while the pageant 
 of progress goes by with dust and blare. If 
 he ever found a voice, he would be the prince 
 of critics. That cold, dry nature would sit 
 unmoved to judge the tumultuous events about 
 him. He would see the outcome and signifi- 
 cance of that strenuous process of develop- 
 ment, which he is so ill-fitted to share. Others, 
 
 l 59
 
 Eije liinst)!*) of Mature 
 
 with their full, ruddy life, would originate a 
 thousand works of beauty and utility, while 
 he still dreamed; but at the last their hasty 
 activities and imperfect aims would come 
 under his judicial view for blame or com- 
 mendation, — the affairs of action and the af- 
 fairs of sentiment brought to the ultimate test 
 of implacable reason. 
 
 Not so with your dweller by the bountiful 
 sea. With the world's blue highway leading 
 past his door, with the traffic of the nations 
 of the earth going forward continually under 
 his blue eyes, this man is no solitary. His 
 power of detachment is small. He is a spec- 
 tator, indeed, of the tragedies of storm and the 
 endless drama of the tideways of the deep, 
 but he seldom can refrain from taking part 
 in that fascinating and enormous play. From 
 a child he is accustomed to ships, and his 
 nursery tales are stories of adventure. The 
 sunlit and limitless highroads call him eter- 
 nally to vaster chances and unexplored lands. 
 The strange new tokens of foreign people 
 
 1 60
 
 Seafcoartr antr ©illtoartr 
 
 come home in his father's chests; his daily 
 walk is among innumerable reminders of 
 civilizations and customs not his own. To 
 live the inward, secluded life solely is not 
 possible to this child of seafarers; his emo- 
 tions are enlisted strongly in the doings of his 
 kind at home and over sea; the life he knows 
 is not a mere tissue of mental phenomena, a 
 panorama running before his mind; it has 
 a grip on his vitals; his emotional experience 
 is full; and from that fulness of rich being 
 there spring the unnumbered creations of the 
 active spirit. It were impossible for so abun- 
 dant an enrichment of the character not to 
 find vent in the flowering of expression, not 
 to embody itself in art. 
 
 The Greeks, the Venetians, the French, the 
 English, — these masters of the sea have been 
 the masters of artistic creation as well. And 
 their wonderful contributions to the treasure- 
 house of the world are not to be matched by 
 any mountain folk whatever. So much one 
 
 161
 
 &%t £tinst)tj) of Xatttre 
 
 may deduce from history; and I am inclined 
 to believe that a careful consideration of per- 
 sonal experience would confirm an idea which 
 may seem a trifle fanciful at first. 
 
 16-2
 
 %ty Courtesy of jSature
 
 Cjje Cmtrtestj of Mature 
 
 PERHAPS one of the things that charm us 
 most, as we come back each year to the green 
 world out of the stress of our city life, is the 
 great courtesy of nature, if one may call it 
 so. For her laws, though inexorable, and even 
 ruthless at times, are none the less gentle. I 
 doubt if there is cruelty in nature. We must 
 wait until man appears and evil is born into 
 the world, before we find anything of malice 
 or greed in creation. 
 
 It is truly a state of war, in which all the 
 wild things live, whether they dress in leaf 
 or skin, fur, feather, bark, or scale. The un- 
 ceasing struggle for self-preservation and the 
 perpetuation of kind is veiled but real. And 
 
 i6 5
 
 great nature, which looks to the casual eye so 
 calm, so unstirring, so saturated with content 
 and repose and the essence of peace, is actually 
 in hourly ferment of strife. To our house- 
 bred sentiment, it seems a pathetic thing that 
 every wild creature should die a violent death. 
 But, after all, what better fate could befall 
 it than to render its life up for the preserva- 
 tion of other life more complex, more active, 
 more intelligent than its own? It is only man 
 who kills wantonly. The beasts that live by 
 killing kill only as hunger bids. 
 
 I think we feel the influence of such natural 
 benignity in our pleasures of the open air. 
 One may say, without being misanthropic, that 
 the greatest joy in nature is the absence of 
 man. For in our retreat to the woods we 
 escape what is basest in ourselves; our fellow 
 mortals are not thrust upon us so closely; we 
 have room and time to choose our compan- 
 ions; and we forget for awhile the cruelty of 
 fear and greed. 
 
 I know the theme is deeper than I can go. 
 
 166
 
 STlje <&ouvtt&8 of Nature 
 
 The great dilemma of humanity is not to be 
 solved offhand. And there remains, after all, 
 our hand-to-hand strife for a living, in which 
 the weak go to the wall. I do think, however, 
 that we might learn a lesson from that great 
 nature which seems so impersonal, and some- 
 times so reckless of life. We might learn the 
 courtesy of tolerance. 
 
 Here is our city life, our modern modus 
 vivendi, mitigate it as we please, a veiled yet 
 ruthless encounter man to man, — a strife to 
 the death. You may cushion your pews and 
 deaden your walls, and replenish your table 
 from the ends of the earth; you may lull 
 yourself with sermons and salve your con- 
 science by founding charlatan colleges and 
 establishing impertinent charities; but the 
 fact remains that men and women are being 
 worked to death in order that you and I may 
 have our luxuries. 
 
 "Well, what then? This is no more than 
 happens in a state of nature," you say. Yes, 
 it is more. For in nature one is content with 
 
 167
 
 £!)* Ziiusijij) of Nature 
 
 enough; in civilization one is never content. 
 One of the chief characteristics that we seem 
 to have brought with us from an earlier stage 
 of existence is the baleful heritage of fear. 
 Indeed we seem to have cherished and de- 
 veloped it past all need. It is fear that is 
 at the root of all cruelty and greed, the two 
 evils that most disgrace the life of man. 
 Under primitive conditions, the dangers to life 
 are greater, and the chances of security less; 
 so that it behooves the savage to go warily. 
 Fear is his vigilant warden. But as he makes 
 progress toward the amenities of a more civi- 
 lized existence, surely, one might suppose, 
 fear would be the first trait he would lose. 
 For the first great boon of his advancement 
 must be immunity from danger. The first 
 good that comes to him from combining in a 
 recognized structure of society, however 
 crude, must be security of life. He can have 
 less and less need of fear as a delicate instant 
 monitor for self-preservation. Unfortunately, 
 this is not so. Instead of laying aside fear, 
 
 168
 
 2Tfje &ottrttsg of Mature 
 
 we have developed new desires, absurd and 
 unthought-of requirements, that can only be 
 satisfied, as they increase, by ever-increasing 
 acquisitions of property and stores of wealth 
 wrung from the earth. Nor is this enough; 
 we are still not satisfied with what we can 
 earn by labour; we must plunder from our 
 weaker fellows, outwitting them in relentless 
 guile; until in the midst of plenty the struggle 
 for a bare existence is as fierce as it ever was 
 among the tribes of our predecessors. 
 
 Very likely this vigorous process of social 
 and individual evolution is productive of 
 some good qualities; we are not likely to be- 
 come lazy under it; none the less it seems to 
 common sense terribly wasteful, as wasteful 
 as the processes of nature. And if we are 
 not to devise means to better nature, if we are 
 not to use our intelligence for purposes more 
 benign than those of the pre-human and sub- 
 human creation, I can form no notion of the 
 proper use of mind at all. You may tell me 
 that the inexorable law of nature has pro- 
 
 169
 
 art)* ixin&Wp of Xaturt 
 
 vided for progress by the simple means of 
 preserving the fittest to survive, and that in 
 human society we merely follow the same 
 methods. But I say that the laws of nature 
 can offer the soul no criterion for conduct. I 
 only exist to temper the occurrences of nature, 
 to deflect them to my own needs, and to alter 
 my own human nature continually for the 
 better. I do not know what the soul is, but 
 I know that it exists; and I know that its 
 admonitions form a more beautiful sanction 
 for conduct than the primitive code of evolu- 
 tion taken alone. But I do not believe that in 
 our finer moments we shall find any fault 
 with nature, though we shall find a taint in 
 ourselves. I believe that we must in a large 
 measure reverse the law of selection when 
 we reach human society, but that at the same 
 time we must remain nearer to nature in many 
 ways than we are accustomed to do. 
 
 I do not see any greed in nature. I do not 
 find any creature fighting for more than it 
 actually needs at the moment. I do not see 
 
 170
 
 ULty (ftottrtesg of ^fatutt 
 
 any cruelty in nature, any wanton destruction, 
 except among those primitive voters, our ar- 
 boreal ancestors, the apes. But that is the 
 taint of human ingenuity beginning to ap- 
 pear. I find in the world of green unflinching 
 responsibility, abiding perdurable patience, 
 and a courtesy that is too large, too sure, for 
 the cruelty and greed of man. 
 
 i?i
 
 Ct)e Hujrurp of Being $oor
 
 Ei)e Cuxunj of 28ctnu$oor 
 
 At first thought you would say that the 
 luxury of being poor, like the luxury of going 
 barefoot, is only a luxury when it is not a 
 necessity. But that statement is too epigram- 
 matic for the sober truth. And truth is a god- 
 dess whose beauty best appears in diaphanous 
 simplicity, without the oriental broideries of 
 the too curious and too civilized mind. It is 
 nearer the truth to say that as there is always 
 an actual luxury in going barefoot, so there 
 always is an actual luxury in being poor. If 
 we do not always relish being poor, it is be- 
 cause we do not appreciate our blessings. 
 
 I am sorry for any one who cannot afford 
 to be poor. Certainly to enjoy the luxury to 
 the fullest extent one must be a gentleman or 
 
 175
 
 <TtK Itiugfji? of Xaturr 
 
 a genius. But even without either of these 
 advantages there is cause for thanksgiving in 
 a modest amount of poverty. If you are poor, 
 think of the endless burden of impediments of 
 all sorts you escape from day to day, — houses, 
 servants, tailors, teas, — a thousand cares and 
 annoyances which press upon the rich and 
 crush them back into the fat clay from which 
 they came. There are rich people who are 
 good, and there are rich people who are 
 happy, but they are so at how great a cost! 
 It is the old story of the savage over again. 
 "Why don't you work?" "What for?" 
 " So that you may be rich." " Why should I 
 wish to be rich?" "So that you need do 
 nothing." " But I do nothing now." 
 
 If you are rich you cannot be free. You 
 have obligations you cannot shirk. But the 
 greatest freedom of the poor is the freedom 
 of spirit. If I am poor, I am not obliged to 
 be always on parade, always living at a ten- 
 sion, always presenting an appearance. My 
 outward circumstance is so insignificant that 
 
 i 7 6
 
 &t}t attptttrg of Otitis $oor 
 
 I can forget it altogether and occupy my mind 
 with the higher life. That is why it is good 
 for a philosopher to be poor, — he has noth- 
 ing to divert him from his noblest self. He 
 may have the luxury of a free and untram- 
 melled life. Voluntary poverty, such as that 
 of the ecclesiastical orders, is a great positive 
 virtue and a means of happiness. The mere 
 act of renunciation in itself is no virtue. If 
 you forego the pleasure of a new gown, and 
 still keep hankering after it, that is no virtue, 
 and does you little good. But if you abstain 
 from buying it, saying to yourself, " Thank 
 Heaven, I am free from one more encum- 
 brance," you are already on the road to the 
 Celestial City. 
 
 In order to have the goods of this world 
 you must be strenuous, unsleeping, given to 
 hard work. You must will and energize day 
 in and day out. You must impose your way 
 on others, and bend them to your purpose. 
 You must strive and never rest. (Unless, of 
 course, you are dishonest, and make your 
 
 177
 
 £tje Izinnljip of Xaturt 
 
 money instead of earning it.) And for most 
 people who are cast into the world with re- 
 sponsibility already upon them, such a life 
 of endeavour is necessary. Others may be 
 depending upon them, — the aged, the help- 
 less, the unfortunate. They cannot shun the 
 demands of humanity. They dare not indulge 
 their own love of freedom. They cannot 
 afford to be poor. 
 
 But if no one worked, we should have few 
 of the decencies of life, our climate being 
 what it is. Yes, I know that. I am not cham- 
 pioning any fundamental philosophy. I am 
 only insisting that we do not appreciate the 
 luxury of freedom there is in poverty. 
 
 Cease to worry. Do not try to reason your- 
 self into submission. Just dismiss your will 
 entirely. Let it go out and play. Forget it. 
 Then you may truly begin to live the greater 
 life. Your own inner truer personality will 
 have time and space to grow. You will 
 breathe more freely and feel yourself a part 
 of larger life. If poverty only makes us 
 
 178
 
 Eije ZLuvuvg of tfeftia jpoov 
 
 strive the harder (not work, but strive) then 
 it is a curse and not a blessing. But that 
 depends on our own mind. To be able to 
 enjoy this beautiful earth and our strange, 
 rich, wonderful life, it is necessary to be free, 
 to keep a spirit untrammelled by outward 
 things and untarnished by error. To be 
 soured by poverty or to be hardened by it is 
 a mistake, an error of thought. Instead of 
 enjoying our life, we are cramping ourselves. 
 It is just as if we were set at a feast and sulkily 
 refused to enjoy a few dishes because we could 
 not reach everything on the table and make 
 ourselves sick, like foolish children that we 
 are. 
 
 Children do not mind poverty. It is not 
 until they grow and cultivate their wilful 
 individuality, that unhappiness and discontent 
 overtake them. It is in their disregard of cir- 
 cumstance that we still may imitate them. 
 They enjoy being barefoot and having noth- 
 ing, until some mistaken grown-up makes 
 them ashamed of it. 
 
 J 79
 
 arije litusijU) of Mature 
 
 O artist, know that unless you can afford to 
 be poor, you can never reach the full height 
 of your power. You can never abandon strife, 
 and insistence, and your own small worldly 
 will. You can never be merged into the 
 greater sweep of being whence inspiration 
 flows. 
 
 Do you tell me that competition and strug- 
 gle are necessary to make you produce your 
 best? If that is the mainspring of your art, 
 is your art all it might be? Are you not 
 merely an artisan? If you were an artist, you 
 would sit down in supreme contentment and 
 rags, painting for the joy of it alone. If you 
 could afford never to sell a picture your work 
 would be ten times as good as it is, and it 
 would grow better every year. The brooding 
 soul ripens; the anxious mind withers and 
 blights. It is not good for you to live richly 
 in cities, because it is hard to deny yourself. 
 You must first be poor and lonely and de- 
 jected; then you must think of the luxury of 
 your freedom; so you will enter into posses- 
 
 180
 
 Etje HUtntrs of i3rtu0 JJoor 
 
 sion of yourself; and you will be glad and 
 free and creative and strong. There is no 
 other gladness; there is no other freedom; 
 there is no other greatness. 
 
 181
 
 ** 
 
 >oittar£ ti)t Cfjrusi)"
 
 "SoUtart) tye Gfytwfy" 
 
 From where I happen to be sitting this 
 afternoon there is nothing in the world but 
 trees and birds. One measure of a man is his 
 capacity for enduring solitude. I should be 
 sorry to predict anything of a character from 
 this knowledge alone; though there are fa- 
 miliar quotations on the subject. Certainly 
 a little solitude now and again is good for most 
 of us. It lets our busy, every-day, toiling, 
 anxious self have a respite; and it gives our 
 deeper, more serene self a chance to be heard. 
 In solitary moments the stress of life is light- 
 ened or removed altogether, and we possess 
 our souls (after a little practice) in enduring 
 calm. Indeed, I fancy the expert in solitude 
 brings home from his radiant contemplation 
 
 185
 
 £fje ftinsljfji of Nature 
 
 a fund of joyful patience to serve him in 
 stormy hours. The wildest confusion of cir- 
 cumstance, the direst calamity, are powerless 
 to undo him quite. Even under sorrow and 
 irreparable grief he retains something of the 
 great primal tolerance and unshaken solidity 
 of nature. 
 
 For it is when we are most alone and with- 
 drawn into our profounder selves that we are 
 most completely in accord with the spirit of 
 the universe, by whatever name it may be 
 called. So that he who takes time to be alone 
 occasionally is in reality preparing himself 
 for meeting his fellows with greater sympathy 
 and understanding. When we allow ourselves 
 to be engrossed unceasingly in the smaller 
 outward, trivial details of existence, and in 
 superficial human intercourse, we lose our 
 power of approaching our friends through 
 the profounder channels of sympathy and 
 appreciation. We become so thoroughly ha- 
 bituated to living on the surface that we seem 
 to have no core of being left in us. This is 
 
 186
 
 " Solitary tfjt Entrust)" 
 
 the real cause of the vapidity of society. 
 Human intercourse, very likely, is the crown- 
 ing end and aim of nature. But that implies 
 human nature at its best, and we cannot too 
 constantly be giving ourselves away without 
 replenishing our individuality from that 
 deeper intercourse which solitude affords. 
 
 But the great beautiful wildernesses of the 
 earth are not the only regions where solitude 
 may be sought. The world of art and the 
 world of religion will serve equally well for 
 our retirement. 
 
 For the past hour a brown thrush has been 
 fluting in the thicket here, inducing the most 
 thoughtless to meditation. Why is it that his 
 song seems so entrancing to us? Is it not be- 
 cause on hearing it we are arrested midway in 
 our occupation, and invited to partake of the 
 silence while we expectantly await the next 
 burst of the golden notes? It is the same 
 hypnotic power that charms us in music; it 
 stills our superficial, unnecessary self and al- 
 lows our wiser, deeper self a moment or an 
 
 187
 
 Styr Ixinniyip of Xatttr* 
 
 hour of freedom. Music is the most primitive 
 and widely beloved of the arts; and it is one 
 of the most powerful for this reason. 
 
 " I can always leave off talking, when I 
 hear a master play." 
 
 Again, when a great drama is on the boards, 
 there is all the direct appeal of its beautiful 
 story and setting, the enlisting of our atten- 
 tion, the ennobling and intensifying of our 
 sentiment; but at the same time there is the 
 no less potent, though unnoted, spell of si- 
 lence it is casting over us. We grow still to 
 listen, and as we are absorbed in the spectacle, 
 spirit finds its opportunity for unstifled 
 growth. This may even be the great function 
 of sleep; we do not know. Certainly we can 
 rest perfectly well without sleep. Perhaps 
 sleep comes from the soul's imperative de- 
 mand for solitude, its need for intercourse 
 with some spiritual profundity from which it 
 springs. 
 
 In all our more obvious existence, our physi- 
 cal and mental existence, too much solitude 
 
 t88
 
 44 
 
 Solitary tfje Eijrttsf)" 
 
 is a dangerous menace. It is only in com- 
 munity of life that sanity and health are 
 maintained. For, superior and noble as the 
 spiritual part of man is, it is too simple, too 
 unworldly, to be entrusted with the control of 
 affairs here and now, perhaps. So that while 
 solitude is supremely important, it is not ex- 
 clusively so. But that is a caution few of us 
 need. For the most part, we are too absorbed 
 with the loaves and fishes to be at all curious 
 about the miracle. 
 
 Let me, then, learn to cultivate a taste for 
 solitude. And for this, one need not be 
 morose nor anti-social; for as solitude is not 
 a physical need, so it may be had even in com- 
 pany. But repose of mind, if it is not quite 
 solitary, is at least a tendency toward solitude. 
 It is only in reticence that speech gathers 
 force; it is only from rest that activity can 
 arise. So it is only by being sometimes alone 
 that we can ever be fit for friendship, com- 
 panionship, or love. 
 
 So the thrush may chant for you from his 
 
 189
 
 Sfljt &inui)ip of Nature 
 
 green sanctuary for half a day and send you 
 back strangely elated and encouraged for new 
 endeavour. These vague suggestions which I 
 have set down as he sang may be quite value- 
 less, and you, when you hear him, may have 
 entirely different thoughts. It does not mat- 
 ter at all. We shall both have profited as we 
 could by the engrossing music of the forest. 
 And these crude ephemeral words will no 
 more be lost than are his liquid notes in the 
 deep ravine. They have served to embody 
 for me my own hour of tranquillity. You, 
 when you come to the woods, will find your 
 own suitable words more appropriate and 
 fresh than these. For, though this afternoon 
 and its sylvan melody have perished in the 
 shadows of the mountains, you, when you 
 arrive, shall find others as fair and significant 
 awaiting you. 
 
 190
 
 Crees
 
 Crete 
 
 FLOWERS are so small, so easily cultivated, 
 so personal, so brilliant, that they have gained 
 almost more than their share of human atten- 
 tion. While their elder sisters, the trees, keep 
 their unobtrusive estate, and minister untir- 
 ingly to our comfort with little praise or rec- 
 ognition. Yet, how necessary they are! I do 
 not mean how useful, I mean spiritually need- 
 ful. 
 
 Apart from their humble office as givers of 
 shade and preservers of streams, they minister 
 more than we guess to our hourly pleasure. 
 Yet we are so thoughtless of them that we 
 take their benefits without a word of gratitude 
 for the most part. If you have seen a wooded 
 hillside in winter you will remember how 
 
 *93
 
 2T1JC 2uus!jij) of Nature 
 
 lonely and bleak it looked. Only the bare 
 skeletons of the trees spread over the moun- 
 tain, and all the great primitive strength and 
 ruggedness and sorry age of the earth ex- 
 posed to sight, — the ribs of the world. These 
 are the same hills, perhaps, that you knew in 
 summer, so green and so luxuriant, bare now 
 and stern, showing all their scars, bitter evi- 
 dences of their strenuous, enduring history. 
 The calm, unimpassioned whiteness of the 
 snow has folded them in its chilly oblivion. It 
 is impossible to believe that spring can repeat 
 her ancient miracle; surely, here is the veriest 
 desolation, the mere geology of life, inorganic 
 dust, the inert mass of the firmament given 
 over to the stealthy depredation of elemental 
 time; no hope nor assurance anywhere. 
 
 And yet, in contradiction of all the proba- 
 bilities of sense, that desolation will grow 
 vivid and lovely as the sun comes north. All 
 those gaunt spectres that now seem so ghostly 
 will put on their gala attire, the April orange 
 and May-time green. That soft, purplish mist 
 
 194
 
 of the far spring woods means in reality the 
 reds and yellows of the maple blossoms, and 
 the paler yellows and silver of the willow cat- 
 kins. It is the first flush of reviving life that 
 comes before the green of leaf. And carefully 
 as you may watch, the green banners will seem 
 to be flung abroad suddenly at last. If you 
 single out one tree for your care, and observe 
 it every day, you may think to trace the 
 gradual assumption of its full robes for June. 
 You will be disappointed. There will come a 
 day of rain or a night of warmth, and when 
 you next see your friend you will stand aston- 
 ished at the change. You have been surprised 
 again by nature. The ancient sorceress had 
 no mind to be spied upon; and must guard 
 well the secret of her power over your won- 
 dering admiration. There you are, outwitted, 
 after all; for the tree unfolded every leaf 
 while you slept. So the grass springs, and 
 the dandelions are born, — by magic, in a 
 twinkling, myriads at once, — so that yester- 
 day they were unheard of, and to-day they 
 
 195
 
 2TJje mmfyip of TSTatttre 
 
 possess the earth in their gay panoply and 
 simple golden pomp. 
 
 The trees are the great mitigators and tem- 
 perers of the elements to man. They shelter 
 us from the fury of the rain and snow, yet 
 conserve it for our gradual use. They shade 
 us from the glare of the open sun, yet in time 
 furnish us with heat and light. A treeless 
 country is not the best of countries. Its useful- 
 ness is limited and specialized. A normal 
 earth for man has both forest and prairie. But 
 these are only the gross material blessings of 
 the trees. There remains all their beauty. 
 
 How few of us ever heed those goodly, pa- 
 tient friends of man. We go forth and rifle 
 the wilderness of its laurel or its arbutus, but 
 not one in ten among us knows a beech from 
 a maple, nor a pine from a spruce. It is a 
 part of our dense indifference to everything 
 save personal luxury. But a nation which 
 does not know one tree from another is in 
 peril of vanishing from the earth. Puny 
 
 196
 
 Erees 
 
 dwellers in cities, let us get down to earth 
 more often than we do. 
 
 I suppose one's love of trees changes like 
 one's love of everything else. At one time of 
 life we adore the oak; at another the elm 
 commands our allegiance. It is a matter of 
 circumstance and environment, since each tree 
 differs from its fellow and each is lovely after 
 its kind. To name the elm is to have a vision 
 of great meadows, and summer barns, and 
 fields of hay, and sweeps of blue river. The 
 elm is a lover of such scenes, and if we have 
 lived through them in youth, its swaying, 
 feathery top will always recall the memories 
 of that perished time, — remembrances of a 
 native country, of intervale lands, with some 
 great river winding slowly down between the 
 hills, blue under the summer sky. There are 
 its broad, deep-soiled islands, shoulder high 
 with hay, where the few gray, wide-chinked 
 barns stand awaiting their harvest. Along the 
 edges of the islands are a few chokecherries 
 and water maples, but no great trees save the 
 
 197
 
 2T5e &tusf)tp of Katttre 
 
 stately elms here and there, solitary under the 
 blue. 
 
 Or, again, it may be the marvellous maple 
 of the north that would enlist all your friend- 
 ship. Its brave scarlet and golden coat makes 
 the autumn world a mediaeval crusade for bril- 
 liancy and courage. It is surely impossible 
 to be craven or hopeless in the face of such 
 gorgeous beauty! October in the moun- 
 tains, when the maples are in all their splen- 
 dour, is no time for the trifling or the mean. 
 To see those beautiful trees arrayed for the 
 closing days of the year is to partake of the 
 nobleness of nature. While we know it not, 
 something of that wondrous Oriental richness 
 of colour enters into our subtler make-up, and 
 we arise on the morrow with unguessed ac- 
 quisitions of soul. 
 
 Again, there are the pines. And how differ- 
 ent the pine regions of the south from those 
 of the north. There is one thing, however, 
 that marks a pine-tree, one quality in which 
 none of the other children of the forest can 
 
 198
 
 Qttttn 
 
 rival it — its delicacy of line against the sky. 
 No other tree throws on the pale blue curtain 
 so graceful a tracery of tiny pencillings. Look 
 at the branch of a pine-tree in the twilight 
 seen clear against the open heaven. And so, 
 indeed, you may run through your list of 
 acquaintance among the trees. Note the shaft 
 of the spruce, the trembling leaf of the aspen 
 set on differently from all other leaves, and 
 the sound of the palms like the patter of rain, 
 and the colour of the beech boles. A master 
 could write a volume on any one of these 
 traits. On some mountainside, where the 
 wildest thrushes prefer to dwell, and where 
 beech-trees come to their perfection, note, the 
 next time you pass, the beautiful gray and blue 
 and purple of those smooth-barked boles. 
 The trunk of a full-grown beech is subject 
 enough for any painter. Like Monet's hay- 
 stack, it might be painted in a hundred lights, 
 and still stand there unexhausted in sugges- 
 tion and beauty. 
 
 When Arnold was in America our tulip- 
 
 199
 
 arfte lUustjfj) of Nature 
 
 trees took his fancy, and he wished to be re- 
 membered when they come in flower. So 
 every season has its distinctive tree; the dark- 
 painted fir full of snow in midwinter, and 
 the greenish-white flowered chestnuts show- 
 ing pale in the forests of July. But at all 
 times of the round year the trees of the wild 
 forest are there, only waiting to be known and 
 loved. 
 
 .00
 
 Ci)e Ritual of JEature
 
 €f)e Kitual of Mature 
 
 ALWAYS and everywhere the law of strict 
 congruity obtaining in nature, is not less won- 
 derful than the law of universal variation. 
 Before my window a cherry-tree is waving in 
 the sunlight; it bears some thousands of 
 leaves, no two of which are precisely alike; 
 yet it is itself only one of hundreds of other 
 cherry-trees within eyeshot, while they again 
 are a mere handful of all the cherry-trees in 
 the State. And still of these myriads of leaves, 
 you could not place one down upon another 
 and find them to match precisely. There 
 would be some slight difference of outline, a 
 dent here, a point there, — the individual 
 idiosyncrasy of the leaf. Yet all these cherry 
 
 203
 
 W§t fitusijij) of Mature 
 
 leaves conform to the type and character 
 which they have gradually developed for 
 themselves. They are great sticklers for tradi- 
 tion, these leaves; they allow complete per- 
 sonal liberty, within certain limits. If you 
 are a cherry leaf you may be as odd and queer 
 as you please, so long as you remain a cherry 
 leaf. It is ordered, however, that you must so 
 far conform to the character of your race as 
 to be distinguishable from the elms and the 
 alders. Latitude is allowed, but degrees of 
 latitude are found necessary. 
 
 It would seem, then, that Nature is strictly 
 a formalist in dealing with her tribes, that 
 she permits them just so much liberty of ac- 
 tion and freedom of thought as shall conserve 
 the interest of the individual, and not enough 
 to imperil the integrity of the sect. " Dwell 
 in harmony," she seems to say, " all you mul- 
 titudes of differing schools. Be yourselves, 
 each as distinct as you please; every indi- 
 vidual by himself distinguished from his 
 brother, yet not alien. Let there be no in- 
 
 204
 
 £ije lUtual of Nature 
 
 fringing on the borders of your fellow tribes." 
 So that with all her tolerance the Great 
 Mother still limits personal whim, still for- 
 bids fancy to overstep the bounds of reason- 
 able divergence, still humours ambition but 
 discourages arrogance, and still mitigates the 
 pride of life in her children by imposing a 
 frontier beyond which they shall not pass. 
 Surely from her immemorial custom the open- 
 minded observer will learn the double precept 
 of perfect liberty in perfect obedience, and her 
 service, too, is perfect freedom. The lesser 
 gospel of the leaves, like the greater gospel 
 of the sages, is the utmost range of will within 
 the utmost bounds of law. Each after his kind 
 shall thrive and prosper as it was in the 
 beginning, and none shall transcend his appor- 
 tioned sphere. So that in the stupendous 
 hierarchy whose visible temple is the dome 
 of blue, whose worshippers are the congre- 
 gations of the all-growing creatures, there is 
 promulgated the dogma of limitations. 
 In proof of this, behold the rituals of the 
 
 205
 
 Zfyt Itiugfjip of Nature 
 
 forest! The aspiration of the maples taking 
 shape, after the traditions of their ancestors 
 for a thousand generations, in one form, 
 the aspiration of the pines in another. To 
 the tanager one peculiar intonation, and to the 
 song-sparrow another. The litany of the 
 white-throat and the psalm of the thrush. 
 Whatever may be in the dark mind of the 
 owl, he is given but few words to express it; 
 the plaintive iterations of the whippoorwill 
 must serve him in lieu of a more voluminous 
 chant; and who shall say that brilliant utter- 
 ance of the bobolink is sufficient for him? Yet 
 it is all he has. And none shall transcend his 
 allotted ritual, nor praise the Power in forms 
 unprescribed. 
 
 To be a bystander, therefore, an individual- 
 ist, a radical, a nonconformist, is the one atro- 
 cious crime in nature. All this seeming 
 rigour of differentiation is only the first 
 glimpse of a world which is one, whole, single, 
 indivisible. At first sight it appears that our 
 brother the cherry is alien in race to our 
 
 106
 
 Etje ftftttal of Nature 
 
 cousin the peach ; so they may be by our faulty 
 terms of distinction. But the scientists affirm 
 that all classification is but more or less con- 
 venient; that it is never absolute, nor accu- 
 rate beyond a certain point; that character- 
 istics melt and merge into one another, so that 
 often it is impossible to tell this species from 
 that; and various forms of life are blended 
 like the colours of the spectrum. 
 
 How came the woodthrush to outstrip the 
 robin in song? And why is the fox still the 
 wolf's better in intelligence? By attempting, 
 by aspiration, by daring the unknown and 
 achieving the untried. 
 
 While, therefore, there are two observances 
 in the ritual of Nature, the duty of obedience, 
 and the duty of adventure, the latter is the 
 greater of the two. The seed which is placed 
 in dry bin is secure, and will last a hundred 
 years intact; its fellow which is thrust into 
 the moist earth takes a thousand chances of 
 death for the one chance of glorious energy, 
 growth, and perfection. Following the law 
 
 207
 
 £Jjr XiiusijiiJ of Natttr* 
 
 of obedience it would live to see its offspring 
 spread through the forest, cover the earth with 
 shade, and fulfil the offices of the ritual ap- 
 pointed for its kind. 
 
 Yet every leaf, every bud that sprang from 
 that courageous fecundity would only con- 
 form to the pattern of his tribe so much and 
 no more. There would remain to each his 
 
 own character, his individuality, his own 
 mode of worship, if one may say so. And it is 
 just this increment of variation, for ever at 
 play in the forces of the universe, that makes 
 for progress, interest, truth. So that while we 
 admire the sober catholicity of Nature, and 
 keep in mind her singleness of brotherhood, 
 we are to reverence her boundless liberality 
 still more. 
 
 I have no doubt our friend the cherry-tree 
 is well content to be himself, " imperial, plain, 
 and true;' also, I have no doubt that deep 
 in his sappy heart there lurks the patient 
 power which in time will make him enlarge 
 
 208
 
 £J)e Mitttai of Nature 
 
 his ritual, ennobling his worship, and spread- 
 ing wider the gospel according to St. Cherry. 
 For the abiding unrebellious spirit is good, 
 but the divine unrest is good, too. 
 
 209
 
 Concerning ^rtfte
 
 Courcmittu ilrite 
 
 PRIDE has long been enrolled among the 
 vices which we should abhor, — has been exe- 
 crated by the church, and condemned by popu- 
 lar consent as a spiritual attribute to be eradi- 
 cated; and there is a sort of pride, or a de- 
 gree of pride, which is altogether personal, 
 petty, and unworthy, and which is only saved 
 from being most offensive by being ridicu- 
 lous. 
 
 Pride, however, is essentially and funda- 
 mentally one of the virtues, not one of the 
 vices. Pride, if you analyze it, seems to be 
 one of the component parts of love. For in 
 love there is an unreasoned, incomprehensible 
 attraction for another, which draws us often 
 in spite of our better judgment, in spite of 
 
 213
 
 3Tfir lihtsJjtj) of Nature 
 
 our finer instinct, and which we call the physi- 
 cal element of love. It is not at all an ignoble 
 quality, as many have mistakenly fancied. It 
 is not a quality of which to be ashamed, or of 
 which we should try to rid ourselves. It is 
 probably governed by reasons more complex 
 and subtle than we comprehend. And power- 
 ful as it is, its mandates must be given their 
 due weight. 
 
 Physical attraction, or the primitive blind 
 forceful bidding of cosmic nature, is only a 
 third of love, however. There are two other 
 constituents, equally important. The second 
 constituent is spiritual, and partakes of the 
 nature of worship or reverence, and leads to 
 those beautiful enduring acts of devotion 
 which we so commonly associate with the idea 
 of love. But the third constituent of the pas- 
 sion of love is pride. Love manifests itself 
 in our bodies as instinctive craving, in our 
 souls as devotion, and in our minds as pride. 
 
 No love is complete without pride. It is 
 not enough that I feel an irresistible liking for 
 
 214
 
 Concerning JJritre 
 
 my friend, and that I rejoice in an unswerving 
 devotion toward him. I must be able to retain 
 my pride in him as well. My judgment must 
 be able to consider him in all his dealings and 
 find him good. When I can no longer take 
 pride in my friend, there is only the ghost 
 of love left. When he does that of which I 
 must disapprove, perfect friendship is imper- 
 illed. I may continue to be devoted as be- 
 fore, but the fair relation of our lives is 
 impaired. I can no longer give him that 
 unqualified enthusiasm, that delightful zest 
 of the spirit, which betokens a great friend- 
 ship. When I think of him my thought is 
 infected with sadness. I no longer love him 
 with my whole being; my pride in him, for 
 the time being at least, has suffered injury. 
 
 Just so in the relations of men and women, 
 pride is the savour of love. Adam is enam- 
 oured of Eve, first by propinquity, second by 
 admiration, lastly by unselfish devotion. But 
 the admiration, the pride in Eve's traits and 
 accomplishments, is at first probably much 
 
 215
 
 W§t Ittnstjip of Mature 
 
 more than one-third of Adam's feeling toward 
 her. And all through their courtship Eve 
 has enough intuitive wisdom to foster this 
 pride of Adam's toward herself; and Adam, 
 taught by the same wise nature, knows without 
 thinking that he must be his best before Eve. 
 Then follows the ceremony, the sad enthrall- 
 ment, which appears to be necessary still, and 
 which is so often fatal to love. But why fatal? 
 Why should marriage be so indubitably a 
 means of the destruction of love? Why is it 
 so rarely the ideal relation which we persist 
 in pretending it is? 
 
 Is it not because of disillusion? And does 
 not the disillusion follow from carelessness? 
 
 No sooner has Eve become Mrs. Adam 
 than she takes Adam's love for granted. She 
 begins to rely on her marriage certificate. 
 That terrific document is endowed with so 
 much real and manifest power over the will 
 and the action of her companion that she in- 
 evitably comes to consider Adam's heart as 
 firmly bound as Adam's person. Little by 
 
 216
 
 Concerning i>rffie 
 
 little she neglects those instinctive admoni- 
 tions of her nature, which would bid her al- 
 ways appeal to Adam's pride in her. She no 
 longer feels it necessary to please him, to 
 appear to best advantage in his sight. He is 
 only her husband; it doesn't matter. She 
 " braces up " " for company," but when " only 
 Adam ' is at home she may go as slipshod 
 and negligent as she pleases. 
 
 And Adam? Well, Adam doesn't shave 
 every day now. There will be no one at break- 
 fast but Eve. When the dinner is not good he 
 can grumble a little, if there is no one present 
 but his wife. He, too, has forgotten that pride 
 is one-third of love. 
 
 So Adam and Eve reveal to each other their 
 petty faults, their insignificant flaws of char- 
 acter, which so little care would hide; the 
 admiration of each for the other is gradually 
 destroyed; pride is allowed to die, and with 
 the death of pride love receives a mortal 
 wound. Oh, Eve, how can you be so foolish? 
 How can you imagine that any silly writing 
 
 217
 
 £J)C ftt itsijtj) of Nature 
 
 upon paper will bind an immortal being to 
 you, when you allow that being's pride in you 
 to be outraged every day? And oh, Adam, 
 what a fool you must be to allow Eve to suf- 
 fer one moment's disillusion in regard to you! 
 If you cannot retain the love of Eve, it is your 
 fault, very often, and not hers; and you de- 
 serve to lose her. And if she cannot command 
 your continual regard, ten to one it is her 
 own fault and not yours. 
 
 Of all the causes which make for the over- 
 throw of love and the destruction of happi- 
 ness between men and women, (so sad and, 
 alas, so common!), surely none is surer nor 
 more frequent than this loss of pride. Yet 
 some men are so fatuous that they will not 
 allow others to retain any illusion in regard 
 to themselves. They insist on revealing all 
 their weaknesses, with a fond notion that an 
 engaging frankness is better than deception. 
 Not so. No man has the power of reaching 
 his own ideal, unless he inculcates that ideal 
 of himself in the minds of others. 
 
 218
 
 Concerning Otitic 
 
 But noble, generous, wise, and modest pride 
 is not a virtue much in vogue in our day. Are 
 we not apt to think that democracy consists in 
 making ourselves no better than our neigh- 
 bours? Whereas true democracy implies only 
 the free and fair chance to each man to be his 
 best. The capacity for being one's best re- 
 mains unchanged ; and the duty of being one's 
 best stands as obligatory as ever. I believe in 
 freedom for all (the wise man might say), 
 because I believe in it for myself, in order that 
 I may realize my better and greater self. And 
 to do this one must have pride, — pride that 
 keeps one erect and unflinching to the last, — 
 pride that insists on scrupulous manners, 
 admirable breeding, deep culture, and impec- 
 cable self-control, — pride that preserves for 
 ever the beautiful and radiant illusions of the 
 soul. For without pride in ourselves, in our 
 work, and in each other, life becomes sordid 
 and vulgar and slovenly; the work of our 
 hands unlovely; and we ourselves hopeless 
 and debased. 
 
 219
 
 <Bf 33reetit!tg
 
 <&f Swetrmg 
 
 If pride is the essence of respect for one's 
 self, breeding is, we may almost say, the habit 
 of respect for others. It is pride made gener- 
 ous, pride thoroughly purged of selfishness. 
 The constant habit of regard for our neigh- 
 bour and our friend is surely one of the prime 
 requisites of a comfortable life among mortals. 
 The exaltation of the ego is an essence of prog- 
 ress and the aim of perfection; but the recog- 
 nition of many an alter ego about us is equally 
 imperative. The failure to perceive their ex- 
 istence, appreciate their differences, and make 
 allowance for their varying needs, must result 
 in disaster to ourselves. 
 
 First of all things I know my own likes and 
 dislikes, desires, wants, failings, aspirations, 
 
 223
 
 STfje luustju) of ISTatttte 
 
 pleasures, joys, sorrows, and fears; and I 
 instinctively proceed to live my life about these 
 fundamental facts. If I have a measure of 
 wisdom I try so to balance these natural forces 
 as to produce in my character some faint 
 similitude of that ideal of personality which 
 his imagination reveals to every man, — striv- 
 ing in the course of years to approach ever 
 nearer and nearer the true self which I feel 
 I am capable of becoming. Always to keep 
 this beautiful image in sight, always to be hop- 
 ing for its realization in ourselves, never to 
 despair of one day accomplishing even in this 
 life our longed-for wish, — this is the gist of 
 culture. And it is pride, — honest, wise, un- 
 selfish, tolerant pride, — that must be our 
 mainstay in that splendid impossible struggle, 
 that strife for perfection which we must for 
 ever wage, and which brings its rich results 
 hour by hour, though we seem to fail at last. 
 There is no more imperative or more be- 
 coming duty than self-culture, — bodily, men- 
 tal, spiritual. For surely, in so delightful and 
 
 224
 
 wonderful a world, we cannot be too eager 
 or too persistent to make ourselves in every 
 degree worthy of life. Our instinct every day 
 cries out for larger endeavour and more glori- 
 ous achievement than we have yet known. 
 Each morning we look upon creation and are 
 dumbly aware of the call of opportunity, and 
 the spirit within us resolves to do. Not a 
 mortal in the universe but has said to himself, 
 " I will." And in the evening we are aware 
 of determinations unfulfilled. Perhaps these 
 failures in accomplishment are all there is 
 of imperfection upon earth. Perhaps all we 
 need to do, in order to touch immortal happi- 
 ness and partake of immortal life, is to attain 
 our own ideal once, and once for all. A possi- 
 bility almost beyond the likelihood of human 
 grasp! And yet it is not in man's nature to 
 despair, save at times; for the most part we 
 are buoyant with the elation of expectancy, 
 and taste the relish of confidence. In all the 
 drift of existence, the trend which energy fol- 
 
 225
 
 art)* Zunsijij) of Mature 
 
 lows from nothingness to beauty, pride is the 
 indwelling active spirit, the regulating power. 
 But pride is not enough, culture of self is 
 not enough, joy in self-growth is not enough. 
 Indeed, in itself alone, and of itself alone, self- 
 culture cannot subsist. We cannot for an 
 instant maintain our being without depend- 
 ence on circumstance and surrounding. From 
 within we know the impulse of self-assertion 
 — in the largest, best sense; but from percep- 
 tion we see that the world is an agglomeration 
 of other beings like ourselves, no one of which 
 is more important than another. And the con- 
 clusion comes in on us that we too are each 
 of us no more than an atom, and that as our 
 relations with others are inevitable, so they 
 should be considerate. While natural ego- 
 tism makes us insistent, our first intelligent 
 glance at the world should make us plastic. 
 Yet so stubborn is spirit, so tenacious of life 
 at all hazards, that it does not easily concede to 
 others those rights it demands for itself. The 
 habit of doing this is the aim of breeding. 
 
 226
 
 m i&reciring 
 
 The disinterested mind perceives that for the 
 perfection of selfhood unselfishness is neces- 
 sary. That which I forego in consideration 
 for others shall return to me again in conscious 
 rectitude and self-respect. 
 
 As pride is a part of love, the instinctive 
 foresight of the loving spirit, and exhibits 
 itself in nobleness and worthiness, so breeding 
 is the habit of these moral qualities. For in 
 the moral world breeding is not merely tradi- 
 tion and inherited custom; it is the training 
 and individual culture needful for perfection 
 of character. Breeding makes habitual those 
 traits and actions which otherwise we would 
 only display at rare moments of inspiration. 
 
 Kindness, gentleness, civility, manners, con- 
 tentment, sweetness, constancy, devotion, — 
 these are some of the results and evidences of 
 breeding. In breeding the character acquires 
 temper, as a piece of steel does in the process 
 of manufacture, and is no longer malleable as 
 iron, but firmer, more trustworthy and suscep- 
 tible of polish, and far more elastic and sensi- 
 
 227
 
 Stye Hi ngijij) of Nature 
 
 tive. Breeding prescribes this and that, limits 
 the whim of the individual, curtails choice 
 and enforces submission, and yet not excess- 
 ively, but only for the sake of the greater ulti- 
 mate perfection of all. In our battle for indi- 
 vidualism we must remember that Nature has 
 probably endowed all of her children with a 
 superabundance of egotism. Just as she cre- 
 ates myriads of seeds on thousands of trees, 
 with the chance of only a very few coming to 
 maturity; so she endows us with enormous 
 egotism, that her ends may be served, and that 
 we may be in no danger of extinction through 
 indifference. It by no means follows, how- 
 ever, than we can make use of all our egotism, 
 or even a large part of it. We ought cheer- 
 fully to recognize the fact that very often the 
 individual will is destined to disappointment. 
 It is right for you and me to insist on our own 
 way, as pride and impulse bid; yet, if we 
 could have our utmost will, we should be flour- 
 ishing to an unheard-of extent, to the cost and 
 detriment of all nature. 
 
 228
 
 Breeding teaches the necessary resignation 
 of small and selfish aims, and inculcates an 
 unfailing endeavour on behalf of society. 
 Good breeding is scrupulous in requiring the 
 sacrifice of our own comfort for that of others. 
 It makes us for ever tireless in obeying our 
 own good impulses. The vulgar may be kind 
 and generous and loving. But only the well- 
 bred are tireless in observing the smallest and 
 nicest amenities. For wisdom knows how 
 lazy we are and how readily we fall into habits 
 of slovenly conduct even toward those whom 
 we love most dearly; it therefore creates the 
 code, and supplies the culture, to aid us in our 
 difficult task. Life without breeding is food 
 without savour; it is art without form. Only 
 the shallow mind will imagine that perfection 
 may be gained without the generous helps 
 which breeding alone can supply. 
 
 229
 
 <&f ^erenttp
 
 <&f Smttttg 
 
 SERENITY is a sort of spiritual capital; it 
 is that residuum of spiritual production which 
 remains over to assist future production. If 
 we have no serenity left after a spiritual ex- 
 perience of any kind, we may be sure that 
 our life, to that extent at least, has been in vain. 
 
 Do you read, do you smoke, do you dine, do 
 you take a walk, do you visit a picture show? 
 What is the residue of impression left on your 
 mind when the hour is past? If it is one of 
 pleasurable content, an increment of quiet 
 happiness, the experience has been worth 
 while. Tf it is one of uneasy excitement, you 
 have gained nothing. You have toiled unprof- 
 itably. For the spirit, like the body, must 
 see the result of its labour; and that result 
 
 *33
 
 £f)t Zitnstjf ji of Katttre 
 
 is a fund of abiding serenity. How else are 
 we to face the future and the unknown without 
 perturbation? If our whole existence is to 
 be made up of excitement, how shall fortitude 
 survive? Those people who think to lose 
 their unhappiness in a chain of endless ac- 
 tivity, accomplish only a temporary allevia- 
 tion for themselves. The more engrossed 
 they become in mere activity for its own sake, 
 the more futile will it seem to them at last. 
 Rather than increasing their store of serenity 
 against the foul weather of poverty or age or 
 decrepitude, they have been spending it lav- 
 ishly in the thousand channels of strenuous 
 activity. 
 
 As Emerson has it somewhere, our real life 
 is in the silent moments. It may be in the 
 pauses of conversation, during the midday 
 rest by a running water, or after the guests are 
 gone and the coals settle in the grate; but the 
 inner life does not receive its pleasure or its 
 nourishment in the doing of things; its normal 
 joy is in accessions of serenity; it subscribes 
 
 234
 
 willingly to Stevenson's saying that gentle- 
 ness and cheerfulness are above all morality, 
 — are the greatest virtues. 
 
 Yet this is no plea for idle shiftlessness. The 
 inert and careless, who are incorrigible by- 
 standers at the great pageant of life, seldom 
 taste true serenity. They are for ever infected 
 with a feverish dissatisfaction. The slow 
 malaria of inefficiency is in their bones. Too 
 supine for effort or accomplishment, they miss 
 the zest of relaxation, and dribble away their 
 days in a woebegone dyspeptic indolence. 
 They have no proper conception of the joys of 
 leisure; they are as unfortunate as those who 
 must be for ever on the go. It has never oc- 
 curred to them to take hold of this life sturdily 
 in their two hands, to work with a will, to 
 play with a will, to loaf with a will. 
 
 But the wise man yields himself to the mo- 
 ment; he is glad of the relish in toil, glad of 
 the serenity in rest. He does not belong to 
 the leisure class nor yet to the working class; 
 for in his philosonhy there should be no lei- 
 
 235
 
 artje ftfnsitf;p of Nature 
 
 sure class; leisure should be common as air 
 or water, for men to take as they need; and 
 work should be as delightful as leisure. There 
 are thousands of men who do not know how to 
 rest, who have almost no faculty of enjoyment; 
 but there never yet was a man who did not 
 love work, — his own proper work in the 
 natural exercise of his powers. 
 
 In any case, to be serene does not mean to be 
 idle. For serenity of spirit may be kept in 
 the midst of activity; and the most effective 
 workers are those who are never hurried, 
 never flustered, but retain in the thickest tur- 
 moil of daily life an imperturbable demeanour 
 and steadiness of mind. Your nervous indi- 
 vidual, whose fund of serenity is low, rushes 
 about in a frenzy of fussy excitement, achiev- 
 ing nothing but his own destruction. In that 
 most detestable of all vulgarisms, he is a 
 "hustler." God help him! He is distraught 
 with a mental rabies; he has been bitten by 
 the greed or envy of commercialism, or some 
 other of the black dogs of modern civilization, 
 
 236
 
 and his finish will not be a wholesome thing 
 to see. 
 
 Our day has almost made it seem true that 
 to live without madness, one must live without 
 haste. The man engaged in active business, as 
 it is called, is very much in the position of a 
 ranchman in a stampede. If he loses his head 
 through a moment's agitation, his doom is 
 written. He must preserve in the irrational 
 whirl around him at least a remnant of 
 serenity. To be wholly engrossed in his sur- 
 roundings, to lose his self-command, is de- 
 struction. 
 
 Serenity is the atmosphere of poise, the still 
 air in which the nicely adjusted balance of 
 all our powers may be maintained. To pre- 
 serve it we should be willing to sacrifice every- 
 thing but life itself. Yet it is not to be had in 
 exchange for any possession or characteristic. 
 It is a habit, a moral attribute, a mode of 
 thinking; it is one of the tides of the mind. 
 And like so many of the best things in our 
 mortal existence, it is greatly a matter of 
 
 237
 
 £ijc Ikimfyip of Xaturc 
 
 temperament. All men are born in bondage 
 and unequal; and some are blessed by the 
 fairy godmother with happier dispositions 
 than others. Still there is no despair for any 
 of us; if we have not the benign temper, the 
 temperament which makes for happiness, it 
 is our first business to acquire it. Why go 
 through this world perpetually disgruntled, 
 when men will concede so much to a smile? 
 He who is serene commands a digestive that 
 defies dyspepsia and will carry the buoyancy 
 of youth into the ruts of old age. 
 
 When you pass from the realm of actual life 
 into the realm of art, serenity becomes the no- 
 blest of all attributes. In the world of 
 beauty, where every line, every shade, every 
 tone, is adjusted in considerations of perma- 
 nence, how shall we tolerate anything that is 
 not serenely alive? An art in which there is 
 no serenity can no more mirror nature and 
 human life for us, than a ruffled stream can 
 reflect the trees above it. 
 
 238
 
 Pap
 
 Btyj 
 
 It is a word long discredited, but never 
 forgotten and sure to return to honour among 
 men. For play is not an invention of luxu- 
 rious idleness, but simply one of the phe- 
 nomena of earth, a necessity of our mortal 
 state. Think of play as meaning freedom 
 from stress, freedom from restraint. The play 
 of a bolt or a beam in construction is often 
 fatal ; and yet without play how often a mech- 
 anism would come to wreck! The play of the 
 forest trees in wind is their safeguard; and 
 when an ice-storm falls on them and locks 
 them down to the rigidity of iron, then be- 
 ware of the living winds of heaven that come 
 boisterously down upon them! Their fettered 
 limbs snap, their poor bodies are riven and 
 
 241
 
 &f)* XtinsfjUi of Xatttte 
 
 split, their noble heads go down to the shades 
 and they are counted in the refuse of the 
 world. With no give, with no relaxation, with 
 no play, their usefulness is done; they must 
 perish. 
 
 The rocks may stand fast to our sight, but 
 we can measure the enormous play of a glacier, 
 and the ordered play of the spheres is our con- 
 stant admiration. Indeed, you will find in 
 nature that everything has play, according to 
 the need of its being, and the higher and more 
 complex the life, the greater the amount of 
 play necessary to safety. As you pass from the 
 solid and fixed frame of the globe outward 
 toward light and warmth, think how play is 
 given to the creatures born in the sun. First 
 the mosses and lichens and stunted herbage 
 of cold regions, then the more luxurious trees 
 and grasses and waving ferns; the fish in the 
 water ; the moving rivers, the stupendous tides ; 
 the beasts that traverse the ground ; the hosts 
 of birds migrating and dancing through 
 space; and, frailest of all the myriads of 
 
 242
 
 ephemera, those beautiful scraps of winged 
 colour that go sailing away light as thistle- 
 seed on the perilous adventures of the air; 
 life, the varied and untold play of motion and 
 colour over the surface of the dull ground, the 
 fact of being, clothed with the phantom of 
 beauty, — this is the flux of existence. This 
 helped to give rise to the " Everything is flow- 
 ing " of the Greeks. 
 
 So from core to verge, from inertia to intel- 
 ligence, from crude to complex, there is al- 
 ways a greater and greater play allowed, until 
 we come to the region (true or fabulous) of 
 pure spirit, where being may have its essence 
 unhampered by place or time. We do not 
 know much of the dominion of unincarnate 
 soul, but we are agreed in according it the ut- 
 most latitude of come and go and in denying 
 it all fixity save that of purpose. And we 
 speak of the play of the mind, the free play 
 of the intellect. 
 
 Still with the idea of play as meaning 
 scope, spread, activity, we know that educa- 
 
 243
 
 2Tijir mnnfyip of Natttre 
 
 tion comes through achievement alone; that 
 the building of character from habit is 
 wrought out only through the play of the 
 individual will. Stultify the will, prohibit its 
 play, and you have at once destroyed its power 
 of growth. The principle of life is movement, 
 and stagnation is death. So that if a thing has 
 no play, you may be sure it has no life. 
 
 So, too, if you will follow the trail of the 
 word into meaning of playfulness and amuse- 
 ment; perhaps you will not be far wrong if you 
 declare that play means health. Play is the 
 fine flavour of the spirit, the expression of joy. 
 Just as we gain freedom for the play of our 
 powers, we gain enjoyment in the playfulness 
 of spirit. The animals play, and man in a 
 normal, healthy state takes the universe for his 
 playroom. To be a doleful, puritanic, unso- 
 cial Pharisee is to be a degenerate. A sour 
 visage means debauchery of the soul, as truly 
 as other appearances indicate bodily intem- 
 perance. To keep the Ten Commandments is 
 not the whole business of man, not his whole 
 
 244
 
 duty; it is only a beginning, a crude makeshift 
 of conduct; and the law of love by which they 
 were superseded brings us nearer to perfec- 
 tion. 
 
 Think of the added zest we might have if 
 only we set ourselves to play the role assigned 
 us for half its proper worth. To act with sin- 
 cerity, with ease, with unfailing graciousness; 
 to add ever so little to the store of gaiety; to 
 relieve the monotony of work; to soothe un- 
 conquerable sorrow; to go lightly and pleas- 
 antly across the boards, and leave a sense of 
 elation and good nature as we pass; this is the 
 method to make us not regret our exit, and, 
 what is more to the purpose, this is the sort 
 of play to make our fellows the happier for 
 our acting, however small the part. 
 
 245
 
 C^e Scarlet of tlje par
 
 Qfyt Scarlet of tjjs Meat 
 
 i. 
 
 The beautiful changes of the seasons come 
 upon us so furtively, and yet so surely, that 
 their appearance seems sudden at last. Day 
 by day, through the dry glow of August, we 
 say, "The summer is waning; soon we shall 
 see the hills all crimson; even now there is a 
 touch of Indian summer in the atmosphere, 
 though the air is so warm." And then, after 
 all, it takes us by surprise some morning to 
 look up and see a solitary tree all scarlet on 
 the mountain. Yet his message was impera- 
 tive and could suffer no delay; prompt as the 
 first April robin, there he must appear, to do 
 
 249
 
 £0e ftingQUi of Mature 
 
 the bidding of those great primary powers 
 we are pleased to call Nature. 
 
 Yes, it is quite true, as some one remarked 
 the other day editorially (I have forgotten 
 where), we are for ever being exhorted to 
 worship Nature, to turn from our overstrenu- 
 ous diligence, our overcentralized life, and 
 come back to the primitive conditions of the 
 great outdoor world. True, that is our native 
 air; we shall reap good from it in abundance, 
 if we are wise; and I, for one, should be glad 
 to see the whole town turned out into the 
 woods for three months every year. Ah, how 
 gladly would they be turned out if they could! 
 But that is our fault, my friend, yours and 
 mine and the next man's; and it is a poor les- 
 son we have learned from this great Nature, 
 if we have not taken the hint of generosity, if 
 we have not learned tolerance, if we have not 
 been infected with a lofty and unflinching 
 sweetness, which is full of care for others' joy 
 as well as our own. 
 
 What do they say, these scarlet priests of 
 
 250
 
 Ztyt <Scarltt of ttjr "Star 
 
 the hills? Now the maples have put on their 
 valiant colours, and the ash and beech are 
 robed in the light of yellow and bronze; the 
 birches, too, and the wayfaring tree are all 
 in bright array. What is the meaning of so 
 great a pomp and splendour? Why the 
 gayest, bravest tints in the season of decay, 
 at the time of universal perishing? 
 
 There is no answer. Even if science could 
 tell just the use of colour in the scheme of life, 
 we should have our metaphorical or symbol- 
 istic sense still unsatisfied. Meanwhile the 
 gladness of autumn is undoubted ; the strong 
 heartening note is sounded everywhere above 
 the dismal ruin of summer beauty. Indeed, it 
 is only a merging of the lesser beauty into the 
 greater. And one fancies (fantastically, in- 
 deed) that only in the New World is the year's 
 death made so glorious, as if not until now 
 could men ever imagine that death is anything 
 but ruin. 
 
 " No, indeed," say the scarlet priests of the 
 mountains; "behold in the midst of unfaded 
 
 251
 
 artje W>iunt)ip of Itfatttre 
 
 April green we don our brightest robes, and 
 give you the New Message, — even we, the 
 lowly folk of the forest, the inarticulate people 
 of the wilderness. We would have you to 
 know that the gladness of the spring is nothing 
 to our gladness. In the childhood of your 
 race, you worshipped youth and love; but 
 now that you are grown you shall wor- 
 ship love and maturity. And death itself 
 shall not be sad to you any more; but in natu- 
 ral sorrow you shall still valiantly rejoice. For 
 it is better to triumph than to hope; it is 
 better to dare than to desire. What do they 
 know of the fulness of life, who have never 
 endured the rending wind and the riving 
 frost? Hear us, and we will show you a better 
 way than the pageant of the buds or the riot 
 of perishable June! Fortitude, gladness, pa- 
 tience, a smiling front in face of disaster, these 
 be your watchwords for ever!" 
 
 This, you say, is only our own thought put 
 in the mouth of the forest people. But who 
 shall say how much of our natural resignation 
 
 252
 
 ftJje Scarlet of tije ¥rat 
 
 may not have come, by subtle and potent influ- 
 ences, from these very children of the moun- 
 tainside? And who can tell how great has 
 been the effect of the splendour of autumn on 
 our idea of perfection? The forces of sugges- 
 tion and association are so mysterious and so 
 strong, so delicate in their hidden working, 
 that one's thoughts about the solemnities of 
 death and the completion of life might well 
 come from sources as frail as a turning leaf or 
 a seeding thistle. 
 
 Where, then, is the influence of the scarlet 
 of the year found in our art? How does it 
 make itself felt in those works of our hands 
 which represent us as a race? Think of the 
 artists you know, writers or painters or crea- 
 tors of the beautiful in any form; in whose 
 work among them all do you find the brave 
 scarlet note? It is not felt everywhere, cer- 
 tainly. You would not say that Arnold has 
 it, beloved and lovely as he is. His is the 
 gray-green of a French forest or a southern 
 olive grove. You would not say it is in Ten- 
 
 253
 
 £t)e liiusijtj) of Nature 
 
 nyson; his colour is purple, the rich ennobled 
 tinge of dignity and meditation. And the pre- 
 Raphaelites? Certainly they have colour to 
 spare, but not in the sense I mean. It is not 
 their province to raise a response to any cheer 
 from the troubled heart of their days. But in 
 Emerson and Browning, there you may see at 
 once the interpreted gospel of the scarlet leaf. 
 The English poet never saw a bit of the New 
 World forest in its raw brilliancy of fall; but 
 do you not feel sure it would have delighted 
 him — at once so subtle and so barbaric? 
 
 And to whom, but to him and Emerson, are 
 we to turn for that assurance to the spirit 
 which Nature is preaching in her own dumb 
 way from a thousand mountainsides to-day? 
 There is another, too, whom common consent 
 of criticism holds in lower esteem, but for 
 whom I cannot help having an equal love. I 
 am not sure that one does not love him, so 
 human, so humane, so modest and kindly, even 
 more than any of the greater masters. And on 
 every page he wrote you will find traces of this 
 
 254
 
 £t)t Bcarlrt of W ¥eat 
 
 scarlet glory, this unquelled triumphant festi- 
 val of the spirit, putting failure and defeat 
 aside for ever. Who is there who loves men 
 and books and nature, and can witness the gay 
 procession of scarlet on the hills, without a 
 thought of unconquerable Robert Louis? 
 
 II. 
 
 In the first blush of our autumnal season, 
 it is the splendour and scarlet of it that most 
 appeal to us. The green-feasted eye, full of 
 the luxurious leisure of the quiet foliage, picks 
 out at once the first fleck of crimson, conspicu- 
 ous as a stain, — a spilth of blood or wine on 
 the vest of nature. This is the sign, the pres- 
 age, the portent of rehabilitation; and we 
 must leap at heart for the valiant tinge. It is 
 the colour of war, of energy, of manliness, of 
 fortitude, of endurance, linking us with our 
 primitive instincts, calling up the dejected 
 
 2 55
 
 £t)t Zunstjiji of Nature 
 
 spirit to new endeavours, heartening the dis- 
 couraged and reviving the worn. 
 
 " Courage, O divine vagabond," it seems to 
 say, " already the turn of the road is here, the 
 banners of the Delectable City are in sight. 
 Brace, thee, then, for one effort more. Am I 
 not the symbol to thee of triumph? Do not 
 lassitude and doubt and cynicism flee before 
 me? Why, then, ever be faint-hearted again? 
 To-day is thine, and the promise of the mor- 
 row is in my hand." 
 
 But when the first impression of the scarlet 
 world has worn off, when the sense becomes 
 accustomed to so much magnificent display, 
 we perceive other beauties, new and strange, 
 mingling with the red. The softer, subtle 
 richness of the tapestry comes out; elusive and 
 lovely shades, unperceived at first, reveal 
 themselves to the studious and enraptured 
 gaze. It is not the raw splendour of the bar- 
 baric kingly show that is most powerful over 
 us; there are shyer hidden influences of pale 
 attractiveness as well, here a scrap of pure 
 
 256
 
 yellow, there a tint of sheer purple or blue or 
 lavender. 
 
 It seems to me that I have never known a 
 year half so voluptuous in colours as this. Is 
 it not so? Before September had left the hills, 
 every one was aware of the unusual lavishness 
 and wonderful beauty of pigment. Only in 
 dreams or in fairy tales could such pomp be 
 possible. The leaves unwithered kept all 
 their fresh perfection of June, with the added 
 marvel of crimson or russet. One gazed 
 across the mountain valleys from peak to peak 
 as across a scarlet world. And in the silent, 
 brooding air it would not have been incredible 
 to people that wonderland with all the shapes 
 of fancy from Homer's time to ours. You 
 said to yourself, " Surely, I shall never see the 
 like of this again," and then bade a sorrowful 
 farewell to those high stretches of red hill and 
 sweeping air. 
 
 And yet the shore in its more sober garb was 
 just as wonderful, just as unusual. If the hills 
 were arrayed like kings, the marshes and open 
 
 257
 
 2Fijc 1aintii)ip of Xatmre 
 
 fields of the seaboard were emperors of their 
 own dominion, too. In the first days of October 
 a drenching storm and chilly twilight landed 
 me at one hospitable hearthstone on the south 
 shore. The wind was out of the northeast, 
 gusting and quarrelsome, and it caught a trav- 
 eller unprepared. There could be no joy of 
 nature in such weather; protection, friends, 
 and fire were the only things. But the next 
 morning uprose one of those matchless days 
 which seem to come on purpose to belie our 
 gloomy apprehension. The clear sky, the 
 drying roads, the fresh, wholesome wind, the 
 talking leaves, and the far-off sparkle of the 
 sea. The most confirmed morning hater could 
 not refrain from a stroll before breakfast. In 
 that new world by a quiet, woody road, some 
 hours later our mother Autumn showed me 
 her latest study in raw colour. Side by side 
 above the stone wall stood a crimson maple 
 and a yellow poplar. As you looked up in 
 passing the light struck through them from 
 behind you, drenching their pure tints in lux- 
 
 *5*
 
 STJje Scarlet of tfjt ¥eat 4 
 
 urious living light, on a background of the 
 unmitigated blue. 
 
 " There," I said, " is the trinity of colour," 
 — the blue which was nothing but blue, the 
 yellow which was nothing but yellow, and the 
 other crimson. You might study them at your 
 ease. Look straight into the deep red of the 
 maple before you, or into the yellow of the 
 aspen to your right, or into the blue between 
 them. Then aloft where the tops swayed 
 across the sky, you got the contrast of the red 
 with the yellow. Look steadily a moment at 
 the warm red of the maple cut against that 
 cerulean hanging, and try to feel its mean- 
 ing; then shift your eyes to the yellow* 
 
 It does not do to be fanciful on paper, how- 
 ever one may dream between sunrise and sun- 
 set. But I am sure you would agree to the 
 greater nobility of the spiritual yellow, as con- 
 trasted with the burly physical red. And be- 
 hind them all the incorruptible blue, the 
 primal thought. There lay the deep strong 
 tone of the blood-red tree, so physical, so sure, 
 
 259
 
 Etjc liiustjtp of Mature 
 
 so unabashed and sufficient. And beside it 
 the sheer ethereal tremulousness of the yellow, 
 — the colour of spirit, the colour that makes 
 us feel. But before ever we could move or 
 love, there was the great blue thought which 
 comprehended the beginning and overarches 
 the whole. 
 
 If you think of these elementary colours as 
 symbols of certain qualities, you will see some- 
 thing more than a mere wayward fancy in such 
 a title as "The Red Fairy Book," or "The 
 Blue Fairy Book." You will think of colour 
 not merely as an attribute of this good world, 
 but as an index of our own inward emotional 
 life as well. It is as if, when all the earth lay 
 finished from the hand of the great Artifex, 
 perfect in construction, lovely in form, wait- 
 ing only the final impulse, he had smiled above 
 his work, and that benign look was communi- 
 cated to the new-made handicraft in the guise 
 of colour, — a superfluous manifestation of 
 beauty, the very breath or spirit of the Creator. 
 
 And ever since, to keep us in mind of the 
 
 260
 
 STfje Scarlet of tfje ¥eat 
 
 Creator's heritage of joy, colour remains on 
 the face of the world, a possession of the spirit. 
 They who deal in its appreciation and expres- 
 sion are peculiarly the guardians of a sacred 
 trust, receiving from it intimations of finer 
 significance than the average eye can gather, 
 and expressing through it the most intimate 
 and delicate thoughts and yearnings. 
 
 261
 
 (gooti ^fortune
 
 <£ootr fortune 
 
 " Henceforth I ask not good fortune, I 
 myself am good fortune," says Whitman. But 
 under what conditions? He enunciates this 
 happy wisdom in the poem where he has just 
 declared, " Afoot and light-hearted, I take to 
 the open road." Good fortune, he would seem 
 to say, resides in freedom, in immunity. Yet 
 there is more than that necessary. It is not 
 enough to sell all we have; we must follow 
 in the Way. Good fortune is not an endow- 
 ment of circumstance merely; it is rather a 
 tenet of the mind, a mood of the spirit, and 
 a physical attribute. It comes to us like a 
 strain of harmonious being, when our com- 
 plex nature is in accord with the visible world, 
 and attuned to its own secret note. 
 
 265
 
 £ije luustjuj of Nature 
 
 " Afoot and light-hearted," no ill-fortune 
 can overpower us. In the pursuit of happy, 
 primitive exercise, the simple needs of the 
 body are satisfied; and its magnetic enthusi- 
 asm is communicated to the spirit. Emanci- 
 pated from roofs and windows, setting forth 
 for the unknown, physical needs reduced to a 
 minimum, we become adventurers and dis- 
 coverers, touched with elemental daring 
 (timorous, secluded creatures that we are!), 
 elated by a breath of nature. It is so that 
 good fortune comes to the traveller. 
 
 And is it not true that whenever we taste 
 the sweet of life we are in this nomadic frame 
 of mind? A certain sense of detachment and 
 irresponsibility seems necessary to happiness, 
 — a freedom purchased most cheaply, after 
 all, at the price of obligations discharged and 
 duties done. Good fortune, true success, is 
 the indwelling radiance and serenity that 
 comes and goes so mysteriously in every hu- 
 man tenement. Expect her not, and she ar- 
 rives; seek to detain her with elaborate argu- 
 
 266
 
 ^ootr iFortttiu 
 
 ment or excuse, and she is gone. Yet must 
 the door ever be open for her coming, and the 
 board spread for her entertainment. So fleet- 
 ing and incalculable is the best, so outside our 
 own control, that we say it comes by the grace 
 of God. 
 
 Let this be so, indeed. Still the avenues for 
 the approach of happiness are to some extent 
 surely within our own control. To be clean 
 and temperate and busy, to try to keep our- 
 selves strong and healthy, not to wear injuri- 
 ous clothes, nor to follow pernicious customs, 
 to simplify the mechanism of living and enrich 
 the motive, and to avoid fanaticism, this is the 
 part of wisdom. It is first of all important, in 
 seeking good fortune, that we should be able 
 to secure coordination and sympathy between 
 body, mind, and heart. To do this, evidently, 
 we must be adaptable, — must try to have the 
 open mind, the spirit of charity, the available 
 strength, and readiness of body. That folly 
 is only too palpable which fancies that happi- 
 
 267
 
 Efje mvifiWp of Mature 
 
 ness could be found in any one of the three 
 natures that make up man. Certainly not in 
 purely physical or sensual conditions does it 
 flourish. We vainly seek it in creature com- 
 forts alone, in physical delights alone. Equally 
 futile is our search for it in the kingdom of 
 the mind. That is a noble fallacy, but a fal- 
 lacy none the less, which pins its faith to 
 knowledge. Time out of mind there have 
 been those who hoped to find happiness in 
 the affairs of the intellect, and still it has 
 eluded them. His royal master said of Lan- 
 f ranc, " The day is coming, I see it afar, 
 when these thin men will set their feet upon 
 our corselets." And there is always a tend- 
 ency toward that extreme. 
 
 Then, too, how many are the children of 
 joy, — those who pursue happiness in the wide 
 bright fields of passion, — not the crude pas- 
 sions of the senses, but the delicate passions of 
 the spirit! How many devotees, how many 
 lovers ! How many who have worn away their 
 
 268
 
 <&oofc iFottune 
 
 lives in an ecstasy of longing or prayer or ex- 
 pectation. And yet the loftiest religious ela- 
 tion, the lonely frozen nobility of soul which 
 belongs to the enthusiast and the believer, — 
 cannot be called good fortune, but only a part 
 of good fortune. It avails me nothing to see 
 visions, if I am dyspeptic and cannot under- 
 stand the Pons assinorum. The pugilist, the 
 zealot, the bookworm, — each of these is but 
 a third of a man, and none is more worthy 
 than the other. An ignorant and brutalized 
 athlete is just as far from complete manhood 
 as a puny scholar or a blind bigot. And dif- 
 ferential calculus alone is just as far from 
 affording sufficient education as football is. 
 
 Our best ideals have long since ceased to 
 uphold the supremacy of the body. But 
 neither must we despise it, as the Puritans 
 did. Rather should we keep in view the due 
 culture and gradual perfection of body and 
 mind and spirit, discountenancing any favour 
 to one above another. For Whitman's ideal 
 is the best. " I myself am good fortune." 
 
 269
 
 £?)* litustjU) of TSfature 
 
 And we should always aim to keep ourselves 
 so healthy that every day, as we step out of 
 doors, we can say after him, " Afoot and light- 
 hearted I take to the open road." 
 
 270
 
 Cfje Befoattrfjerp of jHocfa
 
 Cfje 
 
 Befcaucfjenj of ittooo 
 
 THERE are so many ways of making wreck 
 of this perilous gift of life! A little too strenu- 
 ous or a little too weak, a little too hot or a 
 little too cold, a little too fast or a little too 
 slow, a little too severe or a little too lax, and 
 we are undone. So nice an adjustment seems 
 to be needed to bring our lives to anything like 
 success and a decent termination. So deli- 
 cately are we balanced, as it were, on the very 
 brink between sweeping current and relentless 
 eddy. An overfrail physique, and all your 
 splendid attainments of mind and lofty ambi- 
 tions are brought prematurely to the ground. 
 Or, again, a stout and hardy endowment of 
 
 273
 
 art)* WHnu^ip of Xatttre 
 
 body, and you may be undone by some uncon- 
 querable habit. For habit, like disease, is 
 often hereditary, and as often contracted. It 
 is germinal in its origin, but sure and virulent 
 in effect. Who does not see in his own round 
 of life a score of his friends undone by some 
 minute lack, some flaw in the adjustment of 
 their powers? 
 
 Yet the great world moves on. Even our 
 own small life proceeds. For whether it be to 
 failure or success, the first need of being is 
 endurance, — to endure with gladness if we 
 can, with fortitude in any event. This is the 
 core of life; this is the kernel of nature. How 
 then shall he contrive to keep always near that 
 central truth, the progress of existence? How 
 shall we manage to share the glad strength of 
 the earth, in spite of pain and danger and sor- 
 row and bitter disappointment? It is not quite 
 enough to be stoical. Or, perhaps one ought 
 to say, it is too much. For the stoics, one feels, 
 were inclined to shut up the doors of the heart 
 against the great currents of pity and love. 
 
 274
 
 2TI)e lirfcaucfjers of JHootr 
 
 They hardly kept a welcome for joy; and 
 when pleasure visited them, they were unpre- 
 pared to make her at home. It seems there 
 was too stubborn and negative a blend in their 
 philosophy. To be stoical and nothing more 
 is to be stolid. Whereas surely one should 
 grow and change, be happy and sad, with 
 changing and growing nature ; nor should one 
 always live indoors at the centre of one's self, 
 but occasionally come to the entry of being 
 to meet one's friends, to take the air of exist- 
 ence, to look abroad on the hills and valleys 
 of universal life. One should not be uncon- 
 scious of mood, in short. 
 
 Yes, mood is necessary; mood is good and 
 helpful; and anyhow it is inescapable. He 
 who defies it is a rash man and far from wise. 
 It is only by taking advantage of mood, of 
 the mysterious, uncharted, and invisible tides 
 of the spirit, that we shall ever make any 
 successful ventures upon the deep sea of life, 
 or bring our craft safely to port at last. 
 Whether in art, or in science, or in the affairs 
 
 275
 
 &1)t Ztiusijtj) of Mature 
 
 of men, he who works with mood will be more 
 successful than he who works without it. As 
 for the mistaken man who sets himself to an 
 accomplishment in defiance of his mood, time 
 must teach him his own folly. He is like the 
 daring and rebellious child who has never 
 heard of the expression Deo volente, but pur- 
 poses this or that, untempered by restriction, 
 ignorant of fortune, defiant of fate. 
 
 In old times men governed their actions by 
 the stars or by auspices. They would under- 
 take nothing unless the planets were propi- 
 tious; and if they failed conspicuously, then 
 the gods were against them, or the time in 
 their horoscope had not arrived. They waited 
 upon the convenient season, and sought out 
 many inventions for divining it. In later years 
 we have made mood a god. To-day, if I 
 would invest money, or see a friend, or write 
 a letter, or buy a horse, or paint a picture, I 
 no longer consult a soothsayer or con the pages 
 of an ephemeris; I look into my own dark 
 mind and say, " Am I in the mood for it? " 
 
 276
 
 <ZTt)r Bct)auct)cvi> of JHootr 
 
 We have made mood a touchstone of action. 
 Our fathers made duty their priestess. It 
 may be we are straying too far from their 
 honourable faith, hard and narrow and cruel 
 though it could be. But that was the evil of 
 extremes. We may be in peril from the oppo- 
 site error, and duty is a word that is drop- 
 ping out of current use. Mood has usurped 
 its place. 
 
 But there is a debauchery of mood, just as 
 there is an insanity of duty. An unflinching 
 observance of duty, unmodified by any other 
 idea, by mercy, by love, by gentleness, by 
 generosity, might readily lead to almost in- 
 human hardness. The devotee of duty may 
 become an unlovely and pestiferous mono- 
 maniac, a burden to himself and an infliction 
 to others. We all know how angular and 
 sour and uncomfortable a fanatic can be. It 
 matters not whether he is a religious fanatic or 
 a free-thinker, his inordinate devotion to his 
 one conception of life is a nuisance. He is so 
 
 277
 
 2TJ)f XiiusijU) of Xatttr* 
 
 stiff-necked that he cannot see anything outside 
 of his own pasture. The beautiful plasticity 
 of human nature at its best seems to have been 
 left out of him. 
 
 On the other hand, how much better is your 
 modern watery sentimentalist? Duty for him 
 is an old fabulous fetich. He maunders and 
 meanders down the pavements of life, as he 
 would through a rose garden. He knows no 
 law but the indulgence of whim and the 
 obedience to mood. He may have no strong 
 evil propensities, but his flabby subservience 
 to mood is a spiritual debauchery in itself. 
 
 It is written in " The Book of St. Kavin," 
 " Take heed lest ye be overtaken in debauch- 
 ery of mood." And, indeed, it is a malady 
 likely to attack the finest spirits. Knowing 
 how essential mood is to the accomplishment 
 of anything worth while, they wait upon its 
 coming. Too seldom does it occur to them 
 that mood is in any degree controllable. Yet 
 it is so. And while we wait upon mood, we 
 
 278
 
 £8* Betjatutjers of J**ootr 
 
 must also order and direct it; for mood is 
 like fire, a good servant, but an evil master. 
 Have all your hopes and plans come to ground 
 in a day? Has sorrow knocked at your door? 
 Has circumstance foiled your most generous 
 wish? Still there is this life to be lived, and 
 road of fortitude to be followed. Wait not 
 upon returning mood for your happiness, but 
 set forward at once. Perchance then the mood 
 will follow you, with sunny face. If not, still 
 there is the satisfaction that your part in the 
 work of the universe will not have been 
 slighted. Rightly assimilated, adversity, that 
 bitter tonic, may yet yield health and a smil- 
 ing countenance. So at last we may attain a 
 measure of nobility of character, so that mood 
 will follow us like a patient sister, and we 
 shall be feeble slaves of her caprice no more. 
 
 To sorrow, to misfortune, to anger, to 
 hatred, do not give way. Have, if possible, a 
 sane rule of conduct, and adhere to that gladly. 
 For without adherence to some line of prog- 
 ress, how shall he hope for anything but drift- 
 
 279
 
 ing discontent? Let us keep mood, but as a 
 servant; and let us keep duty, — as a servant, 
 too. For greater than either is the free spirit 
 of man. 
 
 280
 
 <&i jtto&eratton
 
 <&f JWotetatum 
 
 It is not the safety of moderation but its 
 beauty and power that make it so excellent 
 and so desirable a virtue. A controlled and 
 regulated force is an agent that may make for 
 usefulness, for good, for happiness; an un- 
 controlled force can be nothing but a menace. 
 
 At first glance we are apt to think somewhat 
 slightingly of moderation. The good even 
 seem somewhat tame and uninteresting in 
 comparison with their more reckless and less 
 responsible fellows. We are abashed at the 
 presence of evil; we are horrified and con- 
 fused that it should prevail; and yet we can- 
 not altogether restrain a lingering tinge of 
 admiration for its forceful procedure. We 
 perceive that it does not restrain itself; that 
 
 283
 
 it demands and often secures free play for its 
 energies; its exhibition of efficient and capa- 
 ble power dazzles us. We are put out of 
 conceit with respectability, and become half 
 convinced that the bad is not half so bad, after 
 all. We are ready to sneer at moderation. 
 
 But we make a mistake here, we mistake a 
 supine and cowardly respectability for good- 
 ness. Now, respectability, mere respectability, 
 is not goodness at all; it is only another form 
 of weakness. The person who takes refuge 
 among the respectable, without any further 
 attempt to do actual good, to be actively good, 
 is nothing but a poltroon, afraid to follow his 
 bent. He will probably go to a worse place 
 than is prepared for many a transgressor. 
 
 But respectability is not moderation; it is 
 stagnation. There is no virtue in respecta- 
 bility, for virtue is an active principle, and the 
 essence of respectability is dull, stupid, self- 
 ish, timid inaction. If you are good you may 
 be respectable; but if you set for yourself no 
 standard beyond the negative blamelessness 
 
 284
 
 <Df JHotreratCou 
 
 of being respectable you are on the highway 
 to perdition. It is not goodness that fills your 
 soul, but lethargy. You shudder at the crimi- 
 nal classes; you lull yourself with a cushioned 
 chromo-Christianity, but your own spiritual 
 and intellectual and material life is in itself 
 a crime. You are an incumbrance to society, 
 to say the least. 
 
 Moderation is a very different thing. It 
 is the conservation of power. It is the saving 
 grace which sweetens conduct. It makes 
 virtue pleasant and kindly; it makes beauty 
 to be of effect in the world; it makes reason 
 prevail. Moderation is the wisdom which 
 never quite exhausts its reservoirs of power; 
 which never permits depletion, and is, there- 
 fore, never exhausted. It always has forces in 
 reserve, and so triples the impression made by 
 the forces it has in use. Moderation is not 
 a penurious aversion to expenditure; it is a 
 sane and strong disposition of power. It means 
 control and efficiency. 
 
 The logic of extremes is notoriously uncer- 
 
 285
 
 SH&e ftiustHi) of Mature 
 
 tain ; the beauty of extremes is even more 
 doubtful. Note that in extremes you have 
 energy enough to waste, spending itself in its 
 last expiring effort. But beauty must always 
 embody power and reserve. There is no 
 beauty in exaggeration and overemphasis, nor 
 in the weakness of imperfection. Beauty in 
 sculpture, for instance, resides in the consum- 
 mate moment; beauty in painting, in the bal- 
 ance of hues. In everything beautiful, I 
 think, one has the sense of exquisite modera- 
 tion, a sense of poise, of expectancy, of reser- 
 vation, as well as of satisfaction. One feels 
 whether in music or poetry, whether in art 
 or life, in contemplating beauty, that here the 
 great spiritual force of the universe was 
 brought into play and arrested for a moment 
 in mid career. There is no strain, but only 
 strength. As perfect and competent strength 
 cannot know strain, so perfect beauty cannot 
 know intemperance nor overstatement. Haste, 
 anger, bigotry, sloth, all these destroy beauty, 
 because they destroy moderation. They make 
 
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 <£f JWotrerat.uw 
 
 beauty in art and beauty in daily life alike 
 impossible, for that one reason. They prevent 
 us from living centrally and normally; they 
 unhinge our poise; they cloud the mind, 
 hamper the body, and make the spirit un- 
 happy; they take away from us those rare 
 moments of calm contentment, when the hu- 
 man soul stands on the brink of exaltation, 
 half-way between hope and despair. They 
 rush us into one extreme or another, so that we 
 cannot come into full contact with the powers 
 of the universe. They make us too emphat- 
 ically our single selves, — petty, wilful, and 
 unwise. They drive us to extremes. If I were 
 a wave, I should belong most completely 
 to the great surrounding sea, when I was at 
 mid height between crest and trough. So my 
 own human life is most nearly in accord with 
 the greater life which, it seems, must infuse 
 the universe, not when I am carried beyond 
 the bounds of moderation, but I am at poise, 
 a normal, undistracted being. 
 
 The idea is easily illustrated in many ways. 
 
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 2Tlje ItiufiWi) of Katute 
 
 You may see many arts injured by lack of 
 moderation. We build a huge opera house, 
 for example, not content with a moderate size. 
 What is the result? The singers must strain 
 their voices to the limit, so that shading and 
 all delicacy of interpretation are lost. So, 
 too, in human speech. How much more con- 
 vincing our conversation would be, if it were 
 more moderate, — more moderate in its dic- 
 tion, its vocabulary, its tones, its inflections. 
 Speech is a means of expression and may be 
 beautiful, comprehensive, full of delight and 
 power. Too often we permit it to become 
 either a mumble or a shriek. We exaggerate 
 and emphasize and insist, until all truth is lost 
 and all power of conviction destroyed. Our 
 personal expression becomes palpably false, 
 frayed and worn thin by overstress. This is 
 true of all physical habit; we rush and hurry, 
 or we slouch and dawdle, regardless of the fact 
 that by so doing we lose all spontaneity, all 
 magnetism, all power which inherently be- 
 longs in beauty of motion. 
 
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 $tmcspi)ere
 
 &tmospi)ere 
 
 In its secondary sense atmosphere is a word 
 which is only lately come into common use. 
 The artists, I suppose, have introduced it and 
 given it currency. Atmosphere is to fact what 
 the bloom is to the grape, — the mark of im- 
 maculate perfection, imperceptible to the 
 casual or careless glance, yet full of wonder 
 and charm to the thoughtful observer. At- 
 mosphere is the aroma of spirit, the aura or 
 emanation of being; and he is a happy artist 
 who has the least command of such a perish- 
 able finish for his work. 
 
 One sees so often a picture or piece of sculp- 
 ture, immensely clever, apt, refined, full of 
 dignity, graceful in proportion, restful in line, 
 of rich and harmonious colour, the idea trans- 
 
 291
 
 Wfyz ftf nstjf n of Kature 
 
 ferred to the very life, and yet one can say of 
 it: "Yes, but it has no atmosphere!" And 
 there is the fatal sentence pronounced. Again, 
 you come upon a creation which seems upon 
 scrutiny to be a tissue of faults. There is noth- 
 ing right about it; bad colour, bad drawing, 
 false execution, slovenly technique; yet some- 
 how, in spite of all that, even so poor a thing 
 as this may tug at your sympathy; it may be 
 able to cast a glamour over you for the mo- 
 ment, for all its badness. It may have atmos- 
 phere. True, this is unlikely, and a touch 
 of atmosphere alone will not save a poor crea- 
 tion. Yet, how welcome, how delightful it is! 
 In people, too, as well as in facts and ob- 
 jects, atmosphere counts for so much. There 
 are many personalities, only too many, in 
 whom it is lacking. They are excellent, even 
 irreproachable, citizens, and exemplary 
 friends maybe; but they are purely negative 
 or neutral; they seem to be invested with not 
 a particle of mysterious envelopment which 
 lends glamour to the individual, and irradiates 
 
 292
 
 the character. Without atmosphere there may 
 be force, directness, even beauty, but the ut- 
 most reach of power will be wanting. The 
 hard light of character needs to be somewhat 
 diffused and tempered by an atmospheric 
 quality in its expression. And since expres- 
 sion is a matter of art, one is almost tempted 
 to say that art consists in the creation of atmos- 
 phere. Be as faithful to reality (or to ro- 
 mance) as you please, but surround your 
 transcription with an atmosphere; bestow 
 upon it the magic air and colour which are 
 its own indeed, but which shall still convince 
 and transport us beyond the actual. 
 
 "The little more, and how much it is; 
 The little less, and what worlds away." 
 
 In matters of art it is " the little more " 
 which is so all important; and the absolute 
 reproduction of an incident or an object, if 
 such a feat were possible, would mean some- 
 thing very like failure. 
 
 Also the painter is in danger of seeing too 
 
 293
 
 £J)e iiiustjtjj of Nature 
 
 much. He half closes his eyes for fear of 
 seeing things exactly as they are. He would 
 preserve the charm of atmosphere at all costs. 
 He must either add something of his own to 
 the canvas, or omit the minuteness of detail 
 in his rendering of a subject, in order to ar- 
 rest the air and the illusion of nature. But 
 at all hazards he will avoid what science 
 would count the truth. Your line must have 
 just sufficient indecision to betray (I should 
 say, to reveal) the human hand that drew it. 
 For this is the touch of living sympathy, more 
 important than the dead accuracy of the ma- 
 chine. To transfer to canvas or print some- 
 thing of the vitality of the original is the first 
 concern of the craftsman, the more nearly 
 exact the better, but living at all costs. We 
 are apt to forget that the circle and the straight 
 line are mathematical fictions, forms of speech 
 which have been approached but never real- 
 ized in a material world. For to apprehend 
 absolute perfection is not given to man, though 
 he be a prince of artists; while ever to strive 
 
 294
 
 SUmosjJtjcrc 
 
 after that apprehension is one of his most 
 delightful joys. The pursuit of the unattain- 
 able is the piety of art. 
 
 To create an atmosphere, to produce an 
 illusion, having been always the artist's prime 
 aim and most elementary need, it follows that 
 in every art there have been evolved its own 
 peculiar laws which facilitate and enforce 
 that object. In poetry, for instance, versifica- 
 tion, with all its complex beauty of rhythms 
 and metres, helps to enshroud the theme with 
 atmosphere. I had almost said that versifica- 
 tion provides the atmosphere. For although 
 it is so easy to be hopelessly banal in verse, 
 there must still cling even to the worst poetry 
 some of the inalienable charm of numbers. A 
 foreigner at least might hear it with satisfac- 
 tion. 
 
 So that if a man will abandon verse, and 
 betake himself, as he fondly says, to the free- 
 dom of prose, he will find the burden of art 
 laid upon him more than twice as heavy as 
 
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 W§t 2tins1)i|) of Katttrt 
 
 before. He is cast utterly upon his own re- 
 sources, and yet the obligations of his art are 
 not diminished one jot. There is the same old 
 tale of illusion and atmosphere to be made up, 
 and not a shred of material in stock. One 
 thinks of prose as the simplest, most natural 
 means of expression, and of poetry as laboured 
 in comparison. I fancy, however, that if we 
 could interrogate those who have been masters 
 of both arts, we should find the reverse to be 
 true. " Prose is toil," they would say, " while 
 poetry is play." 
 
 At all events, there is atmosphere in form; 
 and it is the engrossing business of the artist 
 to manipulate his form, to humour it, to coax 
 it, to compel it, to woo it, so as to make it yield 
 the greatest possible amount of atmosphere for 
 his purpose. Tn all this he must take care 
 to call to his aid every available resource of 
 his craft. Tn the first place he must enlist the 
 sympathetic help of words by using them 
 kindly and rightly according to their nature 
 
 296
 
 and genius, and as they belong, and not antag- 
 onize them by misapplication. I have known 
 writers who established a reputation for great 
 cleverness simply by the misuse of words. 
 Their style was called original. It was. For 
 pure unmitigated cruelty to our tiny, long- 
 suffering servants, these patient words, it was 
 unmatched. Now a man who will mutilate 
 his mother tongue merely to display his own 
 agility is no better than a heathen. It is so 
 needless, too. For to the generous and sedu- 
 lous master, what revelations of undreamed 
 beauty, what marvels of import, will not words 
 impart? 
 
 I would not speak as a pedant, nor as a 
 dilettante, on this topic, but only as a sober 
 bystander in this great gallery of art, this 
 lovely world which we are permitted to 
 wander through. I see how much things are 
 enhanced in my eyes by the atmosphere that 
 surrounds them ; I see how naked and poverty- 
 stricken they appear without it; and I say to 
 myself, " I love atmosphere, in art and in life. 
 
 >*7
 
 ED* Irtnsijip of Katttre 
 
 I will surround myself with it, whenever I 
 can do so unselfishly. And if I were an artist 
 of any sort, it is atmosphere that I should seek 
 first of all." 
 
 THE END. 
 
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