EDITORIAL AND GENERAL 



117 



time that the antique farmhouse had 

 been photographed, and I thought the 

 owner would be grateful. Imagine my 

 surprise when some of the neighbors 

 told me later that he called me all sorts 

 of names, and said everything against 

 me that he could think of, knowing 

 that what I had done was the outcrop- 

 ping of the innate rascality that he had 

 observed in my boyhood. "It is 

 bad enough." he said, "to be forced to 

 live in an old farmhouse and not to 

 have an up-to-date house, but it is 

 worse to be twitted about it and have it 

 thrown in my face in the form of a 

 photograph by a fellow who lives in the 

 city. 



He had not only been living in 

 beauty and surrounded by beauty with- 

 out knowing it, but was resentful when 

 by the aid of the camera I attempt- 

 ed to tell him the facts of the situation. 

 I almost envied him for living in such 

 a house. It was so quaint, so pictur- 

 esque, so attractive, but he evidently 

 regarded it as ugly and as an evil to be 

 endured, longing to escane to the city 

 for a finer residence. 



But is he alone in this? Are there 

 not plenty of people living in this old, 

 old world in a very paradise of beauty 

 and amid lovely memories of the past, 

 who are longing to go to some other 

 paradise, or some holy city, or some 

 beautiful mansion in some land of the 

 blest? And yet when someone tells 

 such a person that the beauty sur- 

 rounding him is the very perfection of 

 beauty that the Infinite God knows 

 how to make, he resents it. Sometimes 

 he says to the sneaker, "Why. are you 

 a materialist? Don't you know this is 

 a vale of tears?" 



Don't you know that this was pro- 

 duced by an Infinite Eather for you? 

 He wants you to use it as it is 

 and to appreciate the fact that it is 

 as it is. Probably Browning had that 

 thought in mind when he said, "God 

 must be glad one loves His world so 

 much." If I had been the one who 

 placed that friend of my boyhood in 

 that old farmhouse in that particular 

 position in life, I should not have been 

 pleased when I learned that he gets 

 mad because some one tells him that 

 his residence is a marvel of beauty, and 

 that he should be contented with it. 

 enjoy it as it is and not be everlast- 



ingly envious of a city house. When 

 one who appreciates the beauties of 

 this world as they are, and tries by 

 camera and by words to show that they 

 are the best in existence, and, so far 

 as we know, never to be excelled by 

 anything better adapted to our capac- 

 ities at the time, many an auditor 

 either laughs to scorn or becomes con- 

 temotuous when the beauty is shown 

 to him. But there are others, and I am 

 thankful to say they are not few in 

 number, who are grateful when the 

 charms and the beauties of the earth 

 are shown to them. 



Darwin realized that it is possible to 

 become so calloused by neglecting to 

 cultivate a natural love for the beau- 

 tiful, as to be unable to value the pres- 

 ent beauty. He expressed regret that 

 he had lost his taste for poetry and for 

 music. 



Because no one had shown Carlyle 

 the constellations when he was a boy, 

 it aroused his indignation in advanced 

 vears, and he exclaimed regretfully and 

 with a touch of resentment, "Why did 

 not some one teach me the stars when 

 I was a boy?" 



Shall some one, fifty years hence, find 

 fault with you because you, an adult 

 naturalist, did not teach him in his 

 youth to know not only the stars but 

 "the beauties of his surroundings? Not 

 lon°- as:o I tried to interest a business 

 man in our star maps but I only arous- 

 ed his indignation. It was but a par- 

 allel to my sending of the photograoh 

 to the dweller in that old farmhouse — 

 only in one case I was trying to show 

 the beauty of the heavens and in the 

 other case the beauty of an earthlv 

 naradise. Both men pot mad. incred- 

 ible as it may seem. .Wain I met a 

 well-known lawyer in the street last 

 week and he made this remark, "Why, 

 of course, everybody agrees with your 

 The Guide to Nature, or at least they 

 could not disagree with it. It is s:ood 

 so far as it goes, but it is awfully 

 wishv-washy. You ought to take no 

 real thines that have a vital interest to 

 neonle if you want to make a success- 

 ful maeazine." Then he told me what 

 he reeards as vital interests and sooke 

 of his vivid interest in both the Re- 

 nublican and Democratic conventions. 

 Can it be possible that "such things" 

 are of greater interest to an}- human 



