HOMES NEAR TO NATURE 



175 





Homes near to Nature 



Country, Suburbs and Seashore. 



1M B BB B H 



Volume V OCTOBER 1912 



Number 6 



"Beu-Wil-Ger-Mar" 



By WILLIAM B. BECKLEY, President of the Stamford, Conn. Board of Trade. 

 "Build for yourselves nests of beautiful thoughts." 



OW many of us know 

 where or how to start this 

 building? And when we 

 find that the one place 



HOW many of us know paths, trees, flowers, and the proper 

 where or how to start this placing of buildings and land marks. 



Deep in every breast is hidden not 

 only the desire for the beauties ex- 

 for our building is home, pressed in nature by the hand of man, 

 we wonder that our eyes but the ability to execute them. Retire 

 have not revealed to us to the innermost recesses of your own 

 sooner the one place above all others deep self, and in the quiet of the silent 

 that should express beauty. The how, mid-night watches, plot and plan what 

 then becomes the question. We may you can do with your home surroundings 



have only a small place and sometimes 

 if we have a large place we say, we 

 have not time to bother with flowers 

 and such thing's. Time ! Why, does 



to be happy. These are the interesting 

 thoughts. Plan it all out in your mind 

 and when you have decided, after 

 weighing carefully the pros, and cons. 

 it take time to be happy? Every one of each step, upon a general plan. Work 



has an appreciation of beauty in one 

 form or another. Every one has or 

 should have a home and a happy home. 

 To be a happy home it must be beauti- 

 ful, guaged by some standard. Beauty 

 lies hidden on every hand. The in- 

 ventor and engineer see beautv in cold 

 hard metal, the author in an essay, the 

 artist in a statue or picture, and the 

 naturalist in animals, insects, Mowers, 

 trees and stones, and not content with 

 this earth the astronomer sees it in the 

 stars. 



Ex-President Dwight of Yale Uni- 

 versity gives as his rule for haopiness 

 — "The man is happiest who thinks the 

 most interesting thoughts." Our honk, 

 our nest, is the place to think inter 



with this object in view. Do not ex- 

 pect to do it all at once, but with 

 nature as a model, evolve gradually the 

 entire scheme. Work with an object 

 in view. A laborer directed to carry a 

 pile of stones from one corner of a lot 

 to the opposite corner, when his task 

 was completed rebelled upon being 

 then ordered to carry them back again. 

 He had accomplished what he set out 

 to do and could not bear the thought 

 of immediately undoing the work he 

 bad just completed. Work with an 

 object in view not simply for the sake 

 of working, but to accomplish some- 

 thing. The pictures illustrating this 

 article show a few of the things one 

 man accomplished, who worked with 



esting thoughts, whose expression are an object in view. Tie thought inter- 

 the touches our hand gives to nature. 

 "Nature plus a soul," means beauty of 

 surroundings, whether it be the keen- 

 ing of a box of flowers in a window, 

 trimming a small grass plot, or the 

 wider scope of landscaping, with roads. 



esting thoughts and was happy in 

 working them out. 



As each member of the family loves 

 the beautiful home it seemed fitting 

 that each of their names should anpear 

 as a part of its name. Reulah, mother. 



Copyright 1912 by The Agassiz Association, Arcadia: Sound Beach, Conn. 



