TWENTIETH ANNUAL MEETING. 43 



lady with the Champlain sunsets; or difficulties, as^hose presented by the 

 New Hampshire stones and stumps to the farmer; or speculative greed, as 

 that which possesses tree murderers of many sections of our country, have 

 power to blind the eyes to the beauty and deaden the feelings to the uses 

 of beauty in natural scenery. 



And yet this love and appreciation of beauty seems to be inherent in the 

 race. The longing of the Dakota settler for a sight of the trees that waved 

 their friendly boughs about his earlier home; the growing demand of city 

 bred men for homes in the suburbs, where, after the day's work is done, 

 they may flee to a refuge from the barren life of a great metropolis; the 

 more and more prevailing fashion of yearly outings by lake or seaside or 

 amid the mountains; the longing love of the westerner by adoption for the 

 old New England home — 



" I love thy rocks and rills, 

 Thy woods and templed hills;" 



all these seem to show that deprivation, memory, and the perspective which 

 time and distance lend, open the eyes and the hearts to the charm, and 

 perhaps the lessons which grow, too often, stale with use and difficulty. 

 Yet there is room for discussion here. How much is a love of nature for 

 her own sake, and now much comes from association with other things 

 beloved — home, native land, or some beloved person? Old John Byrom's 

 pastoral pleases me much. "Colin," temporarily bereft of his "Phoebe," 

 thus makes moan: 



"When walking with Phoebe what sights I have seen; 

 How fair was the flower, how fresh was the green! 

 What a lovely appearance the trees and the shade, 

 The cornfields and hedges and everything made! 

 But now she has left me, tho' all are still here. 

 They none of them now so delightful appear; 

 ' Twas naught but the magic, I find, of her eyes 

 Made so many beautiful prospects arise. " 



It would appear that " the eye sees what it brings." It depends on us, 

 our quality, our mood, the purpose of our association with nature, what 

 front she shall present to us. 



" To him who, in the love of nature. 

 Holds communion with her visible forms, 

 She speaks a various language." 



The greatest poets love her. They see something of her meaning and 

 help to open our eyes. Roberts Burns was and is the people's poet, 

 because he could see the beauty and human meaning in every humblest 

 element of nature's boundless whole. His tender, regretful apostrophe to 

 the mountain daisy, — 



" Wee, modest, crimson tipped flower," 

 and to the little field mouse, 



" Wee, sleekit, cowerin ', tim'rous beastie — " 



disturbed by his plow, touch us — we love such poets, and nature through 

 them. But not all who frequent the rural districts see through his eyes. 

 Many, like another poet, long to be 



" As free as nature's first made man. 

 Ere the base laws of servitude began. 

 When wild in woods the noble savage ran." 



