REGARD WOOD FOLK'S HOMES NEAR TO NATURE THE SAME AS OUR OWN. 



We would not feel comfortable if a big barbarian came into our quiet home, broke 

 the door down, whacked his war-club on the furniture, and whooped his battle yell. We 

 could hardly be natural under the circumstances. Our true dispositions would hide them- 

 selves. We might even vacate the house bodily. Just so Wood Folk. Only as you copy 

 their ways can you expect to share their life and their secrets. — William J. Long in 'Se- 

 crets of the Woods/' 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



EDUCATION AND RECREATION 



VOL II 



APRIL, 1910 



No. 12 



Rev. William J. Long's Homes and Work 



BY EDWARD F. B1GELOW, SOUND BEACH, CONNECTICUT 

 (Continued from Last Month) 



r has been his custom for 

 many years, in a life of 

 constant hard work, to go 

 to the great north woods 

 every summer or winter 

 for his vacation. "You 

 study there, of course?" 

 I suggested, thinking of 

 his long training as a student. "If I 

 do, it is unconscious, "he answered, 

 "and I never think of it as animal 

 study. In fact you cannot go to 

 nature with a gun and hold her 

 up, and make her give you a 

 fact or tell you a story. When I go to 

 the woods I go for a vacation, and then 

 I write for others my vacation interest. 

 Life there is simple and very quiet, and 

 as close to the ground as possible. It 



tween me and mother earth. The 

 point is, that a man must get the spirit 

 as well as the body of a thing before 



get the 



he understands it. And to 



spirit of a man or an animal, or even of 



mother earth, is not so much a matter 



of observation as of keeping one's 



heart open, that the spirit may enter 



in." 



"Rather pantheistic," I suggested. 



"I suppose so," he said, "but to me 

 all nature is alive and responsive. 

 Even the trees seem half conscious. 

 In fact, I cannot bring myself to cut 

 down a good tree. In the winter, 

 when I am off in the far north and a 

 fire means life, I never cut a living 

 tree if I can find a dead one. With 

 nothing but trees for a hundred miles 

 may seem the wildest kind of a theory on every side of me, I often go poking 

 to you, but I never like to wear rub- around for half an hour before I can 

 bers which are non-conductors, be- find just the useless trees that will do 



Copyright 1910 by The Agassiz Association, Arcadia : Sound Beach, Conn. 



