THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



EDWARD F. BIGELOW, Editor 



Published monthly by The Agassiz Association, ArcAdiA: Sound Beach, Connecticut, 



Subscription, $ 1 .00 a year Single copy, 10 cents 



Entered as Second-Class Matter June 12, 1909, at Sound Beach Post Office, under Act of March 3. 1897. 



Vol 



IX 



JANUARY, 1917 



Number 8 



The Beauty of the Worker and the Work. 



By Edward F. Bigelow, ArcAdiA : Sound Beach. 



E xA. U T Y, like happiness, 

 may be defined, in the terms 

 of the biologist, as adapta- 

 tion to environment The 

 old-timers embodied this in 

 some of their quaint, old- 

 fashioned sayings They 

 recognized that a pig's nose may be 

 beautiful from the sow's point of view, 

 and that in certain places a diamond 

 may be decorative. They used the ex- 

 pression as typical of incongruity when 

 they referred to a thing as being as out 

 of place as a jewel in a pig's snout. 

 Homely? Yes, but true. 



"Blessed are the pure in heart for 

 they shall see God," is but another form 

 of expressing adaptation to environ- 

 ment or specific congruity. It is only 

 the pure that shall know the highest 

 purity. It is only to the merciful that 

 mercy comes ; it is only when we carry 

 in the heart the appreciation of beauty 

 that we see beauty. It is love, not fight 

 nor hatred, that begets love. Blessed 

 is the man who has found his work, 

 because in work is real happiness. 

 Strange, is it not, that human individ- 

 ualities are so diverse, and occupations 

 so varied, yet how beautiful is the eter- 

 nal fitness of things. President Wilson 



and Abraham Lincoln, though rather 

 long faced and rather awkward when 

 engaged in some occupations, are each 

 really beautiful as presidents because 

 each looks like a president, and is a 

 president in nature. Have you ever 

 thought, aside from all questions of 

 the tarifl:', aside from all political dif- 

 ferences, that many people in the pa-^ 

 were not destined to become presidents 

 of the United States because they did 

 not look like presidents? There is a 

 destiny that shapes our ends, even if 

 the faces are hewn rather roughly. 



Walt Whitman sang of the beauty 

 of the colored man on the truck wagoii, 

 because he was beautiful. The man 

 had found his job, and he harmonized 

 with his surroundings. Humor has 

 been defined as the juxtaposition of in- 

 congrous concepts. There may be a 

 joke in things. That is why a circus 

 clown is so funny, even when he says 

 nothing. He does incongrous things, 

 and we recognize the joke. It would 

 be a huge joke if a company of lawyers, 

 ministers or bankers should take pick- 

 ax and shovel, and get into a ditch. 

 Would you not laugh until your sides 

 were tired, at a company like that in 

 such a place. What makes us laugh so 



Copyright 1917 by The Agassiz Association, ArcAdiA: Sound Beach, Conn. 



