OUT-DOOR INFLUENCES IN 
LITERATURE. 
THE earth is the great reservoir of phys- 
ical forces, and whilst no scientist has yet 
been able to discover how intimate or how per- 
fect is the connection between the mental and 
the physical, there exists, no doubt, a correla- 
tion between the processes by which the body 
and the soul are kept healthy and vigorous by 
draughts on the great reserves of Nature. 
One grows tired of books and cloyed with all 
manner of art. Then comes a hunger anda 
thirst for Nature. Real thought-gathering is 
like berry-gathering—one must go to the wild 
vines for the racy-flavored fruit. Art and Na- 
ture are really the antipodes of each other— 
one is original, the other second-hand. When 
we go from the library or the studio to the 
woods and fields, we go to get back what 
Art has robbed us of—the freshness of Nature. 
Art presents compositions; Nature offers the 
original elements. The suggestions of Nature 
come, as the flowers and leaves and breezes 
come—out of the mysterious, invisible gener- 
ator; but Art merely reflects its suggestions 
back upon Nature. 
What genuine poet or novelist has not caught 
his charmingest conceits from some subtle and 
indescribable influence of out-door things? 
In-door poets, like Dante G. Rossetti, always 
lack the dewy freshness of Helicon, the thymy 
fragrance of Hybla, no matter how much of 
