204 RIVERBY 



Later in life we go to nature as an escape from 

 the tension and turmoil of business, or for rest and 

 recreation from study, or seeking solace from grief 

 and disappointment, or as a refuge from the frivol- 

 ity and hypocrisies of society. We lie under trees, 

 we stroll through lanes, or in meadows and pastures, 

 or muse on the shore. Nature "salves" our worst 

 wounds; she heals and restores us. 



Or we cultivate an intellectual pleasure in nature, 

 and follow up some branch of natural science, as 

 botany, or ornithology, or mineralogy. 



Then there is the countryman's love of nature, 

 the pleasure in cattle, horses, bees, growing crops, 

 manual labor, sugar-making, gardening, harvesting, 

 and the rural quietness and repose. 



Lastly, we go to nature for solitude and for com- 

 munion with our own souls. Nature attunes us to 

 a higher and finer mood. This love springs from 

 our religious needs and instincts. This was the love 

 of Thoreau, of Wordsworth, and has been the in- 

 spiration of much modern poetry and art. 



Dr. Johnson said he had lived in London so long 

 that he had ceased to note the changes of the seasons. 

 But Dr. Johnson was not a lover of Nature. Of that 

 feeling for the country of which Wordsworth's po- 

 etry, for instance, is so full, he probably had not a 

 vestige. Think of Wordsworth shut up year in and 

 year out in the city ! That lover of shepherds, of 

 mountains, of lonely tarns, of sounding waterfalls, 



" Who looked upon the hills with tenderness, 

 And made dear friendships with the streams and groves." 



