6 Outlook to Nature 



are clear gain to the world, and we may expect 

 them to endure. 



This rise of affairs has emphasized the con- 

 trasts of business and of home. Machinery 

 and intricacy belong to affairs ; but a plainer 

 and directer mental attitude should belong to 

 our personal and private hours. The effective 

 simplicity is not the lessening of physical 

 conveniences and aids, but the absence of 

 complex desires in eating and dress and enter- 

 tainment and accessories, and in a native atti- 

 tude toward life. 



Perhaps our greatest specific need is a whole- 

 some return to nature in our moments of lei- 

 sure, all the more important now that the 

 moments of leisure are so few. This return to 

 nature is by no means a cure-all for the ills of 

 civilization, but it is one of the means of restor- 

 ing the proper balance and proportion in our 

 lives. It stands for the antithesis of acting and 

 imitation, for a certain pause and repose, for a 

 kind of spiritual temper, for the development 

 of the inner life as contrasted with the exter- 

 nals. 



