PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA 37 



strife. This was true of the old world ; it is much more true of the 

 new, especially in recent years. There is a growing interest in. wild 

 things and wild places. The benedicite of the Druid woods, always 

 appreciated by the few, like Lowell, is coming to be understood by 

 the many. There is an increasing desire to get away from the roar 

 and rattle of the streets, away from even the prime formality of 

 suburban avenues and artificial bits of landscape gardening into the 

 panorama of woodland, field, and stream. Men with means are dis- 

 posing of their palatial residences in the city and moving to real 

 homes in the country, where they can see the sunrise and the death 

 of day, hear the rhythm of the rain and the murmur of the wind, 

 and watch the unfolding of the first flowers of spring. Cities are 

 purchasing large parks where the beauties of nature are merely 

 accentuated, not marred. . States and the nation are setting big tracts 

 of wilderness where rock and rill, waterfall and canon, mounta^ i 

 and marsh, shell-strewn beach and starry-blossomed brae, flowerful 

 islets and wondrous wooded hills welcome the populace, soothe tired 

 nerves and mend the mind and the morals. These are encouraging 

 signs of the times. At last we are beginning to understand, with 

 Emerson, that he who knows what sweets and virtues are in the 

 ground, the waters, the plants, the heavens, and how to come at 

 these enchantments is the rich and royal man. It is as if some new 

 prophet had arisen in the land, crying, "Ho/everyone that is worn 

 and weary, come ye to the woodlands ; and he that hath no money 

 let him feast upon these things which are really rich and abiding." 

 While we are making New Year resolves let us resolve to spend 

 less time with shams, more with realities; less with dogma, more 

 with sermons in stones; less with erotic novels and baneful jour- 

 nals, more with the books in the running brooks; listening less 

 readily to gossip and malice, more willing to the tongues in trees ; 

 spending more pleasureful hours in the music of bird and breeze, 

 rippling rivers, and laughing leaves ; less time with cues and cards 

 and colored comics, more with cloud and star, fish and field, and 

 forest. "The cares that infest the day" shall fall like the burden 

 from Christian's back as we watch the fleecy clouds or the silver 

 stars mirrored in the waveless waters. We shall call the constella- 

 tions by their names and become on speaking terms with the luring 

 voices of the forest fairyland. We shall "thrill with the resurrection 

 called spring," and steep our senses in the fragrance of the flowers ; 

 glory in the gushing life of summer, sigh at the sweet sorrows of 

 autumn, and w r ax virile in winter's strength of storm and snow. 

 "Some Winter Days in Iowa," pp. 9-11. 



