NATURE AND THE CITY. 313 



largely in cities. Yet Cobbett lived when young in 

 the country; and that is the only way, after all, to learn 

 to love Nature to become familiar with her in one's 

 childhood. "Youth is the only season for enjoyment," 

 says George Borrow (that genuine lover of the coun- 

 try), in "The Romany Rye," "and the first twenty-five 

 years of one's life are worth all the rest of the longest 

 life of man." Do you remember how Jefferies, when 

 forced to live in London, longed for the country? A 

 recent American writer, too, Mr. Charles M. Skinner, 

 in his "Nature in a City Yard," laments that he is 

 forced to live in the city. "I would live in the coun- 

 try," he says, "but I am compelled to live in the city." 



The great men of the world have, with but rare 

 exceptions, always loved the country. Most of the 

 permanent and beautiful literature in every language 

 is upon Nature and the country life. These are the 

 masterpieces that live. The Bible is full of outdoors; 

 Homer and Virgil would be nothing but a babble 

 about the gods were it no? for their perennial inspira- 

 tion from the things of earth and sky (and these, the 

 phenomena of creation, change not, nor our poetic ap- 

 preciation of them, in all the centuries) ; Dante is 

 nearly as replete with natural comparisons as are the 

 Greeks and Romans; Shakespeare uses Nature as a 

 background for his human drama. 



Do you recollect this saying in the recently discov- 

 ered "Logia" of Jesus? 



"Raise the stone and there thou shalt find Me; cleave the 

 wood and there I am." 



Well, the man of the cities has never felt that, for 

 he has never known that particular phase of life. 



