WHAT WE LOSE AND WHAT WE 

 GAIN 



WHEN the prisoners were released from 

 the Bastille by the mob, it is said that 

 some of the old men begged to be allowed to 

 return to their cells ; they had become so ac- 

 customed to darkness and confinement that 

 they dreaded the open air. The man who can 

 find nothing but ennui in the fields is an illus- 

 tration of the same curious phenomenon the 

 loss of appreciation of what is best in life. For 

 several years I have been harping upon this 

 theme; I have preached in season and out of 

 season, that open-air life is the right one, and 

 that any man who ties himself down for eight 

 or ten hours a day the year round to a desk is 

 paying too much for the money he earns ; and 

 I have done this without, so far as I know, 

 making a single convert. I have preached 

 country life and country work until some of 



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