204 LOVERS OF NATURE 



rest and recreation from study, or seeking solace 

 from grief and disappointment, or as a refuge 

 from the frivolity 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 na- 

 ture, the pleasure in cattle, horses, bees, grow- 

 ing crops, manual labor, sugar- making, garden- 

 ing, harvesting, and the rural quietness and 

 repose. 



Lastly we go to nature for solitude and for 

 communion with our own souls. Nature at- 

 tunes us to a higher and finer mood. This 

 love springs from our religious needs and in- 

 stincts. This was the love of Thoreau, of 

 Wordsworth, and has been the inspiration 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 poetry, 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 moun- 

 tains, of lonely tarns, of sounding waterfalls, — 

 " Who looked upon the hills with tenderness, 

 And made dear friendships with the streams and groves.*' 



