THE GOSPEL OF NATURE 



to go and where I knew every particle of the reeking, 

 fetid fluid would soon be made sweet and whole- 

 some again by the chemistry of the soil ! 



II 



I am not always in sympathy with nature-study 

 as pursued in the schools, as if this kingdom could 

 be carried by assault. Such study is too cold, too 

 special, too mechanical; it is likely to rub the bloom 

 off Nature. It lacks soul and emotion; it misses the 

 accessories of the open air and its exhilarations, the 

 sky, the clouds, the landscape, and the currents of 

 life that pulse everywhere. 



I myself have never made a dead set at studying 

 Nature with note-book and field-glass in hand. I 

 have rather visited with her. We have walked to- 

 gether or sat down together, and our intimacy grows 

 with the seasons. What I have learned about her 

 ways I have learned easily, almost unconsciously, 

 while fishing or camping or idling about. My desult- 

 ory habits have their disadvantages, no doubt, but 

 they have their advantages also. A too strenuous 

 pursuit defeats itself. In the fields and woods more 

 than anywhere else all things come to those who 

 wait, because all things are on the move, and are 

 sure sooner or later to come your way. 



To absorb a thing is better than to learn it, and 

 we absorb what we enjoy. We learn things at 

 school, we absorb them in the fields and woods and 



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