156 With Feet to the Earth 



back to town. Nature claims them, but 

 we deny her call. 



These numbing years in town spoil us 

 for the sane, true life of our fathers. 

 When we go into the country we do not 

 see its wealth of beauty, we do not know 

 that when we fling ourselves face down 

 among the weeds we have enough under 

 us to keep our eyes busy for a sixmonth, 

 we do not realize that serenity may soon 

 allay our vexations : we understand only 

 that there are no theatres, French cooks, or 



ectric lights, that we may be a mile or 



o from any other human being, that, 

 with nobody to talk to, we must even 

 think. Solitude, that is blessed to him who 

 can use it well, is a thing to terrify the cit. 



In the innocence and first- handedness 

 of youth the longing to keep touch with 

 nature finds easiest expression, and Pope, 

 Cowley, Horatdf Herri ck, Jefferies, Tho- 

 reau, Burroughs, and their like said their 

 truest things or set their way most safely 

 when they were new in the world. I re^ 

 member with yearning the sense of arrival 

 at a true, fit place when, as a child, I 



