io 4 NATURE IN A CITY YARD 



to be, but close and lovable and as near 

 frank as it can be in silence. Its magnifi- 

 cences are human. 



Say, rather, our humanity still finds it- 

 self a brother to it. Carlyle and some 

 others who are interested only in men 

 complain if one writes of scenery : as if 

 Thoreau's rhapsodies and Burroughs's stud- 

 ies and Blackmore's descriptions were not 

 as well worth the effort as Carlyle's dys- 

 peptic grumbles at the very fellows who 

 entertain him. The vanity of men in 

 claiming to be all ! As if there would be 

 no bears or turtles to enjoy the world if 

 man were not on hand to oversee them ! 

 Man's study is himself? Well, perhaps; 

 but how can he know himself if he fails to 

 know that grander, finer, more enduring 

 creation that has spawned him on this drift- 

 ing globule of matter ? In nature we touch 

 life. The world's creation's vital juices 

 course in every sapling. In the animals 

 who have shaken their roots loose and 

 gambol among the fields those juices are 

 stronger than among those who have walled 

 and shedded themselves away from the 



