THE SOUL OF NATURE 163 



Certain of us huddle into cities to shut out 

 the sight of woods and hills, saying : "A 

 god is there. Eternity is symbolized yon- 

 der. Let us get together and deal with 

 our affairs, of which gods and eternity are 

 not yet part." 



Yet we are compelled back, every now 

 and again ; for it is food and breath and 

 physical life that we have out of nature, 

 even where there is no joy or brightness. 

 Like wine, it can exhilarate and debauch ; 

 but, unlike wine, we cannot live without it. 

 Every normal temperament pines for the 

 earth at times, and art is only a form of 

 this longing, so far as it concerns itself 

 with landscape. The painter tells it on 

 canvas; we hear it in the Waldweben of 

 Wagner and the "Pastoral Symphony" of 

 Beethoven ; among modern writers Thack- 

 eray is almost alone in being without it 

 he preferred the streets ; but it is voiced 

 in clear and beautiful tones by Thoreau, 

 Emerson, Wordsworth, Blackmore, Bur- 

 roughs, Black, of Scotland; White, of Sel- 

 borne; Miss Thomas, and Miss Murfree. 

 Hawthorne exclaims: " Oh, that I could run 



