that reflects in the least upon its reality and [;enuine- 

 ness. It may be only the appropriation by the c(jm- 

 mon people of the world that the scientists have dis- 

 covered to us ; it may be a popular reaction against 

 the conventionality of the eighteenth century ; or 

 the result of our growing wealth and leisure ; or a 

 fashion set by Thoreau and Burroughs, — one or all 

 of these may account for its origin ; but nothing 

 can explain the movement away, or hinder us from 

 being borne by it out, at least a little way, under 

 the open of heaven, to the great good of body and 

 soul. 



Among the cultural influences of our times that 

 have developed the proportions of a movement, this 

 so-called nature movement is peculiarly American. 

 No such general, widespread turning to the out-of- 

 doors is seen anywhere else ; no other such body of 

 nature literature as ours ; no other people so close 

 to nature in sympathy and understanding, because 

 there is no other people of the same degree of culture 

 living so close to the real, wild out-of-doors. 



The extraordinary interest in the out-of-doors is 

 not altogether a recent acquirement. We inherited it. 

 Nature study is an American habit. What else had 



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