24 With Rod and Gun in New England 



s 



We often undergo all sorts of hardships and privations, yet we return to 

 the wilderness, year after year, with all the ardor and enthusiasm that we 

 first felt, and we shall probably never lose our love for it." 



" I suppose, Judge," said I, "that it is a natural instinct which is pos- 

 sessed by every one ; life in civilization is artificial, and we all sometimes 

 feel the inclination to yield to the charms which Nature presents to us ; 

 possibly it is a demand that our physical systems unconsciously make 

 which calls us into such a life as this. We cannot surely with impu- 

 nity always set aside the natural laws as we too often do in modern life, 

 and we must accept our outing as an antidote for some of the evils of civ- 

 ilization ; you, Doctor, must have had many opportunities in your prac- 

 tice to observe the baleful effects of our artificial life." 



" Opportunities," replied the Doctor, " my practice gives me an almost 

 endless series of them ; man in civilization is the best example of the evil 

 effects of antagonism to Nature one can find. Who are to-day among the 

 busiest of workers in the community ? The doctors, the dentists, the 

 oculists ; three fifths of my patients suffer from dyspepsia and its attend- 

 ant evils ; did you ever hear of a dyspeptic savage ? I never did. The 

 number of dentists is increasing to an appalling degree, and yet the teeth 

 of our race seem to fail more and more surely, and it is not unsafe to pre- 

 dict that a coming generation will be toothless ; did you ever hear of a 

 savage with false teeth ? I never did. Oculists are reaping a rich har- 

 vest, for our eyes are going to destruction, and already every tenth person 

 wears or needs glasses ; even young children are met with by the score 

 who cannot see without them. Did you ever see a savage wearing or 

 needing spectacles ? I never did." 



" But, Doctor," I exclaimed, " surely you would not have us return to 

 barbarism, migrate to the tropics, wear clothes cut decollete, and subsist 

 on bananas and cocoanuts " ? 



" Hardly," he replied, with a slight chuckle ; " a general return to prim- 

 itive life is out of the question, of course ; we exist under conditions 

 which we have inherited and elaborated through so many generations that 

 they cannot easily be thrown aside. No, we must endeavor to the best of 

 our abilities to correct the evils which exist, and guard, if we can, against 

 those which are likely to come. We are learning something every day, 

 and by-and-by, perhaps, civilization will have some respect for Nature's 

 laws and will endeavor to live up to them." 



" The fact is," said the Judge, who had been quietly listening to the 

 conversation, " we are as a people living at too rapid a rate ; we are, in 

 the eager scramble for wealth and position, consuming our nervous vitality 

 with fatal haste, and if the struggle can be diverted, even for a period 

 however brief, a great benefaction will be accomplished ; it seems to me 



