The Defence of Idleness. 229 



something to think' about. This is a wide-spread 

 want, and its value may be measured by its uni- 

 versality. Buried in bricks, the brain will still 

 work, and what wonders has it not wrought when 

 there was no trace of Nature near to cheer it! 

 Books have been written in dungeons, but would 

 this have been possible had the prisoner never 

 wandered in a green field or rambled in a forest ? 



But speak of out-of-doors and Thoreau comes 

 to mind. He was a surveyor, but how much 

 more an idler in the fields ! Was it when he 

 measured the farmers' wood-lots that he nailed to 

 the mast those bright thoughts that have been a 

 help to mankind ever since ? What of the days 

 when, to shield himself from the driving storms, 

 he crouched behind the stone wall ? He thought 

 himself a philosopher then, as he distinctly states, 

 and he was right. The life that is wholly given 

 to manual labor is a life half lost. 



Nature was not limited to the lilies and lobelia 

 to-day. The fields reaching to the far-off woods 

 were bright with golden-rod; there were ivory- 

 white "turtle-heads" clustered in shady nooks, 

 orchids in abundance, purple gerardia, eupatorium, 



20 



