THE LANDSCAPE BEAUTIFUL 



sanitative power. When a man's brains or 

 nerves have become so clogged or worn by 

 city excitements that they can no longer 

 perform their functions, he goes back to the 

 fields and woods to be renovated. A wise 

 man takes regular baths to keep his body 

 clean. The mind, which is more sensitive 

 to all disturbances than the body, needs 

 equally regular ablutions. Parks are put 

 into cities for this very sort of sanitative 

 service which they are able to render. 



The power of environment upon every 

 living species has come to be accepted as 

 a fundamental law of life. There are those, 

 indeed, who read into this principle the 

 whole law, and who assert that it accounts 

 for everything. Environment certainly 

 does exercise an almost unlimited influence, 

 no less upon human life than upon the con- 

 stitution of a moUusk or the form of an 

 orchid. And in this all but all-powerful 

 environment what part does the landscape 

 play for us? Is it not, in fact, the principal 

 part? For we are environed night and day, 

 from birth till death, by the landscape. 



Its power may be judged further from 

 its effects. Compare the people of Switzer- 

 land with those of Holland. What makes 



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