The Love of Nature 
hand has not obliterated Nature’s intentions, 
so devoid of attraction that the sensitive eye 
and mind cannot enjoy them keenly. 
Admiration, says a French writer on art, 
“ is the active, aesthetic form of curiosity.” 
And this means that he who really admires 
the works of God will be lovingly curious 
about the hyssop on the wall as well as about 
the cedar of Lebanon, and will see more to 
please him in a rough bit of pasture-land 
than the average person sees in a whole fertile 
valley. Who can love Nature better than 
the landscape-painter, spending his whole 
life in the effort to transfer her features to 
his canvas? But no one is less in need 
than the landscape-painter of what is called 
scenery. It is not he who greatly prefers 
the canon of the Yellowstone to the banks of 
the little river near at hand. When he is 
brought face to face with scenic grandeurs 
he appreciates them more keenly than any- 
one else, but he gladly comes back to his 
quiet plains, his placid pools, his little forest- 
glades. Nor is it merely because these 
things are better fitted for painting than 
grander things. Any little corner of the 
