forgotten. I own much. I will take and utilize these for my eternal blessing." And as you utilize what you have you become both capable and worthy of larger things. Only those who use receive more. "To him that hath shall be given," and these are the things that all may have and that bless more abundantly than any other things mankind may possess. Most of us go through life missing what Nature has for us. In one of Sienkiewicz's books he makes one of his characters say of his betrothed, I gaze on Nature, too, and feel it; but she shows me things which I should not notice myself. A couple of days ago, we all went into the forest, where she showed me ferns in the sun, for instance. They are so delicate! She taught me also that the trunks of pine-trees, especially in the evening light, have a violet tone. She opens my eyes to colors which I have not seen hitherto, and, like a kind of enchantress going through the forest, discloses new worlds to me. me." Reread these two sentences: "She shows me things which I should not notice myself," and "She opens my eyes and discloses new worlds to The world's beauty is so common to us that we forget it. Nothing is commoner than the stars, yet nothing more mysterious, wonderful, and attractive; the grass is so common that we trample it under foot, yet its beauty, its varied features will repay long hours of study, and it is a joy unspeakable to those who have learned to love it. It is in the common things that we should look for beauty, for lessons in color, in art, in criticism. One of the great students and teachers of art of our country once wrote a book entitled The Gate Beautiful. It was the result of a life of concentrated study upon true art. Whence comes true art? What is it? How shall one know it when he sees it? The result of all Dr. Stimson's study, placed in that wonderful book, summed up in short is study Nature, and you will there learn more than all the books and teachers of art can tell you in a thousand years. The author shows by remarkable illustrations spiral vibrations made by the voice, the natural forms of mineralogy, mechanics, astronomy, seeds, fruit, vegetables, fish, reptiles, insects, birds, beasts, flowers, and humanity. He shows the exquisite beauty of snow crystals, and of the minute forms of earliest life, found in the diatoms. He sets forth the beauty of leaf and stem in the commonest trees, in shells, etc., until one wonders where his eyes have been, where his appreciation of beauty, in all the years that these things have not appealed to him. Nature is so flooded with beauty that more than one lifetime will be necessary for any one man to discover the half of it. So because of its beauty I want the men and women who come in contact with me to feel in me a pulsing, living, active, irresistible love for Nature which will draw them out into it; arouse in them an insatiable longing to see and know, to feel and comprehend more of the rich beauty so freely exposed out of doors. The out-of-doors, too, is full of beauty of color as well as beauty in form. Oh, the sunrises and sunsets at sea, and on the desert, and in the canyons, and on the mountain heights, and on the great plains of Arizona and New Mexico and Utah. What colorist of earth can ever equal them? Titian? Tintoretto? Velasquez? Turner? La Farge? Reid? Why waste words asking the questions? How tame is Titian's greatest coloreffects side by side with a sunrise on the ocean, or a sunset on the desert! Bostonians are proud of Reid's magnificent paintings in the State House. I enjoy them myself and do not wonder that visitors are struck by the powerful color-handling of the interesting historical subjects. But Mr. Reid himself is not so foolish as to imagine that his greatest paintings are more than futile attempts to put on canvas the colors his eyes have seen, his soul has felt, out in the open. So, for color I would radiate a love for out-of-doors. And I would radiate a love for all of out-ofdoors at all times. Winter, Summer, Spring, Autumn, in rain and sunshine, in storm and calm, there is something in every condition, every mood for the men and women who are receptive. When I see newly born infants shut out from the pure air, their faces covered, "lest they take cold," I am filled with amazement at people's fear of outof-doors. My babies were put to sleep out-ofdoors half an hour after they were born. The latest and most approved methods of treating tuberculosis is to make those afflicted with it sleep out of doors. There are camps in Michigan and in the snowy regions of New York, in the Adirondacks, where, throughout the Winter, patients sleep out of doors with the best of results. Be not afraid. Go out of doors as does the Indian. Learn of him and be wise. He is a believer in the virtue of the outdoor life, not as an occasional thing, but as his regular, uniform habit. He lives out of doors; and not only does his body remain in the open, but his mind, his soul, are ever also there. Except in the very cold weather his house is free to every breeze that blows. He laughs at "drafts." 66 Catching cold" is something of which he knows absolutely nothing. When he learns of white people shutting themselves up in houses into which the fresh, pure, free air of the plains and deserts, often laden with the healthful odors of the pines, firs, and balsams of the forest, cannot come, he shakes his head at the folly, and feels as one would if he saw a man slamming his door in the face of his best friend. Virtually he sleeps out of doors, eats out of doors, works out of doors. When the women make their baskets and pottery, it is always out of doors, and their best beadwork is always done in the open. The men make their bows and arrows, dress their buckskin, make their moccasins and buckskin clothes, and perform nearly all their ceremonials out-of-doors. I wish I could radiate to every human soul what I mean by having one's mind, one's soul, live in the open. Words fail to convey what I mean. The sense of largeness, of expansion, of breadth, depth, width, and height are as tangible in soul-results as in those of body. None can live in the open all the time and become sordid money-grubbers. If they are to become rich they do it in a large, expansive, virile way that commands respect. It is only the shut-in man that can add to his millions by cheese-paring methods, by grinding the face of the poor, by counting up cents and nickels and dimes wrung from the labor of the children of the poor. Read these lines from a wonderful poem of the out-of-doors by Edwin Markham, and see how much you can make it mean to yourself: I ride on the mountain tops, I ride; I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forget All the terror and pain Of the chafing chain. |