d insistently of all when I am
uneasy, overstrained, and melancholy. No! the only thing to do is to
live one's life without reference to it, to be thankful when it comes,
and to be contented when it is withdrawn.

I sometimes think that a great deal of stuff is both written and talked
about the beauties of nature. By this I do not mean for a moment that
nature is less beautiful than is supposed, but that many of the
rapturous expressions one hears and sees used about the enjoyment of
nature are very insincere; though it is equally true on the other hand
that a great deal of genuine admiration of natural beauty is not
expressed, perhaps hardly consciously felt. To have a true and deep
appreciation of nature demands a certain poetical force, which is rare;
and a great many people who have a considerable power of expression,
but little originality, feel bound to expend a portion of this upon
expressing an admiration for nature which they do not so much actually
feel as think themselves bound to feel, because they believe that
people in general expect it of them.

But on the other hand there is, I am sure, in the hearts of many quiet
people a real love for and delight in the beauty of the kindly earth,
the silent and exquisite changes, the influx and efflux of life, which
we call the seasons, the rich transfiguring influences of sunrise and
sunset, the slow or swift lapse of clear streams, the march and plunge
of sea-billows, the bewildering beauty and aromatic scents of those
delicate toys of God which we call flowers, the large air and the sun,
the star-strewn spaces of the night.

Those who are fortunate enough to spend their lives in the quiet
country-side have much of this tranquil and unuttered love of nature;
and others again, who are condemned by circumstances to spend their
days in toilsome towns, and yet have the instinct, derived perhaps from
long generations of country forefathers, feel this beauty, in the short
weeks when they are enabled to approach it, more poignantly still.

FitzGerald tells a story of how he went to see Thomas Carlyle in
London, and sate with him in a room at the top of his house, with a
wide prospect of house-backs and chimney-pots; and how the sage reviled
and vituperated the horrors of city life, and yet left on FitzGerald's
mind the impression that perhaps after all he did not really wish to
leave it.

The fact remains, however, that a love of nature is part of the panoply
of cult