us to give all our time and
strength to these immediate, practical ends, and to neglect that closer
walk with Nature which is essential to a true appreciation of her
loveliness. Someone asks us "What is the use of spending your time with
the birds among the trees, or on the hill-top under the stars?" and we
cannot give him an answer in dollars and cents. And so we are tempted to
take his simple standard of utility in ministering to physical wants as
the standard of all worth. We neglect Nature, and she hides her face
from our preoccupied eyes. In this busy, restless age we need to keep
ever in mind Wordsworth's warning against this fatal temptation:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

THE VICE OF DEFECT.

This obtuseness does not come upon us suddenly. All children keenly
appreciate the changing moods of Nature. It is from neglect to open our
hearts to Nature, that obtuseness comes. It steals over us
imperceptibly. We can correct it only by giving ourselves more closely
and constantly to Nature, and trusting her to win back to herself our
benumbed and alienated hearts.

THE VICE OF EXCESS.

+Affectation the attempt to work up by our own efforts an enthusiasm for
Nature.+--True love of Nature must be born within us, by the working of
Nature herself upon our hearts. By faith, rather than by works; by
reception, rather than by conquest; by wise passiveness, rather than by
restless haste; by calm and silence, rather than by noise and talk, our
sensitiveness to Nature's charms is deepened and developed. That
enjoyment of Nature which comes spontaneously and unsought is the only
true enjoyment. That which we work up, and plan for, and talk about, is
a poor and feeble imitation. The real lover of Nature is not the one who
can talk glibly about her to everybody, and on all occasions. It is he
who loves to be alone with her, who steals away from men and things to
find solitude with her the best society, who knows not whence cometh nor
whither goeth his delight in her companionship, who waits patiently in
her presence, and is content whether she gives or withholds her special
favors, who cares more for Nature herself than for this or that striking
sensation she may arouse. Affectation is the craving for sensations
regardless of their source. And if Nature