he
country.

If every one went to the country and lived the simple life when he was
inclined, the size of European towns would be diminished to very small
proportions. The evil of a town is that it establishes a tyranny and
keeps its people against the people's true desires.

I said to my sceptical friend: "Those who praise the simple life and
those who scoff at it are both very extravagant as a rule. Let the
matter be stated temperately. The tramp does not want a world of
tramps--that would never do. The tramps--better call them the rebels
against modern life--are perhaps only the first searchers for new
life. They know themselves as necessarily only a few, the pioneers.
Let the townsman give the simple life its place. Every one will
benefit by a little more simplicity, and a little more living in
communion with Nature, a little more of the country. I say, 'Come to
Nature altogether,' but I am necessarily misunderstood by those who
feel quickly bored. Good advice for all people is this--live the
simple life as much as you can _till you're bored_. Some people are
soon bored: others never are. Whoever has known Nature once and loved
her will return again to her. Love to her becomes more and more."

But whoever has resolved the common illusions of the meaning of life,
and has seen even in glimpses the naked mystery of our being, finds
that he absolutely must live in the world which is outside city walls.
He wants to explore this desert island in space, and with it to
explore the unending significance of his deathless spirit.

VI

A THING OF BEAUTY IS A JOY FOR EVER

Rostof on the Don is always beautiful when one leaves it to go south.
Nothing can efface from my mind the picture of it as I saw it when
first going to the Caucasus. The sunset illumined it with the hues of
romance. All the multiplicity of its dingy buildings shone as if lit
up from within, and their dank and mouldy greens and blues and yellows
became burning living colours. The town lay spread out upon the high
banks of the Don and every segment of it was crowned with a church.
The gilt domes blazed in the sunlight and the crosses above them were
changed into pure fire. Round about the town stretched the grey-green
steppe, freshened by the river-side, but burned down to the suffering
earth itself on the horizon. Then over all, like God's mercy
harmonising man's sins, the effulgence of a light-blue southern sky.

By that scene I have understoo