Living the Radiant Life: A Personal Narrative

by George Wharton James

Every man needs something both of the city and the country. Rubbing up against his kind sharpens his wits; often makes him more selfish and indifferent to the rights and needs of others; and again prepares him more thoroughly to enjoy what the country offers. So, city man, with all your senses sharpened by contact with mankind, go out into the country to get your soul enlarged. For Nature is the great soul expander.

Read John Muir's Mountains of California, and see how the out-door-life enlarged him, made him bigger, grander, nobler than he could ever have been had he stayed in the narrow confines of a city's walls. In one chapter he tells of his experience in a storm in a Sierra forest. Perched high on the mountains a great storm swept over the range. Most men would have remained indoors, afraid of the fierceness of the wind and the beating of the rain. Not so he! There were experiences to be had out there that could come to him in no other way; so out he went. After scrambling through underbrush, climbing hilly slopes, until his blood was fairly a-tingle in response to the power of the storm, watching the swaying of the trees, hearing the crash, every few moments, of a falling tree, he finally decided to see the whole thing from the top of a tree. So selecting a suitable tree he climbed to its topmost branches, and there, swaying to and fro like "a bobolink on a reed," he watched the wind playing with the gigantic trees and the tiny leaves, and listened to such an æolian concert as few men have ever dreamed of.

John Muir's experiences and development are not peculiar to him. Most men who live the larger out-of-door life, who engage in out-of-door occupations have a largeness and expansion about them that is stimulating and inspiring. Read the life of the fishermen—the Gloucester Folk, and the Folk of all the shores of the sea, who gain their livelihood by battling with storms and circumventing them. What brawny arms and shoulders and backs; what tremendous power; what deep breaths in powerful lungs! See the pilots who come out to meet the transoceanic steamers; what brave, powerful, massive men they are! Ordinary men are dwarfed in their presence—not merely physically, but mentally and spiritually. See the captains of these same great steamers, and all sea-going vessels, and the very sailors; there is a strength of body and a largeness, an openness of disposition, that is good to come in contact with. Who that has climbed the Swiss mountains with an Alpine guide but has felt the strength and power developed by ages of conflict with snowstorms, avalanches, and other great Nature forces. Even the loggers in the forest swing their axes or handle the huge logs with an ease and power that stagger the ordinary city man. Think how the old time stage-drivers used to handle their six- and eight-horse teams with ease and elegance, guiding and directing their movements as gracefully as a grande dame promenades in her ballroom. Who has not been thrilled with the doings of the live-saving service, and the lighthouse keepers? What city girl could have dared do as did Grace Darling, the lighthouse keeper's daughter, who insisted upon her father rowing with her to rescue a shipwrecked crew in the face of a howling storm? What delights I myself have enjoyed out on the plains, prairies, and foot-hills, riding with the cowboys. Well do I remember several rodeos I united with in Nevada, where we rode madly after the wild cattle and horses, over and through the sagebrush at break-neck speed, now dodging to the right, now to the left, now jumping a piece of brush that could not be dodged. We went up hill like the wind, and then started down hill at equal or greater speed, and once, getting into a grove of trees, I had to learn to bend down flat on the horse's back to avoid being swept off. "Let your horse go where he will. He understands his business, and you don't," were the instructions I had received, and well it was that I was not required to guide my animal. I had enough to do to keep my seat. Talk about rough-riders! I was soon a rough-rider, indeed. And how tired out and weary I was that night, but how I slept! I had been dyspeptic, sleepless, and anæmic. Three weeks of this shook me up so that my liver worked as it had never worked in my history before. I got until I could eat and digest anything, and my sleep was sweet, sound, dreamless, and refreshing. Would that I had had sense enough then and there to resign the pastorate of my church; quit being an indifferent and unhealthy parson; become a cowboy and gain health, vim, vigor, strength, life.

I suppose I had to come to it slowly, but come I did to the most important facts, viz.: that I could never be healthy indoors, and that I must live in the open. And as I got out more my intellect and spirit expanded as my body grew healthier, and I began to learn more from the objects around me than I had from all my schooling, all my books, and all my theological training and study.

Nowadays there is no out-of-door occupation that does not appeal to me; a ditch-digger, a navvy on a railroad, a roustabout on a dock, a deck-hand on a steamer, a brakeman, a road mender, a plowman, a carter, a teamster—even these, the lowliest of the out-of-door callings, show to me men of rugged strength that delight and appeal to me.

How one's very soul thrills in sympathy as he thinks of the marvelous achievements of the great explorers—all of them men of the out-of-doors; Columbus, Magellan, Capt. Cook, Kane, Sir John Franklin, Peary, Sven Hedin, Capt. Burnaby, Burton, Livingstone, Stanley, Major Powell, and a host of others. How the mere thought of them and their lives radiates the very spirit of energy, strength, courage, daring, independence, self-reliance! In their physical or spiritual presence you feel you are in contact with an entirely different set of earth's mortals than ordinary men, for they radiate unconsciously the largeness, the expansiveness, the majesty and strength of the vast out-of-doors.

Rudyard Kipling in his Captains Courageous fully explains what I mean about this largeness and nobleness of soul that come from the out-of-door life, in telling of the fishermen of the New England coast. In his vivid English he pictures their daily life, what their work is, how they have to brave the perils of the deep, the dangerous fogs, the uncertain storms, the sudden death that comes when a great vessel looms through the fog and cuts them down. Yet they go ahead as a matter of course. Their life enlarges their faith and trust; either it is that or they become used to looking in the face of danger and death and then calmly continue in their work. No man does this without deepening and broadening his life.

When it comes to gardeners I fairly envy them. Think of the wondrous life that is theirs. To learn and know the life-habits of plants and flowers, and to see them growing from tiny seeds, or slips, or cuttings into all their rich and perfect beauty. I never knew a despondent gardener. His profession forbids it; his experience rebukes it. So of late years, in my crude way, I have been trying to become a gardener, when I am at home and have time.

What an unspeakable joy there is in all this work. How it occupies one's brain and body, and drives away all despondency, care, blue-devils, and worry. Out in the garden I am a king, a proud monarch, robed in blue flannel shirt and overalls, my scepter a spade, and my right to rule demonstrable by my strong muscles, steady nerves, strong lungs, healthy skin, and clear eyes. Who would not reign in such a realm?

More than all else I feel when living this life that I am lifted above all the petty meannesses of men and women. I am dealing with creative forces—things direct from the hands of God—sunshine, air, water, soil, growth, development, life. And how such feelings expand the soul!