The very thoroughness and fidelity with which we fulfill one duty, may hinder the fulfillment of another.—We may become so absorbed in earning a living, and carrying on our business, and getting an education, that we shall give no time or attention to this communion with Nature. The fact that business, education, and kindred external and definite pursuits are directly under the control of our wills, while this power to appreciate Nature is a slow and gradual growth, only indirectly under our control, tempts 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!
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 is chary of striking scenes and startling impressions and thrilling experiences, affectation, with profane haste, proceeds to amuse itself with artificial feelings, and pretended raptures. This counterfeited appreciation, like all counterfeits, by its greater cheapness drives out the real enjoyment; and the person who indulges in affectation soon finds the power of genuine appreciation entirely gone. Affectation is worse than obtuseness, for obtuseness is at least honest: it may mend its ways. But affectation is self-deception. The affected person does not know what true appreciation of Nature is: he cannot see his error; and consequently cannot correct it.
THE PENALTY.
The life of man can be no deeper and richer than the objects and thoughts on which it feeds.—Without appreciation and love for Nature we can eat and drink and sleep and do our work. The horse and ox, however, can do as much. Obtuseness to the beauty and meaning of Nature sinks us to the level of the brutes. Cut off from the springs of inspiration, our lives stagnate, our souls shrivel, our sensibilities wither. And just as stagnant water soon becomes impure, and swarms with low forms of vegetable and animal life, so the stagnant soul, which refuses to reflect the beauty of sun and star and sky, soon becomes polluted with sordidness and selfishness and sensuality.
