no reproaches for indolence, forces to no immediate decision, offers
unbounded to-morrows, and the man of action must tear himself away, when
the time comes, since the work will not be done for him. "The natural
day is very calm, and will hardly reprove our indolence."

And yet the more bent any man is upon action, the more profoundly he
needs the calm lessons of Nature to preserve his equilibrium. The
radical himself needs nothing so much as fresh air. The world is called
conservative; but it is far easier to impress a plausible thought on the
complaisance of others than to retain an unfaltering faith in it for
ourselves. The most dogged reformer distrusts himself every little
while, and says inwardly, like Luther, "Art thou alone wise?" So he is
compelled to exaggerate, in the effort to hold his own. The community is
bored by the conceit and egotism of the innovators; so it is by that of
poets and artists, orators and statesmen; but if we knew how heavily
ballasted all these poor fellows need to be, to keep an even keel amid
so many conflicting tempests of blame and praise, we should hardly
reproach them. But the simple enjoyments of out-door life, costing next
to nothing, tend to equalize all vexations. What matter, if the Governor
removes you from office? he cannot remove you from the lake; and if
readers or customers will not bite, the pickerel will. We must keep
busy, of course; yet we cannot transform the world except very slowly,
and we can best preserve our patience in the society of Nature, who does
her work almost as imperceptibly as we.

And for literary training, especially, the influence of natural beauty
is simply priceless Under the present educational systems, we need
grammars and languages far less than a more thorough out-door experience.
On this flowery bank, on this ripple-marked shore, are the true literary
models. How many living authors have ever attained to writing a single