gilt-edged poems,--the. sentimentalists. At the other extreme are
those who do not look at Nature at all, but are a grown part of
her, and look away from her toward the other class,--the
backwoodsmen and pioneers, and all rude and simple persons. Then
there are those in whom the two are united or merged,--the great
poets and artists. In them the sentimentalist is corrected and
cured, and the hairy and taciturn frontiersman has had experience
to some purpose. The true poet knows more about Nature than the
naturalist because he carries her open secrets in his heart.
Eckermann could instruct Goethe in ornithology, but could not
Goethe instruct Eckermann in the meaning and mystery of the bird?
It is my privilege to number among my friends a man who has passed
his life in cities amid the throngs of men, who never goes to the
woods or to the country, or hunts or fishes, and yet he is the true
naturalist. I think he studies the orbs. I think day and night and
the stars, and the faces of men and women, have taught him all
there is worth knowing.

We run to Nature because we are afraid of man. Our artists paint
the landscape because they cannot paint the human face. If we could
look into the eyes of a man as coolly as we can into the eyes of an
animal, the products of our pens and brushes would be quite
different from what they are.



V

But I suspect, after all, it makes but little difference to which
school you go, whether to the woods or to the city. A sincere man