Oh, get acquainted with Nature, my girls, and see how lovely the world
will become! Do you know that beautiful sketch by Charles Kingsley
called "My Winter Garden"? Read it, and see how he gets the world out
of a small space,--how he becomes rich. You know no man can buy a
landscape,--it belongs to all. We are, every one, rich in summer skies,
in fair forests, in great tracts of meadow verdure. See how Kingsley
grows contented,--how he becomes wise. "Have you eyes to see? Then
lie down on the grass, and look near enough to see something more of
what is to be seen; and you will find tropic jungles in every square
foot of turf; mountain cliffs and debacles at the mouth of every rabbit
burrow; dark strids, tremendous cataracts, 'deep glooms and sudden
glories' in every foot-broad rill which wanders through the turf....
Nature, as every one will tell you who has seen dissected an insect
under the microscope, is as grand and graceful in her smallest as in
her largest forms."

We are told there is something most practical in physiology. One of
its first requirements is proper exercise for the body. Now, no exercise
combines so many advantages as walking: by no other means can we come
so easily to an acquaintance with Nature. Never ride in the country,
or anywhere within Nature's dearest precincts, when you can as well
go on foot. You cannot see things flying by you. Do not adopt the custom
of most pedestrians, that of getting over the ground as rapidly as
possible. Take daily walks, no matter what the weather is; but do not
go too far. Irregularity in this exercise is harmful. It is far better
to walk two miles daily than ten miles at one time, and fifteen a week
hence. Go to see something on your walks, if you discover nothing more
than a great hole in the ground; and come home with some thought about
what you have seen. I found out a great truth, one day last spring,
of which I was wholly ignorant before,--that a rose is sweeter in the