What justice can I render within the limit of a few sentences to the pleasurable emotions excited by the contemplation of Nature? Volumes have been written about and have not exhausted the catalogue of joys offered by the solitary walk through forest and mead, surrounded by that mysterious world in blade and leaf, in bird and insect, in brook and bower, so tantalizingly open and yet so impenetrably closed to our vision. We need no laborious learning, and require no Alps, or ocean, or mighty cataracts, to surcharge our souls with that strange calm and silent joy which Mother Nature ever has ready to pour into the wounds of her returned and wounded sons. A stroll at sunset, through the cow-pasture, by the stream, is all we need, if only our minds are open to the voices and the pictures spread before us. Need I mention the pleasures of gardening, or the charms of the training and companionship of those humbler animals, our pets and favorites, to whose sincerity and affection we so often turn with relief from association with our own species? Nor shall I go at any length into the obvious pleasure afforded by even a slight acquaintance with painting, sculpture, architecture, photographic reproductions, engraving, those avocations distinctively called by some writers the “arts of pleasure.” The very purpose of their creation was to increase the happiness of life, and those who are content to live without understanding and to some extent appreciating what they contribute to human enjoyment, may as well lay down this book at this point, for its whole purpose is alien to them. In some quarters there is a prejudice against these arts; in many more a suspicion that they are frivolous or enervating. Far from it. Goethe, who beyond any other man of this century studied the strengthening of his faculties, recommended that each day we should for at least a few minutes give our minds to the contemplation of some fine work of art or beautiful natural object, were it but a careful engraving, the reproduction of some masterpiece, a pot of natural flowers, or a sunset from our windows. He had found this in his own experience both strengthening and comforting, and none is so indigent or so occupied that it is beyond his reach. In museums and picture galleries, in the theatre and the opera, in illustrated books and collections of photographs, we have abundant resources to gratify our desire for observing art; and if we wish to share the delights of practicing it, there are the numerous “minor arts,” admirably set forth for self-instruction in excellent manuals,――free-hand drawing, water-colors, china painting, embroidery――who can remember all of them?