For every man is a magnet, highly and singularly sensitized. Some draw
to them fields and woods and hills, and are drawn in return; and some
draw swift streets and the riches which are known to cities. It is not
of importance what we draw, but that we really draw. And the greatest
tragedy in life, as I see it, is that thousands of men and women never
have the opportunity to draw with freedom; but they exist in weariness
and labour, and are drawn upon like inanimate objects by those who live
in unhappy idleness. They do not farm: they are farmed. But that is a
question foreign to present considerations. We may be assured, if we
draw freely, like the magnet of steel which gathers its iron filings
about it in beautiful and symmetrical forms, that the things which we
attract will also become symmetrical and harmonious with our lives.

Thus flowing with life, self-surrendering to life a man becomes
indispensable to life, he is absolutely necessary to the conduct of
this universe. And it is the feeling of being necessary, of being
desired, flowing into a man that produces the satisfaction of
contentment. Often and often I think to myself:

These fields have need of me; my horse whinnies when he hears my step;
my dog barks a welcome. These, my neighbours, are glad of me. The corn
comes up fresh and green to my planting; my buckwheat bears richly. I am
indispensable in this place. What is more satisfactory to the human
heart than to be needed and to know we are needed? One line in the Book
of Chronicles, when I read it, flies up at me out of the printed page as
though it were alive, conveying newly the age-old agony of a misplaced
man. After relating the short and evil history of Jehoram, King of
Judah, the account ends--with the appalling terseness which often crowns
the dramatic climaxes of that matchless writing:

"And (he) departed without being desired."

Without being desired! I have wondered if any man was ever cursed with a
more terrible epitaph!

And so I planted my corn; and in the evening I felt the dumb weariness
of physical toil. Many times in older days I have known the wakeful
nerve-weariness of cities. This was not it. It was the weariness which,
after supper, seizes upon one's limbs with half-aching numbness. I sat
down on my porch with a nameless content. I looked off across the
countryside. I saw the evening shadows fall, and the moon come up. And I
wanted nothing I had not. And finally sleep swept in res