e heart of things, and
holds that to lose touch with nature is to lose touch with Reality
as manifested in nature. It is sad, he declares, to miss the pure
enjoyment of forms and colours, of sounds and scents; it is
sadder to miss the experience of communing with the spirit
embodied in these external phenomena. For it is not mere lack
of education of the senses that must then be lamented (though
that is lack enough!) but the stunting of the soul-life that ensues
on divorce from nature, and from the great store of primal and
fundamental ideas which are immanent therein. The loss may
thus become, not simply sad, but tragic.

And the weightiness of these considerations is not diminished
when we relate them to the special needs of the day. Our time is
one of deep unrest--showing itself in religion and ethics, in
literature and art, in politics and economics. Unrest manifests
itself in what we have learnt to call "the social question." How
shall civilisation regain and increase its healthy restfulness?
Unless a cure be found, there will be disaster ahead. Democracy
has brought with it great hopes; it also stirs unwonted fears. The
people at large must be lifted on to a higher plane of living; they
must win for themselves wider horizons; they must kindle their
imaginations, and allow play to their non-egoistic and nobler
emotions. How better secure these ends than by bringing "the
masses" into touch with the elemental forces and phenomena
of nature? "Democracy" (says Walt Whitman) "most of all
affiliates with the open air, is sunny and hardy and sane only
with Nature--just as much as Art is. Something is required to
temper both--to check them, restrain them from excess,
morbidity. . . . I conceive of no flourishing and heroic elements
of Democracy . . . without the Nature element forming a main
part--to be its health-element and beauty-element--to really
underlie the whole politics, sanity, religion, and art of the New
World." Yes, converse with Nature--even the simplest form of
converse--has a steadying effect, and brings that kind of quiet
happiness which has for its companions good-will and delicate
sympathy. To sever oneself from such converse is to induce
selfishness, boorishness (veneered or un-veneered), and
inhumanity. The influence of nature means development; the
lack of that influence means revolution.

Hence Wordsworth's invitation has its social, as well as its
individual bearings:

"Up! up! my Friend,