REALIZING LIFE What went ye out into the wilderness to see? THIS age of steam has its dangers to the lect as well as its strain upon the body. great a speed sometimes paralyzes the spir fore the muscles give out. Hurry benumb heart more often than it exhausts the ph vitality. Popular opinion seems to expect the travelled young man or woman will be to all the ordinary enjoyments of life. The age day and the average road, it is assumed be uninteresting to such. Many boast of ture to whom the world seems scarcely than a "sucked orange," to use Emer phrase. If vacation is to bring its highest good, it correct this tendency. It must do somet toward saving us from this danger. It is a half vacation that simply rests tired muscl nerve; the other half must recruit mind, 1 vigorate the spirit. It were better not to the strain of life than to find ourselves at 42 end of the resting-time less ready for work, less eager for tasks, than when we stopped. An increased capacity for digestion is not much to boast of, unless there is with it a renewed relish for life, a more splendid appetite for duty. Those to whom vacation has failed to bring a fresh and overpowering sense of the opulence of nature, the wealth of life, and of their own responsibilities, have missed the reconstruction they went in search of. They have been dissipating instead of re-creating, idling instead of resting. Perhaps the highest delight that a vacation brings to busy and overworked people is the opportunity of feasting the eyes once more on the beauty of common things; of tuning the ear to detect the music there is in the life of ordinary men and women; of reading the poetry that is ever written between the lines of the dullest prose of common life. I fear there is a tendency in our mid-summer life to cultivate the "Rock-meto-sleep-in-a-hammock" disposition among the few, and a grim, sullen, almost desperate sort of a "no-rest-for-the-wicked" spirit among the many, who plod through the joyless round of duties that have become drudgeries from which no blessings are expected. What is the vacation word which we ha bring to the latter? Can we only tantalize with glowing accounts of distant scenery hints of luxuries, privileges, and pleasures are beyond their reach? I rejoice in the n ing hour of the year which is given to m But I remember also those who may not the hand from the tiller, who through the of summer as well as the chill of winter 1 the ship of life steadily on its course. I glad nature takes no rest. The sun has had holiday and the earth has not ceased to pu its unhasting and unresting round. To t who have kept time with the sun and have t to keep step with nature's ceaseless toil, I wo like to bring out of my holiday a though two that may sanctify and ennoble their of labor and go toward making the working o that await us all more blithe and beautiful t any found on hill-top or by water-side. May I seek these lessons in my own exp ence? Through the generous kindness of fellow-workers, already acknowledged, I was a to ride away from the city of Chicago on tenth of July on the back of my own horse J with only such equipments as previous exp ence had taught me were compatible with light marching, snugly stowed away in the saddle-bags. I began my journey in the beautiful parks of our city. I rode through Washington, Douglas, and Humboldt Parks and the connecting boulevards, with their shaven lawns, their highly elaborated flower-beds, and their gayly dressed children. It almost seemed reckless to turn one's back upon such tempting luxuriance as these gardens of the people offered. One was tempted to exclaim, "Who need look for better? This is good enough for me!" Once out of reach of this nature raised to its highest exponent by skilled human nature, there was nothing to expect but the prosaic dust of common country roads, the meagre privileges of poorly kept country inns, the hurried life of preoccupied people. But to these we turned. Jess was a thoroughbred American. For the first two days she was tormented with the spirit of the age, the hurry to get there, though she, like many of the pushers and the rushers, had no idea where that "there" was, or what it would contain for her when it should be found; but with her, as with her human fellow-beings, the road was evidently a thing to be done with, and |