Emerson was far-seeing enough to say
of those who carried the new philosophy to an extreme, "What if they eat
clouds and drink wind, they have not been without service to the race of
man."
[Illustration: ORCHARD HOUSE, HOME OF THE ALCOTTS]
THE NEW VIEW OF NATURE.--To the old Puritan, nature seemed to groan under
the weight of sin and to bear the primal curse. To the transcendentalist,
nature was a part of divinity. The question was sometimes asked whether
nature had any real existence outside of God, whether it was not God's
thoughts. Emerson, being an idealist, doubted whether nature had any more
material existence than a thought.
The majority of the writers did not press this idealistic conception of
nature, but much of the nature literature of this group shows a belief in
the soul's mystic companionship with the bird, the flower, the cloud, the
ocean, and the stars. Emerson says:--
"The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister is the
suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not
alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them."
Hawthorne exclaims:--
"O, that I could run wild!--that is, that I could put myself into a true
relation with Nature, and be on friendly terms with all congenial
elements.
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