Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1908-11-12
Back to Nature and Sanity.

Here is a truthful account of the
way I became editor Of farm.
l had been a newspaper man for
twenty years. For practically all that
time l had lived in cities, the last five
years having been spent in that most
crowded and .maddest Of all cities,
New York.
I thought 1 liked it. 1 was as mad
as the rest. We were all ObseSsed
with the lights, the motion and the
feverish chase of sensation. We We're
content to live Oh the surface dntil we
forgot there is anything but surface.
People who are quite insane think
every one mad but themselves, and [
actually found victims of Broadway
tits who imagined all who do not live
on Manhattan Island a little queer.
To show what q hold the disease had
on me, | was deluded enough to marry
in the city and to rear my children
there. | do not know what brought
me to sanity at last, whether some hid
den hypnotist behind the scenes sud-
denly said Right or whether my soul
asserted itself and caused me to look
at things in a normal manner.
At any rate, [ made up my mind one
spring morning that we had been pur
suing the glitter and leaving the real
light Even city walls, smoke and
noise cannot stife all Of natures magic
on a May morning. l suddenly saw
things clearly. I had not been doing
my duty to the beings dependent on
me. l owed it to them to let them
grow and be as nature and God in
tended-tO take them out of the alb
normal and overcharged air of the
town into the sweet breath of the open
country.
I have often observed that when one
really makes up his mind to do a
thing, and it is the right thing for him
to do, the way appears. l get more
actual satisfaction out of believing in
God than from anything else l do.
The way appeared in this case. 4
friend living fifty miles from the city,
far enough to be free from the zone
in which nature is tamed-and tame
invited me out for day. We climbed
to the top Of mountain, and there i
discovered a new world. 1t was not
an outer revelation, but an inner. /
was a Columbus who had discovered
myself 1 found [ had a soul. l had
been told that before, but never more
than half believed it. That view on
the mountain top revealed more than
a landscape l saw yistaS leading off
into undiscovered countries. I walked
on the delectable mountains. [ drank
at the springs of beauty. For one
wild, sweet moment 1 even dreamed
that | saw the smile of God
At the foot of that mountain, nes-
Ting between it and the river, I found
q quaint, half abandoned, little, OLD
farm. I thereupon Rugged it to my
bosom and have never let it go.
1t was not till the next day [ real
lied the problem was but half solved.
1 had seen my promised land, but
could not enter in. [ was still under
the ObseSsiOn of cities, still a slave OF
the wheel. My work would not let me
leave. or so the remnant of my mad
ness said to me. The best | could
hope for was that 1 might die on the
little farm, but could not live there.
In this I reckoned, as we all do, with
out the loving kindness that shapes
all our ways far better than we had
planned or deserved. In a few months
the way became plain and easy to go
to the farm in the valley and to walk
on the delectable mountains each day.
Then we really began to live.
The happiness of the little folks has
been something new and marvellous
under the sun. This alone has repaid
us for coming four times over and
fOrty-fOur times that.