THE MORTAL TABERNACLE

and thoughts of Nature calls thè world of men back from its many quests and wanderings into communion with the Great Mother, and pleads, by " opening the door," for a mcMre natural, less artificial life.

It is a perf ectly legitimate 'question to ask precisely what Carpenter means by a retum to a more natural life. It may be said at once that one so eminently sane and sympathetic as he is bas no désire to tantalize us with a policy of perfection; he would not make us ail farmers and dairymaids ; nor does he propound a house in the country as a panacea for afl our evils and woes.

One or two qubtations will make clear the direction away from which, at any rate, his mind is looking. In the poem already referred to, ** The Open Secret," he speaks of man as the one being who is not " at home " in the world :

He, Cain-like, from the calm eyes of the Ângels,

In houses hiding, in huge gas-lighted offices and dens, in pondions churcbes,

Beset with darkness, cowers ;

And like some hunted criminal torments his brain

For fresh means of escape continually ;

Builds thicker higher walls, ramparts of stone and gold, piles flesh and skins of slaughtered beasts,

Twixt him and that he fears ;

Fevers himself with plans, works barder and barder.

And wanders iax and farther from the goal.

And stiU the great Woiid waits by the door as ever,

The great World stretcbing endlessly on every band, in deep on deep of fathomless content —