I love the pastoral and quiet landscapes of the Connecticut River Valley, of placid Killarney, of the quiet vale of Avoca, of picturesque Normandy, but the passion, power, majesty, sublimity, solitude, dreariness and desolation of the far-reaching Colorado Desert, deep descending Grand Canyon, bold escarpments of the Red Rock country, and other tremendous and solitary places of Nature command me, allure me, appeal to me, and dominate me quicker than the quiet places of beauty.
What, in Nature, to some men is the end of things to others is the beginning. The sacred writer says that God even "maketh the wrath of men to praise him," as well as their love and tenderness.
Life is not all comprised about a slender figure and transparent profile; faultless coils of hair; soft, rich, clinging garments; laces falling over taper fingers; graceful and dignified demeanor; low and sweetly modulated voice, and the perfection of faultless manners. There may be a place for the rude, uncouth clodhopper with disfigured features; tousled hair; clad in homespun or cheap denim; rags taking the place of lace; boorish and clumsy demeanor; a voice like a steamer foghorn; and the apotheosis of all that is blundering and awkward in manner.
I do not, for one moment, defend any unnecessary boorishness or uncouthness of manner, and must not be understood as doing so, but at the same time, in spite of these things, I am impelled to state my conviction that the latter class is more needful to the real progress of the world than the former. I notice that several times in the history of the world, canal-drivers, shepherd-boys, wood-choppers, and rail-splitters have made wonderful pilots for the Ship of State.
God has use in His world for the rough as well as the polished; the roar of the thunder as well as the coo of the dove; the stentorian trumpet-tone as well as the still, small voice. John the Baptist came from the desert robed in skins and camel's hair; his voice, doubtless, was not soft and well-modulated as were those of Herodias and Salome. He was "the voice of one crying in the wilderness." His call contained the thunder tones of the storm and wild cry of the lonely eagle seeking its solitary aerie; the strength and the roar of the lion. It was neither refined, pleasing, nor cultured, but it possessed life and power and it was chosen to herald the coming of the Messiah.
