"Once more people are going to go out into the country, and be on the hillsides, and in the grass, and hear the birds, and look at the insects, and watch the sky; and they won't do it really, I'm afraid, with any love for what those things represent, and they won't do it with any deep wisdom for themselves. So far, nature has been used too much to hate people with, and to be against oneself.
The reason is that people are much more troublesome than an elm tree, or an oak tree, or a beach, or mountains, or a squirrel, or a woodchuck, or an opossum, or a gazelle, or a giraffe. And therefore, since people are so troublesome, there is a tendency to use nature on vacations not for the purpose that nature was intended for, to understand people with, but to say, "Well, all my relatives give me a lot of trouble, but if I lie face-down on the grass, I don't have to think about them." That is a dangerous business. And one goes back home more divided than ever....
Nature is not to be used that way. And man is nature. And New York City is nature. Any person who thinks that New York City isn't nature should ask, Where did it come from? Did the mind of man suddenly make a halt?"
