In short, cultivate Nature, get close to Nature.  Try to get Nature to give you what she has for you as earnestly as you try to get what you want in business; and your days and nights will be glorified with a beauty and strength the existence of which you would have denied before you experienced their blessings.

But, of course, you must work for the benefits you get from Nature, just as you must work for everything worth having.  You cannot quit your office and say, “Now I shall take a ten-minutes’ walk in the park and commune with Nature.”  Nature is not to be courted in any such way.  She does not fling her favors at your feet—­not until you have won her utterly.  Then all of the wealth and power which Nature has for those who love her are yours in a profuse and exhaustless opulence.

There is nothing so important for a young man, especially a young American, as to resolve not to wear himself out nervously and physically.  Take stated vacations, therefore.  I should advise every young man who expects to run a long race to resolve, after he has established himself, that he will take one, and, if possible, two months’ period of absolute vacation every year.  Let him make this a part of his business, just as he makes sleeping a part of his business every day.

What matter if another lawyer gets the case that would have come to you, or another real-estate dealer secures the corner lot on which you have had your eye, or another operator makes the profitable deal which would have given you fame and fortune?

You have obtained and preserved that which they most probably have lost. You have made an investment in Youth.  You have purchased power.  You have taken stock in length of years.  You have equipped yourself with new nerves, a rested heart, a refreshed brain, a hearty stomach, and a sane mind in a sound body.

And you have done more than all this:  You have restored your perspective.  You have corrected your vision, so that you see things in their just proportion.  One reason why men waste energy so prodigally is that their intense pursuit of their business makes them lose all sense of the proportion of things.  That which is of little consequence appears, to the distorted vision, of immense importance; and as much energy is wasted in trifles as should be expended on great affairs.  This process keeps up until really first-class men are reduced to very small men.

Let a man go each year to the everlasting mountains; to the solitude of the ancient forests; to the eternal ocean with its manifestation of power and repose.  Let him sit by its solemn shore listening to it sing that song which for a million years before our civilization was thought of it had been singing, and which for a million years after our civilization has become merely a line in history it will continue to sing, and he will realize how unimportant are the things which only a few weeks before seemed to him of such vast moment.  Perhaps the words of the old Khayyam will come to him: