Lichen Tufts From the Alleghanies Author:Elizabeth C. Wright General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1860 Original Publisher: M. Doolady Subjects: Literary Criticism / Poetry Poetry / General Poetry / Anthologies Poetry / American / General Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. Whe... more »n you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: THE NATURE CURE. -- FOR THE MIND. People, especially the young, often get a diseased appetite for excitement and artificial amusements, and what is called society, to the exclusion of far better things; not because the taste was originally depraved, but because life has presented to them no real and abiding interest. It is common to hear such persons declare iu hours of reaction and discontent, that they find nothing worth living for; they find no pursuit worth all the toil and trouble it costs, and no aim worthy of life. The pleasures they devour last but a little while, and continual change and new excitements are craved with perpetual hunger, which no amount of feeding ever satisfies -- the only satiety being spiritual dyspepsia and disgust. Men usually seek refuge in business from the hungry needs of their-inner selves, and try to quench their soul's perennial thirst with eager draughts of gain. Like Midas, they seek to turn all that they touch into gold ; and when it is done, they find themselves like him, starving at their own banquets, because gold is neither food nor drink. Women commonly seek their refuge in matrimony, only to find themselves called upon to feed instead of being fed ; and behold their garners are empty and their fountains dry -- they perish of thirst and starvation of mind and heart, and others perish with them; so we see the world peopled with the famished skeletons ofmen and women, who seem, Prometheus-like, to be for ever renewed, but...« less