I found myself in a miniature inlet. An intense tranquility covered the scene. And yet -- within the tranquility, the lake and hills were burning with spiritual energy. The silence was almost palpable; still, the silence had a sound of its own, like a subterranean waterfall. I felt as if I had stepped back a million years in time; but the energy I felt was electric and immediate. ... The very wildness of the wilderness generates a spiritual field that connects us with the source from which all life evolved. To go into the wilderness, we must undertake a journey that purifies our senses and prepares us for the subtle lessons that the wilderness has to teach us.
To be able to love material things, to clothe them with tender grace, and yet not be attached to them, this is a great service. Providence expects that we should make this world our own, and not lie in it as though it were a rented tenement. We can only make it our own through some service, and that service is to lend it love and beauty from our soul. Your own experience shows you the difference between the beautiful, the tender, the hospitable, and the mechanically neat and monotonously useful. Gross utility kills beauty. We now have all over the world huge productions of things, huge organizations, huge administrations of empire–all obstructing the path of life. Civilization is waiting for a great consummation, for an expression of its soul in beauty. This must be your contribution to the world.