The out-of-doors, too, is full of beauty of color as well as beauty in form. Oh, the sunrises and sunsets at sea, and on the desert, and in the canyons, and on the mountain heights, and on the great plains of Arizona and New Mexico and Utah. What colorist of earth can ever equal them? Titian? Tintoretto? Velasquez? Turner? La Farge? Reid? Why waste words asking the questions? How tame is Titian's greatest color-effects side by side with a sunrise on the ocean, or a sunset on the desert! Bostonians are proud of Reid's magnificent paintings in the State House. I enjoy them myself and do not wonder that visitors are struck by the powerful color-handling of the interesting historical subjects. But Mr. Reid himself is not so foolish as to imagine that his greatest paintings are more than futile attempts to put on canvas the colors his eyes have seen, his soul has felt, out in the open. So, for color I would radiate a love for out-of-doors.
And I would radiate a love for all of out-of-doors at all times. Winter, Summer, Spring, Autumn, in rain and sunshine, in storm and calm, there is something in every condition, every mood for the men and women who are receptive. When I see newly born infants shut out from the pure air, their faces covered, "lest they take cold," I am filled with amazement at people's fear of out-of-doors. My babies were put to sleep out-of-doors half an hour after they were born. The latest and most approved methods of treating tuberculosis is to make those afflicted with it sleep out of doors. There are camps in Michigan and in the snowy regions of New York, in the Adirondacks, where, throughout the Winter, patients sleep out of doors with the best of results. Be not afraid. Go out of doors as does the Indian. Learn of him and be wise. He is a believer in the virtue of the outdoor life, not as an occasional thing, but as his regular, uniform habit. He _lives_ out of doors; and not only does his body remain in the open, but his mind, his soul, are ever also there. Except in the very cold weather his house is free to every breeze that blows. He laughs at "drafts." "Catching cold" is something of which he knows absolutely nothing. When he learns of white people shutting themselves up in houses into which the fresh, pure, free air of the plains and deserts, often laden with the healthful odors of the pines, firs, and balsams of the forest, cannot come, he shakes his head at the folly, and feels as one would if he saw a man slamming his door in the face of his best friend. Virtually he sleeps out of doors, eats out of doors, works out of doors. When the women make their baskets and pottery, it is always out of doors, and their best beadwork is always done in the open. The men make their bows and arrows, dress their buckskin, make their moccasins and buckskin clothes, and perform nearly all their ceremonials out-of-doors.