Where I lived, and what I lived

I guess a person would say that this guy writes beautiful.  I'm sure he does, but I was lost almost the whole time I read it.  Somewhere I got that he was talking about living a simpler life.  My opinion of this is if you want people to live a simpler life then you should probably write it so the "not simple" people can understand it.  I did like paragraph 15 when he said, "It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and meduim through which we look, which morally we can do."  Now I do not exactly know what that means (and yes I have been thinking about it) but for some reason it just stuck out to me