BEG GREAT rO BE APPRECIATED: 215 
White Egret, everybody would think it quite shock- 
ing if it were to be burnt or torn up. You would 
hear people say (and they would be quite right to say 
so): ‘Oh, it is dreadful, it is quite dreadful to think 
of! It can never be replaced! There is no such 
other artist! To think of such a masterpiece being 
destroyed !’’ Now, when all the White Egrets (and 
let me tell you they are a// masterpieces) have been 
destroyed, it will be quite impossible to replace any 
one of them; so that that kind of bird—or any other 
kind of bird or animal that has been shot and shot 
till there are no more of it left—will have gone 
in just the same way that a picture goes, when you 
burn it or tear it to pieces. But is there any picture 
of a bird or animal, that is so beautiful or so wonder- 
ful as that bird or animal itself? And is there any 
artist so great as the artist who made it, who made 
that bird or animal, that picture with a life inside it ? 
You know who ¢ha/ artist is, you know /77s name— 
or if you do not, your mother will tell you. I have 
called Him Dame Nature, but that is only just a way 
of talking. He has another name, greater than that. 
He is a much greater artist than Sir Edwin Landseer 
(or even Raphael or Phidias), but I am afraid there 
are not many people who really know that He is. 
Perhaps He is too great to be appreciated. That 
sometimes happens, even amongst ourselves. 
