B 



roadside rather than the rolling fields, with their 

 infinitely varied features. Here every object was 

 fixed, immovable, and I at once missed the scat- 

 tered ice-transported boulders of the shifting sands 

 of Jersey. We were on old ground, even geologi- 

 cally speaking; so old that upon it the forest 

 grew when the ice was jammed in the valley and 

 playing those pranks that now make the petty 

 geologists quarrelsome. It was not surprising 

 that the Professor could not refrain from telling 

 the story of the ice-age as he had translated it. 

 It is so clever, I had hopes never to hear another 

 version. To listen to many leads to endless con- 

 fusion. If possible, make your own translation. 

 The truth, as he sees it, is plain to the individual 

 who traces the figured rocks with his own fingers ; 

 but the gift of repeating what the rocks whisper is 

 not yet among us, and this is true, likewise, of many 

 another of nature's puzzles. The learned treatises 

 that crowd the bookshelves are arrayed, not as a 

 bodyguard of truth against ignorance, but each 

 against his fellows. If we read all these books 

 we have but the din of battle in our ears, and no 

 vision is keen enough to pierce the smoke and see 

 where victory rests. It is a sad mistake to become 

 only a reader ; it leads to becoming only an echo. 

 One excellent book is the blank one, to be filled 

 by our own hands, so that in the evening of 

 our days we can regale ourselves with morning 

 thoughts. 



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