IX 

 THE CULT OF SHELLS 



TO children and to those who remain young 

 in eye, to artists and to unsophisticated per- 

 sons generally, shells always make a strong appeal 

 and who can wonder ? For shells have lines that 

 flow, and shapes that sing, and colors that make 

 melody. Each is the constructive work of the life- 

 time of a very intricate, yet harmoniously unified, 

 creature; each is an architectural achievement 

 that has stood the test of time for ages. Every 

 mollusk expresses itself in its house (in a way man 

 rarely does in his) ; and it has often an interesting 

 personal way of registering in its shell some of the 

 crises of its life, just as a tree records in its rings 

 a summer of great drought or an autumn of very 

 early frost. There is a sheer sensory delight in 

 looking at a box of different kinds of cowries, 

 cones, or olivas; there is a higher perceptual ad- 

 miration in studying the well-adapted edifices built 

 by architects whose designs are dreams rather 

 than thoughts; there is an even subtler glow in 

 sharing vicariously in that triumph of life over 

 materials which many shells, like the Nautiloids, 

 so well illustrate; but, besides these factors, may 

 there not be in our delight over shells some echo 



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