145 



AUGUST 



Gilbert White The decline of vegetable culture in the Middle 

 Ages Preserving French Beans and Scarlet Runners Scotch 

 gardens Tropaolum speciosum Crimson-berried Elder The 

 coast of Sutherlandshire The abuse of coarse Creepers. 



August 1st. I cannot allow a summer to go by without 

 referring to that dear old classic, Gilbert White's * Natural 

 History of Selborne.' Even now I do not quite know 

 why I am so fond of these letters, except that they show 

 strongly the observant eye and the genuine love of Nature 

 which are so sympathetic to me. When I was young 

 my mother gave me the book to read, and it bored me 

 considerably. I thought the long speculations about 

 the hibernating of birds Swifts, Swallows, and others 

 so tiresome ; especially as I knew for sure that they 

 migrated. I, almost a child, knew that. In those days I 

 just panted for what was coming ; the saying ' old days ' 

 to me meant the present, which was older than the past 

 and growing each day, as I grew myself, to greater 

 maturity. I did not understand what people meant by 

 referring to the days which were behind as ' the old days,' 

 for they represented to me the youth of time. I longed 

 to live the day after to-morrow before it came, if only that 

 were possible. Everything new interested me ; I thought 

 the world was moving so fast ; and now that my life is 

 nearly over, it is as if nothing had happened. Progress 

 is indeed like the old Greek pattern, a continuous un- 

 broken line, but curling back and inwards for long periods 





