A JOURNEY TO NATURE 



cred:er.t.lv, and the dirk, or isolation had er.com- 

 rassed me, than jut came the stars, one by one, 

 and, as my little world receded, the universes 

 whispered to me across trie eternal gaps. Those 

 sibylline vc-.ces are very restful, when your ear is 

 once purged or the artificial clang and has recov 

 ered its primal vibrations. 



Had I been an artist or 2:: entomologist, rnv 

 ez- r ~ er.t v j z ... enabled me t ... fy the 

 ennui ot solitude. But, alas, I was neither. I 

 could not come to Nature like the sifted robber- 

 artist who steals her secrets and lug s them off to 

 his gallery, like so much plunder, with the hiero 

 glyphs nibbed rrT. That admirable marauder 

 wr.cse missicr. :t is to inJorm Nature how she 

 ought to do it is sustained in swamps and deserts 

 by a missionary fervour. I had not even the war 

 rant cr that other despoiler, the sportsman, who 

 corrects Nature with a gun, and wounds and kills, 

 even when he cannot eat, with a robust masculine 

 ioyousness. That superior quality which in tne 

 entomologist is called analysis, and which can box 

 the compass of a bug when he is properly pinned 

 down, with the dismembering acumen ol a musi 

 cal critic who tears the quivering semi-quavers 

 :: : ::~. .; - . . :v. and LVS t - &quot;. it 1 dry in a 

 criticism that wonderful gift has been denied 

 me. I was myselt pinned down by Nature to a 

 ...:... : : _ . : - . . - . I . [ rn - barren 

 f the : : : ^tership that 1 be eved m : 

 musica. _ &quot; - - .- ere tr.e :-tten&quot;.i&quot;t : ex: :::.te 



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