INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 3 



like a dream, that comes noiselessly, and tarries 

 silently, and goes as a bubble bursts. And yet 

 somewhere work must come in, real, well- 

 considered work. 



Inness (the best American painter of Nature 

 in her moods of real human feeling) once said, 

 " No man can do anything in art, unless he has 

 intuitions ; but, between whiles, one must work 

 hard in collecting the materials out of which 

 intuitions are made." The truth could not be 

 hit off better. Knowledge is the soil, and intui- 

 tions are the flowers which grow up out of it. 

 The soil must be well enriched and worked. 



It is very plain, or will be to those who read 

 these papers, now gathered up into this book, as 

 into a chariot for a race, that the author has 

 long employed his eyes, his ears, and his under- 

 standing, in observing and considering the facts 

 of Nature, and in weaving curious analogies. 

 Being an editor of one of the oldest daily news- 



