A YEAR IN THE FIELDS 



too fearful, to them to be deliberately pur- 

 sued and hunted down. Their youthful joy 

 in her, or their dread and awe in her 

 presence, may be better than our scientific 

 satisfaction, or cool wonder, or our vague, 

 mysterious sense of " something far more 

 deeply interfused ; " yet we cannot change 

 with them if we would, and I, for one, would 

 not if I could. Science does not mar na- 

 ture. The railroad, Thoreau found, after 

 all, to be about the wildest road he knew 

 of, and the telegraph wires the best aeolian 

 harp out of doors. Study of nature deepens 

 the mystery and the charm because it re- 

 moves the horizon farther off. We cease 

 to fear, perhaps, but how can one cease to 

 marvel and to love ? 



The fields and woods and waters about 

 one are a book from which he may draw 

 exhaustless entertainment, if he will. One 

 must not only learn the writing, he must 

 translate the language, the signs, and the 

 hieroglyphics. It is a very quaint and 

 elliptical writing, and much must be sup- 

 plied by the wit of the translator. At any 

 rate, the lesson is to be well conned. Gil- 

 bert White said that that locality would be 

 found the richest in zoological or botanical 

 204 



