WALKS IN THE WHEAT-FIELDS. 149 



could be actually bought and carried home. Till quite 

 lately so few books have circulated in country places 

 that they may be said to have been like these old manu- 

 scripts. The early printed books were simply the manu- 

 scripts printed, and that is why they remain to this day 

 tlic finest specimens of typography, quite incomparable 

 and not to be approached by present-day printers. The 

 art of the scribe, elaborated through centuries, had 

 reached a marvellous perfection ; the first printer copied 

 tlicm — the magic Fust actually sold his first books as 

 manuscripts. Since printers have only copied printers, 

 books have steadily declined in excellence. I have been 

 obliged to use the outside to suggest the inside — country 

 readers want that which is genuine, honest, and, in a 

 word, really good ; you cannot please them with vamped- 

 up book-making. Two books occur to me at this 

 moment which would be greatly appreciated in every 

 country home, from that of the peasant who has just 

 begun to read to the houses of well-educated and well- 

 to-do people, if they only knew of their existence and 

 their contents — of course provided they were cheap 

 enough, for country people have to be careful of their 

 money nowadays. I allude to Darwin's 'Climbing 

 Plants ' and to his ' Earthworms ; ' these are astonishing 

 works of singular patience and careful observation. The 

 first gives most fascinating facts about such a common 

 plant, for example, as the hedge bryony and the circular 

 motion of its tendrils. Any farmer, for instance, will 

 tell you that the hop-bine will insist upon going round 

 the pole in one direction, and you cannot persuade it to 

 go the other. These circular movements seem almost to 

 resemble those of the planets about their centre, all things 

 down to the ether seem to have a rotatory motion ; and 

 some foreign plants which he grew send their far-extended 



