l66 HOW NATURE STUDY SHOULD BE TAUGHT 



Forever to be hallowed, only less, 

 For what we are and what we may become, 

 Than Nature's self, which is the breath of God, 

 Or His pure Word, by miracle revealed." 



Then he declaims against books as injurious: 



" Up ! up ! my Friend, and quit your books ; 

 Or surely you'll grow double : 

 Up ! up ! my Friend, and clear your looks ; 

 Why all this toil and trouble ? 



" Books ! 'tis a dull and endless strife ; 

 Come, hear the woodland linnet, 

 How sweet his music ! on my life, 

 There's more of wisdom in it." 



This double view is likewise shown in Lowell, 

 whom Stedman styles " our representative man of 

 letters," and adds, that " He is regarded as a fine 

 exampler of culture." Lowell, though "the poet 

 of nature," was pre-eminently a man of books. 

 His writings and addresses were chiefly on liter- 

 ary subjects. Yet in a burst of passion for nature, 

 the supremacy of a great surging part of his own 

 character, he counts books and literary culture as 

 of little worth, and in pleonastic verse makes 

 them for the time shrink into nothingness : 



" Jes' so with poets : wut they've airly read 

 Gits kind o' worked into their heart an' head, 

 So 's 't they can't seem to write but jest on sheers, 

 With f urrin countries or played-out ideers, 



