1196 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



our enjoyment. The esthetic emotion has its sensory thrill, but it is 

 strengthened by facts and ideas, by associations and memories, and 

 it strikes the harp-strings of the imagination. Thus William Blake 

 wrote : 



And before my way a frowning thistle implores my stay, 

 What to others a trifle appears 

 Fills me full of smiles or tears; 



For double the vision my eyes do see, 

 And a double vision is always with me. 

 With my inward eye, 'tis an old man grey, 

 With my outward, a thistle across my way. 



There is, we say, no risk of science dulling the sense of beauty. 

 He loveth best who knoweth most. Make a bouquet of leaves 

 withered in the autumn, "the flowers of the forest", as they may 

 well be called. Take the leaves of the wild cherry and the horse 

 chestnut, the maple and the mountain ash, and add those of the 

 bramble and the vine; what a beauty-feast. But let us think a little 

 of the fatigue-effects that follow the hard photosynthetic work 

 throughout the summer months, let us picture the retreat of the 

 living matter and its products into the stem, let us imagine the 

 breaking-up of the chlorophyll complex and the frequent appearance 

 of special pigments, like cinthocyan, perhaps "beauty for ashes", let 

 us know a little about the foisting off cushion at the base of the 

 leaf-stalk and the bandage of cork that heals the wound. The 

 withered leaves become not less, but more beautiful; they turn into 

 fairy gold. 



A third gift from Natural History is the stimulation of interest. 

 It gives us glimpses of a dramatic world. It is an inexhaustible well 

 of surprises. Perhaps we do not sufficiently educate ourselves and 

 our children for leisure time, for which one of the most reliable and 

 rewarding interests is the drama of life in the plant and animal world. 

 Animate Nature is full of ongoings that angels might desire to look 

 into. As George Meredith said: "You of any well that springs may 

 unfold the heaven of things." The commonest sight by the wayside 

 in the early summer is the cuckoo-spit on the grasses and herbs, a 

 frothy ball of bubbles which some people affect to regard with 

 repulsion. But what is the story? The young frog-hopper, a sap- 

 sucking insect still wingless, drives its mouth-stilets into the succu- 

 lent .stem and has its draught of sweet juice. It soon overflows with 

 this sweetness and then it works its hind body up and down, whip- 

 ping air into the fluid. At the same time there is a little overflow of 

 digestive ferment and a little exudation of wax from the skin, so that 

 four things are mixed up together — sap and air, wax and ferment — 

 and a saponaceous froth is formed which shelters the insect through 

 the heat of the day and hides it from hungry eyes. Here there is 



