I io THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINN^US 



Meanwhile cold and hunger both grew harder to 

 bear ; i the owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold ' ; and in 

 the depth of a Swedish winter, where to study one must 

 also burn the midday oil, Carl could buy neither candles 

 nor oil for his study lamp. Winter was Linnaeus's 

 especial enemy, putting ice for minerals, shrivelling his 

 flowers to dust, and leaving him thin as his own 

 darning-needle. Where a good-natured friend gave 

 him a light, it was a sacrifice to burn the rare and 

 luxurious candle that he might have eaten. What a 

 conflict between the bodily and mental appetite ! 



When Dr. Johnson said l the distinction of seasons 

 is produced only by imagination operating on luxury ' 

 he had not felt a Swedish winter. What sounds wise 

 and sensible when said over the second bottle of port at 

 the c Mitre ' is less true when, empty of pocket and of 

 stomach, one shivers in thin garments outside the tavern. 

 Skating is glorious exercise, but one cannot even slide, 

 Sam Weller fashion, barefooted. When one has sewn 

 one's boots with birch-bark and pasteboard, one is as 

 careful of them as Don Quixote was over the second 

 edition of his helmet. 



Nothing in poverty so ill is borne, 



As its exposing men to grinning scorn. 



The Swedes are too polite to sneer at even un- 

 professional cobbling, and Carl carefully stitched and 

 mended his best shoes so that returning daylight might 

 at least enable him to go out and gather plants. Spring 

 was opening up after the long and bitter winter, when 



