228 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINN^US 



most silent.' In view of his after career, the experi- 

 ence that Linnaeus now gained in training the attention 

 and winning the affection of young men was the most 

 valuable result of the Dalecarlian tour. When the 

 young Reuterholms complained of the great length 

 of the Swedish summer days, Linnaeus was prompt to 

 show them how much their country was to be envied 

 for this very thing : how two great batches of work could 

 be worked off in each year in Sweden, such as could not 

 be steadily performed where time was more broken into. 

 They had the long summer days for discovery, the long 

 winter nights for classification. At least this is what 

 he seems to mean when he speaks of the dark winter 

 days as such an advantage of the Swedish climate. 

 Linnaeus had pre-eminently the faculty of being wide 

 awake not the highest endowment by any means, but 

 the most useful for his purpose. Linnaeus never lost 

 himself in dreams : he was always more in the body 

 than in the spirit. He never thought, like the poets, 

 of seeing the invisible things, but he kept a keen look 

 out for things visible but as yet undiscovered, while his 

 ears were awake to Clewberg's, and more especially to 

 Emporelius's and Sohlberg's, tales of discovery, related 

 with all the fire of youth. * Every fly that lit upon the 

 boat side, every bit of weed that we fished 'up, every 

 note of wood-bird, was suggestive of some pretty bit of 

 information on the habits, growth, and breeding of the 

 thousand unnoticed forms of life around.' l 

 1 Capt. W. Congreve. 



