ii4 THE FACE OF THE FIELDS 



The nature-writer deserves, maybe, his dubi- 

 ous reputation; he is more or less of a fraud, 

 perhaps. And perhaps everybody else is, more 

 or less. I am sure of it as regards preachers and 

 plumbers and politicians and men who work by 

 the day. Yet I have known a few honest men of 

 each of these several sorts, although I can't recall 

 just now the honest plumber. I have known 

 honest nature-writers, too ; there are a number of 

 them, simple, single-minded, and purposefully 

 poor. I have no mind, however, thus to pro- 

 nounce upon them, dividing the sheep from the 

 goats, lest haply I count myself in with the 

 wrong fold. My desire, rather, is to see what 

 nature-writing, pure and undefiled, may be, and 

 the nature-writer, what manner of writer he ought 

 to be. 



For it is plain that the nature-writer has now 

 evolved into a distinct, although undescribed, 

 literary species. His origins are not far to seek, 

 the course of his development not hard to trace, 

 but very unsatisfactory is the attempt, as yet, to 

 classify him. We all know a nature-book at . 

 sight, no matter how we may doubt the nature 

 in it ; we all know that the writer of such a book 



