THE PLEASURES OF A NATURALIST 



The London workingmen to whom Huxley spoke 

 would look around them in vain to find in their 

 problems of life anything akin to a game of chess, 

 or for any fruitful suggestion in the idea. They 

 were probably mechanics, tradesmen, artisans, 

 teamsters, boatmen, painters, and so on, and knew 

 through experience the forces with which they had 

 to deal. But how many persons who succeed in 

 life have any such expert knowledge of the forces 

 and conditions with which they have to deal, as 

 two chess-players have of the pawns and knights 

 and bishops and queens of the chessboard? 



Huxley was nearly always impressive and con- 

 vincing, and there was vastly more logical force in 

 his figures than in those of most writers. 



Life may more truly be compared to a river that 

 has its source in a mountain or hillside spring, 

 with its pure and sparking or foaming and noisy 

 youth, then its quieter and stronger and larger 

 volume, and then its placid and gently moving cur- 

 rent to the sea. Blessed is the life that is self -purify- 

 ing, like the moving waters; that lends itself to 

 many noble uses, never breaking out of bonds and 

 becoming a destructive force. 



XI 



I HAD a letter the other day from a man who wanted 

 to know why the meadow, or field, mice gnawed or 

 barked the apple-trees when there was a deep 



27 



