20 MY LIFE AS A NATURALIST 



Nature, Art, Poetry, Science, Literature, Music, Crafts, Healthy 

 Eecreation, and all the rest of the things that count in human 

 existence, means the enlargement of both our individual and 

 collective horizons. All these are the common possession of the 

 race. The Nature soul is bound to feel the thrill of transcendental 

 mysteries, or it would not be itself. Beauty of form, colour, life, 

 is eternal, for ever thrusting through into the temporal, and 

 always elusive. He who sees Beauty, sees God. 



As Browning has it in " The Guardian Angel " : 



" World, as God has made it ! All is beauty : 

 And knowing this is love, and love is duty, 

 What further may be sought for or declared ? " 



Surely we must sooner or later realise that a nation cannot 

 altogether exist as a commercial undertaking. The masses 

 cannot with impunity persist in despising Art, Science, Literature, 

 Nature, and Compassion, and concentrating their souls on pence. 



The Arising generation yearn for knowledge of the world in which 

 they live. They simply revel in every budding hedgerow, every 

 flower-decked meadow. Every fairy forest, enchanted copse, 

 or yayside pond they soon begin to realise is aglow with the 

 glory of life. All Science testifies to its truth matter is inde- 

 structible ; energy is unquenchable. Shall a meaner fate assail 

 the soul of man ? And so the years my years speed merrily 

 on. Nature has reciprocated the attention I have lovingly de- 

 voted to her children by giving me the outward appearance of 

 perpetual youth. I seem to have discovered the great secret, 

 i and discerned the compelling vision. 



The love of young people everywhere for Nature, for a know- 

 ledge of our past history and our future inheritance, is, to my 

 mind, a hopeful solution of present-day problems. They and 

 those who humbly point the way to them should be encouraged 

 in every possible direction. This Nature -lore helps to create 

 and to cement the greatest asset in human existence Friendship. 

 Quiet, meditative souls who revel in simple country delights 

 know the real joy of existence, of old associations, old-loved spots, 

 old friends and faces. My own experience has been fragrant 

 with never-to-be-forgotten memories which the hand of Time 

 cannot possibly efface. 



It has been written that 



" No flower is born to blush unseen, 

 And waste its sweetness on the desert air," 



