i6a THE FACE OF THE FIELDS 



view nature in the reporter fashion. I must camp 

 and tramp with her to get any good, and what I 

 get I absorb through my emotions rather than 

 consciously gather through my intellect. ... An 

 experience must lie in my mind a certain time 

 before I can put it upon paper — say from three 

 to six months. If there is anything in it, it will 

 ripen and mellow by that time. I rarely take 

 any notes, and I have a very poor memory, but 

 rely upon the affinity of my mind for a certain 

 order of truths or observations. What is mine 

 will stick to me, and what is not will drop off. 

 We who write about nature pick out, I suspect, 

 only the rare moments when we have had glimpses 

 of her, and make much of them. Our lives are 

 dull, our minds crusted over with rubbish like 

 those of other people. Then writing about na- 

 ture, or about most other subjects, is an expansive 

 process; we are under the law of evolution; we 

 grow the germ into the tree; a little original 

 observation goes a good way." For " when you 

 go to nature, bring us good science or else good 

 literature, and not a mere inventory of what you 

 have seen. One demonstrates, the other inter- 

 prets." 



