THE NATURE BOOK 



window boxes, as it were, reaching out 

 for life with their tender green fingers, 

 or when even the forlorn trees in dismal 

 back yards respond to the touch of 

 spring. Often, as the earth turns again 

 towards the sun to renew her youth, 

 some lingering instinct of our primitive 

 arboreal ancestors awakens in us, and we 

 feel with Keats that — 



"To one who has been long in city pent, 

 'Tis very sweet to gaze into the fair 

 And open face of Heaven, to breathe a 

 prayer 

 Full in the smile of the blue firmament." 



It is pleasant to think that these 

 yearnings are deeply planted in human 

 nature, and that in cherishing them we 

 are really gaining kinship with those 

 interpreters of Nature, the poets and 

 painters and naturalists. There is, how- 

 ever, not a little danger that long banish- 

 ment from communion with Nature, 

 especially amid the feverish rush and 

 pressure of modern life, in many cases 

 deadens the primitive feelings of sym- 

 pathy with the natural life of the earth, 

 as well as the powers of perception. 

 The house of the mind accustomed to 

 be filled with noisy guests shrinks from 

 the silence and solitude by which man 

 becomes intimate with Nature. Away 

 from human voices and companionship, 

 in the green quietude of the woods, or 

 roofed but by the open sky on the moor- 

 lands, or on the shore by the breaking 

 waves, many are oppressed by a sense of 



loneliness, although there is no loneliness 

 like the loneliness felt in the midst of crowds 

 of pre-occupied and unknown individuals 

 hurrying to and fro in the streets of 

 London. But, as Wordsworth sa}-s : — 



" The world is too much with us, late and soon, 

 Getting and spending we lay waste our 

 powers." 



We do not give ourselves time to vield 

 to the influences of Nature. Our ears 

 have been deafened by the noise of city 

 life, our minds filled with the dust and 

 worry of trifles. Even the railway or 

 the motor, which carry us away from men 

 and towns, must be left behind before 

 we can get back to Mother Earth and 

 hear again the voices of trees and the 

 birds, and enjoy the soothing green of 

 the landscape, and become sensitive to 

 that quiet sympathy of the earth which 

 true lovers of Nature never fail to receive. 

 In this clamorous age it becomes more 

 and more important to preserve and to 

 cultivate this love of Nature — this primi- 

 tive sympathy and sense of oneness with 

 the life and movement of the earth ; and 

 therefore the literature and the art which 

 keep us in touch with Nature are of peculiar 

 and priceless value, with all that informs 

 us of her wonders, that presents to us 

 the never-ending drama of the seasons, 

 and the quiet persistent life of plants 

 and animals, that unfolds to our minds 

 the marvellous spectacle of constant 

 evolution and transformation in the great 

 unfathomable scheme of the universe. 



WALTER CRANE. 



