Sir George Kekewich's Address 217 



practically unbounded. The student delights in her 

 lavish exuberance; he sees her, and loves to see her, 

 as she is; not garishly clothed by the carpet-bedder, or 

 ordered and arranged by the landscape-gardener. I 

 call to mind those words of Calverley's when in one of 

 his inimitable productions he was satirizing Propriety: 



" I walked in the Forest, and above me stood the yew — 

 Stood like a slumbering giant, shrouded in impenetrable shade. 

 Then I walked in the Citizens' garden, and lo ! the same tree 



clipped into shape : 

 The giant's locks had been shorn by the Dalilah scissors of 



decorum. 

 And I said, ' How beautiful is Nature, but how much more 



beautiful is Art!'" 



Let our child love, not the mathematical exactness 

 of this Italian garden, but the wild profusion of " the 

 groves of lign-aloes that the Lord has planted". 



The student finds fresh interest and fresh material 

 in every variety of surroundings, in the garden, in the 

 field, on the open moor, in the depths of the wood, on 

 the bosom of the river, by the shore of the sea. To 

 him there are lessons in the flower and the fruit, the 

 herbage, the trees, in all the life of the land and of 

 the water. He finds ever something new to wonder 

 at in the mysterious life of trees and plants, a life 

 which modern science has not, even yet, fully com- 

 prehended, and which perhaps is beyond our compre- 

 hension. To him Nature is an inexhaustible book, 

 which he may read for all his life, while the pages are 

 for ever multiplying as he reads. There is no weari- 

 ness in this study, for the reader is constantly en- 

 countering new beauties and new poetry to delight 

 his eyes and soul, and excite his imagination. The 



