1 92 The Poets and Nature* 



Of men and women I know little : their faces, gestures, 

 demeanour are almost without significance to me. I am 

 therefore always wrong in my estimates of men and women, 

 and to my constant misfortune. For this reason I cannot 

 read Dickens for more than a few pages at a time with 

 pleasure. He bores me when he is not funny. For this 

 reason I never never go to a theatre, except under com- 

 pulsion, or else to laugh. On the other hand, I will not say 

 how much I have read Darwin, or how often I go to the 

 Zoo. My natural sympathies, therefore, are outside of 

 humanity. 



As for example : my able namesake F. W. Robinson the 

 novelist would walk over Waterloo Bridge, and while walk- 

 ing over would receive a magazine-article-full of impressions 

 character sketches and so forth. I walk across with him, 

 but on arriving at the other end I have simply traversed so 

 many yards. That I passed a lot of people, I know, because 

 most of them would not get out of my way but little more. 

 Well, perhaps a very pretty girl or an extraordinarily fat man 

 may have awakened an instant's interest ; but virtually, after 

 crossing the bridge, I find I have acquired no ideas what- 

 ever. My mind has received no impressions. Now, on the 

 other hand, if I were to take F. W. across a meadow, he 

 might go from stile to stile and at the end of the walk have 

 nothing more than a general idea of grass, and, perhaps, a 

 more definite one of sheep ; while I have reached the stile 

 with enough in my head for an article in the Gentleman's. 

 Put a magpie down on Waterloo Bridge, and the whole 

 scene changes at oncefor me. Put a shepherd and his 

 boy into the meadow, and the whole scene changes at once 

 forF. W. 



Now F. W., I admit (in deference to human perjudices), 

 recognises and sympathises with a nobler range of subjects 

 than I do. But admitting this, I still would not concede, 

 even to him, the right of taking liberties with animals. If 



