THE WONDEKS OF THE SHOEE. 29 



that of seeing for the first time, in then* native 

 haunts, plants or animals of which one has till then 

 only read. Some, surely, who read these pages 

 have experienced that latter delight ; and, though 

 they might find it hard to define whence the plea- 

 sure arose, know well that it was a solid pleasure, 

 the memory of which they would not give up for 

 hard cash. Some, surely, can recollect, at their first 

 sight of the Alpine Soldanella, the Ehododendron, 

 or the black Orchis, growing upon the edge of the 

 eternal snow, a thrill of emotion not unmixed with 

 awe ; a sense that they were, as it were, brought 

 face to face with the creatures of another world ; 

 that nature was independent of them, not merely 

 they of her; that trees were not merely made to 

 build their houses, or herbs to feed their cattle, as 

 they looked on those wild gardens amid the ^vreaths 

 of the untrodden snow, which had lifted their gay 

 flowers to the sun year after year since the foun- 

 dation of the world, taking no heed of man, and all 

 the coil which he keeps in the valleys far below. 

 And even, to take a simpler instance, there are 



