THE WONDEES OP THE SHORE. 45 



ignorant, and the savage ; not only because foreign 

 travel will be often otlierwise impossible, but because 

 he knows how much invaluable local information can 

 be only obtained from fishermen, miners, hunters, 

 and tillers of the soil. Next, he should be brave 

 and enterprising, and withal patient and undaunted ; 

 not merely in travel, but in investigation ; knowing 

 (as Lord Bacon might have put it) that the kingdom 

 of N'ature, like the kingdom of Heaven, must be 

 taken by violence, and that only to those who 

 knock long and earnestly does the great mother 

 open the doors of her sanctuary. He must be of a 

 reverent turn of mind also ; not rashly discrediting 

 any reports, however vague and fragmentary ; giving 

 man credit always for some germ of truth, and 

 giving nature credit for an inexhaustible fertility 

 and variety, which will keep him his life long 

 always reverent, yet never superstitious ; wondering 

 at the commonest, but not surprised by the most 

 strange; free from the idols of size and sensuous 

 loveliness ; able to see grandeur in the minutest 

 objects, beauty in the most ungainly ; estimating 



