Study of Nature. 153 



ver Wendell Holmes's Chambered Nautilus; Gray's Elegy in 

 a Country Church-yard; Whittier's Barefoot Boy; Bryant's 

 Waterfowl, and Proctor's The Sea, represent this literature. 



" I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, 

 Singing at dawn on tire alder bough ; 

 I brought him home, in his nest, at even. 

 He sings the song, but it pleases not now, 

 For I did not bring home the river and sky. 

 He sang to my ear— they sang to my eye." 



One must get close to nature and know it well ; must learn 

 much of birds and flowers ; must commune Avith river and sky 

 as a lover, to understand how Mr. Emerson could see in them 

 the enchanting part of bird song. 



" Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon, 



How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair? 

 How can ye chaunt, ye little birds. 

 An' I sae weary, fu' o' care ? " 



No dictionary can define for the student this most masterful 

 contrast of English tongue ; no grammar or rhetoric explain it ; 

 no eloquent master develop it. He alone can know and feel its 

 full force who, though life may have given to him the darkest 

 sorrow, knows by experience of the caroling of birds, of flowery 

 banks, of chattering brooks, and of carpeted meadow lands stretch- 

 iijg to shaded nooks in the hillside beyond. 



A large part, not the larger part, of our literature can be under- 

 stood and appreciated only by him who has been jjroperly pre- 

 pared to study geography aright. How many men and women, 

 how many students, read such literature only as words. This 

 body of literature is to be studied and classified and known by 

 authors as literature proceeding from a knowledge and love of 

 nature. 



21— Nat. Gkog, Mar., voi,. V, 1893, 



