STRAIGHT SEEING AND THINKING 



samples of the former method ; read Thoreau's de- 

 scription of the wood thrush's song or the bobolink's 

 song, or his account of wild apples, or of his life 

 at Walden Pond, or almost any other bit of his writ- 

 ing, for a sample of the latter. In his best work he 

 uses language in the imaginative way of the poet. 



Literature and science do not differ in matters 

 of fact, but in spirit and method. There is no live 

 literature without a play of personality, and there is 

 no exact science without the clear, white light of the 

 understanding. What we want, and have a right 

 to expect, of the literary naturalist is that his state- 

 ment shall have both truth and charm, but we do 

 not want the charm at the expense of the truth. I 

 may invest the commonest fact I observe in the fields 

 or by the roadside with the air of romance, if I can, 

 but I am not to put the romance in place of the fact. 

 If you romance about the animals, you must do so 

 unequivocally, as Kipling does and as ^sop did; 

 the fiction must declare itself at once, or the work is 

 vicious. To make literature out of natural history 

 observation is not to pervert or distort the facts, 

 or to draw the long bow at all ; it is to see the facts 

 in their true relations and proportions and with 

 honest emotion. 



Truth of seeing and truth of feeling are the main 

 requisite : add truth of style, and the thing is done. 



