164 INDOOE STUDIES 



fell into my hands, when I felt its charm and value 

 at once. Indeed, the work of the Selborne natu- 

 ralist belongs to the class of books that one must 

 discover for himself : their quality is not patent ; he 

 that runs may not read them. Like certain fruits, 

 they leave a lingering flavor in the mouth that is 

 much better than the first taste promised. In some 

 congenial mood or lucky moment you find them out. 

 I remember I had the little book of Essays of Abra- 

 ham Cowley some years before I succeeded in read- 

 ing it. One summer day I chanced to take it with 

 me on my walk to the woods, and at the foot of a 

 waterfall in a very secluded place I su.ddenly discov- 

 ered that the essays had a quality and a charm that 

 I had never suspected they possessed. The book 

 was the fruit of a certain privacy and seclusion from 

 the world, and it required in the reader the frame 

 of mind which these beget to enter fully into it. I 

 suspect that some such auspicious moment or prepa- 

 ration is necessary to a full appreciation of White's 

 letters. It is necessary, in the first place, that you 

 be a born countryman, capable of a certain fellow- 

 ship and intimacy with your brute neighbors and 

 with the various shows of rural nature. Then a 

 quiet, even tenor of life, such as can be had only 

 in the country, is also necessary, — a way of life 

 that goes slow, and lingers upon the impression of 

 the moment, and returns to it again and again, that 

 makes much of little things, and is closely observant 

 of the face of the day and of the landscape, and 

 into which the disturbing elements of the great 



