166 INDOOR STUDIES 



There was no other book of any merit like it for 

 nearly a hundred years. It contains a great deal 

 of good natural history and acute observations upon 

 various rural subjects, put up in a cheap and port- 

 able form. The contemporary works of Pennant 

 are voluminous and costly, — heavy sailing-craft 

 only that come to port in the great libraries, while 

 this is a nimble, light-draught vessel that has found 

 a harbor on nearly every man's book-shelf. 



Hence we say that while it is not one of the 

 great books, it is one of the very real books, one of 

 the very live books, and has met and supplied a 

 tangible want in the English reading world. It 

 does not appeal to a large class of readers, and yet 

 no library is complete without it. It is valuable as 

 a storehouse of facts, it is valuable as a treatise on 

 the art of observing things, and it is valuable for 

 its sweetness and charm of style. 



What an equable, harmonious, and gracious spirit 

 and temper pervade the book, and withal what an 

 air of summer-day leisure and sequestration! The 

 great world is far off. Its sound is less than the 

 distant rumble of a wagon heard m the midst of 

 the fields. The privacy and preoccupation of the 

 author are like those of the bird building her nest, 

 or of the bee gathering her sweets. He was eager 

 for news, but it was only for news from the earth 

 and the air, or from the dumb life about him. Yet 

 it would not be safe to affirm that White was not 

 an interested and sympathetic spectator of the 

 events of his time, like other men, for doubtless he 



