The Lay of the Band 
esting as it may be, which he obtains in a dissecting- 
room. But he sees no such difference between live 
and dead nature, nature in the fields and in the lab- 
oratory. Nature is all a biological problem to him, 
not a quick thing,—a shape, a million shapes, in- 
formed with spirit, —a voice of gladness, a mild and 
healing sympathy, a companionable soul. 
“ But there you go!” he exclaims, “talking poetry 
again. Why don’t you deal with facts? What do 
you mean by nature-study, love for the out-of-doors, 
anyway!” 
Ido not mean a sixteen weeks’ course in zodlogy, 
or botany, or in Wordsworth. I mean, rather, a gentle 
life course in getting acquainted with the toads and 
stars that sing together, for most of us, just within 
and above our own dooryards. It isa long life course 
in the deep and beautiful things of living nature, — 
the nature we know so well as a corpse. It is of 
necessity a somewhat unsystematized, incidental, 
vacation-time course,—the more’s the pity. The 
results do not often come as scientific discoveries. 
They are personal, rather; more after the manner 
of revelations, —data that the professors have little 
faith in. For the scientist cannot put an April dawn 
60 
