OUTDOOR LIFE IN LITERATURE. 13 
familiar descriptive literature, which need not be a whit 
less scientific, although it may avoid the technicalities 
of the former. The difference between the two is hinted 
at in this little song from Tennyson’s “Maud”: 
“See what a lovely shell, 
“Small and pure as a pearl, 
Lying close to my foot, 
Frail, but a work divine, 
Made so fairily well 
With delicate spire and whorl, 
How exquisitely minute, 
A miracle of design ! 
What is it? A learned man 
Could give it a clumsy name. 
Let him name it who can, 
The beauty would be the same.” 
The literature of the East abounds in figurative 
language in which the metaphor and the simile show 
this observation of Nature. The unknown writer of the 
“Book of Job” displays such clearsightedness, such 
skill in description, such sincerity, such simplicity, that 
the “epic melody” of his work has never been sur- 
passed. Where can be found such a picture of the 
war-horse, of behemoth, of the ostrich? He has learned 
that no man can bind the sweet influences of the Ple- 
iades or loose the bands of Orion; he has seen visions, 
natural and spiritual; he has studied deeply the great 
