CHAP. VI.] Shy and Friendless. 97 
did not know the names of the birds and animals that he 
caught. For many years after he had begun his researches 
his knowledge of natural objects was obtained by chance. 
He knew little of the nature and habits of the creatures 
that he went to seek; he scarcely knew where or how to 
find them. Yet his very absence of knowledge proved a 
source of inexhaustible pleasure to him. All that he learned 
of the form, habits, and characteristics of birds and animals 
was obtained by his own personal observation. His knowl- 
edge had been gathered and accumulated by himself. It 
was his own. 
It was a misfortune to Edward that, after he had attained 
manhood, he was so shy and friendless. He was as solitary 
as Wordsworth’s Wanderer. He had no friend of any sort 
to direct him in his studies; none even to lend him books, 
from which he might have obtained some assistance. He 
associated very little with his fellow-workers. Shoe-makers 
were a very drunken lot. Edward, on the contrary, was 
* sober and thoughtful. His fellow-shoe-makers could not 
understand him. They thought him an odd, wandering, 
unsettled creature. Why should he not, as they did, enjoy 
himself at the public-house? Instead of doing this, Ed- 
ward plodded homeward so soon as his day’s work was 
over. 
There was, however, one advantage which Edward pos- 
sessed, and it compensated him for many difficulties. He 
was an intense lover of nature. Every thing that lived 
and breathed had charms for him. He loved the fields, the 
woods, the moors. The living presence of the earth was 
always about him, and he eagerly drank in its spirit. The 
bubbling brooks, the whispering trees, the aspects of the 
clouds, the driving wind, were all sources of delight. He 
felt himself free amidst the liberty of nature. 
The ocean in its devious humors—sometimes peacefully 
slumbering, or laving the sands with murmuring kisses at 
his feet; then, full of life and motion, carrying in and out 
5 
