TANGLE-LEAF PAPERS. 



In the season of nest-building, which is also 

 the season of song-singing, the by-ways of 

 American rural districts offer many attractions 

 to the student of nature, and especially to the 

 student who hopes to turn his discoveries to 

 account in any field of art. Of mere descrip- 

 tive matter, so far as it may go in literature, 

 and of mere conventionalization, so far as dec- 

 orative drawing and painting are concerned, 

 the most that was ever possible has, probably, 

 already been done ; but the higher forms of art, 

 which we have agreed to call creative, must 

 get the germs of all new combinations from 

 the suggestions of nature. I often have 

 thought that even criticism in our country 

 would have more virility in it if the critics had 

 more time and more inclination to study nature 

 outside of cities and greenhouses. How can 

 Wordsworth be studied with true critical in- 

 sight by one who but vaguely remembers the 

 outlines of the woods and fields, the shady 

 lanes, and the fine aerial effects of hilly land- 

 scape ? When one with open eyes and ears 

 goes out into the unshorn ways of nature in the 

 creative season — spring — the fine fervor at 

 work in birds, and trees, and plants, in the air, 

 the earth, and the water, is so manifest that 

 one cannot doubt that some subtle element of 

 originality is easily obtainable therefrom by in- 

 fection. Of course one must be susceptible to 



