WAYS OF NATURE 
own lives. Unless they beget some human emotion 
in me, — the emotion of the beautiful, the sublime, 
— or appeal to my sense of the fit, the permanent, 
— unless what you learn in the fields and the woods 
corresponds in some way with what I know of my 
fellows, I shall not long be deeply interested in it. 
I do not want the animals humanized in any other 
sense. ‘They all have human traits and ways; let 
those be brought out — their mirth, their joy, their 
curiosity, their cunning, their thrift, their rela- 
tions, their wars, their loves — and all the springs 
of their actions laid bare as far as possible; but I do 
not expect my natural history to back up the Ten 
Commandments, or to be an illustration of the value 
of training-schools and kindergartens, or to afford 
a commentary upon the vanity of human wishes. 
Humanize your facts to the extent of making them 
interesting, if you have the art to do it, but leave 
the dog a dog, and the straddle-bug a straddle-bug. 
Interpretation is a favorite word with some re- 
cent nature writers. It is claimed for the literary 
naturalist that he interprets natural history. The 
ways and doings of the wild creatures are exagger- 
ated and misread under the plea of interpretation. 
Now, if by interpretation we mean an answer to 
the question, “What does this mean?” or, “What 
is the exact truth about it?” then there is but one 
interpretation of nature, and that is the scientific. 
What is the meaning of the fossils in the rocks? or 
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