Page Four 



hands and smell it — almost taste it. Indeed, I never see a 

 horse eat soil and sods without a feeling that I would like to 

 taste it too. The rind of the earth, of this 'round and deli- 

 cious globe' which has hung so long upon the great Newtonian 

 tree, ripening in the sun, must be sweet. 



''Nature is not to be praised or patronized. You cannot 

 go to her and describe her; she must speak through 3'our 

 heart. The woods and fields must melt into 3^our mind, dis- 

 solved b}' your love for them. Did the}^ not melt into Words- 

 worth's mind? They colored all his thoughts; the soUtude 

 of those green, rockj^ Westmoreland fells broods over every 

 page. He does not tell us how beautiful he finds Nature, and 

 how much he enjoys her; he makes us share his enjoj^ment. 

 .... Observation is selective and detective. A real observation 

 begets warmth and joy in the mind. To see things in detail 

 as they lie about 3^ou and enumerate them is not observation; 

 but to see the significant things, to seize the quick movement 

 and gesture, to disentangle the threads of relation, to know 

 the nerves that thrill from the cords that bind, or the tj'pical 

 and vital from the commonplace and mechanical — that is to 

 be an observer." 



Riverhy (Lovers of Nature) 



"Success in observing nature, as in so many other things, 

 depends upon alertness of mind and quickness to take a hint. 

 One's perceptive faculties must be Uke a trap lightly and 

 delicately set; a touch must suffice to spring it. But how 

 many people have I walked with, whose perceptions were 

 rust}^ and unpiactised — nothing less than a bear would spring 

 their trap ' All the finer pla}' of nature, all the small deer, they 

 miss. The little dramas and tragedies that are being enacted 



