Art Out-of-Doors 



he refused to know either, he was always a 

 discontented lover of Nature. Finding no 

 outlet for his pas^sion except through the in- 

 adequacy of words, he felt that his obser- 

 vation had no purpose : he was continually 

 questioning why beauty exists, what it im- 

 plies, and how it can be as beneficial as he 

 bhndly felt it must be. In the essay called 

 ^^Wild Flowers" there are curiously con- 

 tradictory passages. '-'The first conscious 

 thought about wild flowers," he says, ^^was 

 to find out their names — the first conscious 

 pleasure ; and then I began to see many that 

 I had not previously noticed. Once you 

 wish to identify them there is nothing es- 

 capes, down to the little white chick-weed 

 of the path and the moss of the wall. . . . 

 Plants everywhere, hiding behind every tree, 

 under the leaves, in the shady places, beside 

 the dry furrows of the field ; they are only 

 just behind something, hidden openly. The 

 instant you look for them they multiply a 

 hundred-fold." 



Once you luish to identify thenij he says ; 

 does it not seem as though he Avould imme- 

 diately have turned to books for their ready 



340 



