A Word for Books 



the summer world ; but it does enable me 

 really to see every plant which grows in any 

 place, and really to appreciate its peculiar 

 beauties. Even my poor little smattering 

 has done so much for me, and even as re- 

 gards pleasure of the most strictly aesthetic 

 sort, that I wonder how anyone who has no 

 smattering can think that he enjoys Nature 

 at all. 



What is true with regard to botany is 

 true, of course, in a similar way, with regard 

 to geology. A smattering of geology will 

 teach one only a very little about rocks and 

 stones, and about the outlining and massing 

 of the giant framiework over which Nature 

 spreads her carpet of plants ; but even this 

 very little knowledge, with the new sharp- 

 ness of eye which will be its fruit, will make 

 one's sense for the beauty of rock and soil- 

 formations immeasurably broader and im- 

 measurably more acute. 



The true lover of Nature," said Wilham 

 Blake, can see a world in a grain of sand 

 and heaven in a wild flower." But such a 

 power of seeing is not given to many per- 

 sons at their birth. Eyes are of very little 



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