5 ° 
THE GUIDE TO NATURE 
In Appreciation of My Friends, Liter- 
ary and Other. 
BY THEODORE H. COOPER, BATAVIA, N. Y. 
In front of me are my chemicals and 
apparatus from which I have derived 
more pleasure than I can well express. 
I have lived with my books and this ap- 
paratus, and have absorbed knowledge 
from them as leaves absorb sunlight. I 
have not “studied” science or books in 
the ordinary sense of the word. I have 
grown into them. Every day for years, 
for a few minutes a day at least, I have 
dipped into books and sat in my library 
with them at my elbow. Through my 
“ playing ” and tinkering with my mi- 
croscopes, test tubes, beakers, etc., they 
have become my friends. I know them 
and I should be lonesome if long sepa- 
rated from them. 
When I am about to buy a book or 
an instrument I ask, “Is it interesting? 
Will it be stimulating of thought? Will 
it help me to understand something 
about which I wish to know? Is it 
something that it will be a joy to pos- 
sess ?” 
I have things, many things, that are 
much more valuable to me than they 
would be to anyone else, but only for 
the reason that 1 know more about 
them. When I look at one of my test 
tube racks it suggests pleasing recol- 
lections. I made it one night when I 
was a night fireman. It was the first 
test tube rack I ever had, and about the 
first that I ever saw. I had but little 
apparatus then, and how I used to 
watch for the expressman to come with 
that box of glassware from Eberbach’s. 
I had read and read about chemistry 
and about making experiments, and 
now I was to have some apparatus of 
my own. The pleasure in anticipating 
was not less than the experimenting 
itself. The same with books. How 
eagerly I have watched for the post- 
man. He has brought me more good 
things than I could enumerate in a 
good sized volume. A new book by 
Burroughs, or on one of my favorite 
sciences, or a letter from a distant 
friend — I cannot express just the feel- 
ing of welcome companionship a letter 
from some new correspondent has so 
often brought me. No one ever had a 
more affectionate regard for his corre- 
spondents than I have. I should make 
a poor hermit unless I could have a 
good sized mail box at my cave. 
With me a test tube is not a tool; it 
is a friend. My books talk to me, advise 
me, cheer me should an unfortunate 
event afflict me. I never study them. 
I ask them questions ; I philosophize 
with them. When, as is often the case, 
my purse is slim, Thoreau and a host 
of others come down from their shelves 
and tell me how much more I already 
have than I really need. When I have 
been disappointed at not receiving an 
answer to a letter, or on finding that 
the book I ordered is out of print, Walt 
Whitman and Burroughs make the 
matter dwindle to nothing by a broad 
sweep of the pen. 
I have only a small room with books 
and a desk on two sides and apparatus 
on the other two, but what a mine of 
good things there is here for my in- 
quisitive and reflective mind. I sit here 
and read or think for hours at a time. 
I do not know what my books have cost 
me ; I keep no ledger. 
I have no newspapers and know 
nothing about the latest crimes that 
have been committed. I am not a re- 
former. I am satisfied with things as 
they are. I am so intent upon enjoying 
the good qualities of my friends that I 
have no time to consider how much 
better those qualities might be. No 
doubt evil people exist, but for every 
evil one there are two good ones. It is 
easy for me to accept this majority. I 
have no quarrel with the money-makers 
nor with those who have viewpoints 
differing from mine. They have the 
same right to their opinion that I have 
to mine. May they always get as much 
pleasure from following their chosen 
pursuits as I have had from following 
mine. 
I have lived in the city and in the 
country. I have found it good to live in 
either place. If you are of an easy- 
going, peaceful disposition it is easy to 
find friends in either place, and enemies 
too if you are so inclined. But when 
I know there is a hornet’s nest on one 
side of the fence I usually take the 
other. There is a good old saying that 
it is better to bend than to break. 
The newly discovered Arctic lands 
north of North America and hardly 
ten degrees from the pole support 
thirty indigenous species of insects, 
seven spiders, five birds and nine 
mammals. 
