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 framework 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 William 
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 
347 
