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mate game for expert dissection and classification, and hence have added no new lineaments to Audubon's and Wilson's portraits. Such a man as Darwin was full of what we may call the sentiment of science. Darwin was always pursuing an idea, always tracking a living, active principle. He is full of the ideal interpretation of fact, science fired with faith and enthusiasm, the fascination of the power and mystery of nature. All his works have a human and almost poetic side. They are undoubtedly the best feeders of literature we have yet had from the field of science. His book on the earthworm, or on the formation of vegetable mould, reads like a fable in which some high and beautiful philosophy is clothed. How alive he makes the plants and the trees, shows all their movements, their sleeping and waking, and almost their very dreams-does, indeed, disclose and establish a kind of rudimentary soul or intelligence in the tip of the radicle of plants. No poet has ever made the trees so human. Mark, for instance, his discovery of the value of cross-fertilisation in the vegetable kingdom, and the means nature takes to bring it about. Cross-fertilisation is just as important in the intellectual kingdom as in the vegetable. The thoughts of the recluse finally become pale and feeble. Without pollen from other minds how can one have a race of vigorous seedlings of his own? Thus all Darwinian books have to me a literary or poetic substratum. The old fable of metamorphosis and transformation he illustrates afresh in his 'Origin of Species,' in the 'Descent of Man.' Darwin's interest in nature is strongly scientific, but our interest in him is largely literary; he is tracking a principle, the principle of organic life, following it through all its windings and turnings and doublings and redoublings upon itself, in the air, in the earth, in the water, in the vegetable, and in all the branches of the animal world; the footsteps of

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creative energy; not why, but how; and we follow him as we would follow a great explorer, or general, or voyager like Columbus, charmed by his candour, dilated by his mastery. He is said to have felt no need of poetry, or of what is called religion; his sympathies were so large and comprehensive, the mere science in him is so perpetually overarched by that which is not science, but faith, insight, imagination, prophecy, inspiration" substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen; his love of truth so deep and abiding, and his determination to see things, facts, in their relations, and as they issue in principle, so unsleeping, that both his poetic and religious emotions, as well as his scientific proclivities, found full scope, and his demonstration becomes almost a song. It is easy to see how such a mind as Goethe's would have followed him and supplemented him, not from its wealth of scientific lore, but from its poetic insight into the methods of nature.

Again, it is the fine humanism of such a man as Humboldt that gives his name and his teachings currency. Men who have not this humanism, who do not in any way relate their science to life or to the needs of the spirit, but pile up mere technical, dessicated knowledge, are for the most part a waste or a weariness. Humboldt's humanism makes him a stimulus or a support to all students of nature. The noble character, the poetic soul, shines out in all his works and gives them a value above and beyond their scientific worth, great as that undoubtedly is. To his desire for universal knowledge he added the love of beautiful forms, and his 'Cosmos' is an attempt at an artistic creation, an harmonious representation of the universe that should satisfy the æsthetic sense as well as the understanding. It is a graphic description of nature, not a mechanical one. Men of pure science look askant at it, or at Humboldt, on this account. A sage

of Berlin says he failed to reach the utmost height of science because of

his want of "physico-mathematical knowledge;" he was not sufficiently content with the mere dead corpse of nature to weigh and measure it. Lucky for him and for the world that there was something that had a stronger attraction for him than the algebraic formulas. Humboldt was not content till he had escaped from the trammels of mechanical science into the larger and more vital air of literature, or the literary treatment of nature. It is this tendency that gives the charm and value to his Views of Nature;' it is this which keeps his 'Scientific Travels' alive, and makes them readable to this day.

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No man of letters was ever more hospitable to science than Goethe; indeed some of the leading ideas of modern science were distinctly foreshadowed by him; yet they took the form and texture of literature, or of sentiment, rather than of exact science. They were the reachings forth of his spirit; his grasping for the ideal clues to nature, rather than logical steps of his understanding; and his whole interest in physics was a search for a truth above physics-to get nearer, if possible, to this mystery called nature. "The understanding will not reach her," he said to Eckermann; "man must be capable of elevating himself to the highest reason to come in contact with this divinity, which manifests itself in the primitive phenomena, which dwells behind them, and from which they proceed." Of like purport is his remark that the common observations which science makes upon nature and its procedure, "in whatever terms expressed, are really after all only symptoms which, if any real wisdom is to result from our studies, must be traced back to the physiological and pathological principles of which they are the exponents."

Literature, I say, does not keep pace with civilisation. That the world is better housed, better clothed, better fed, better transported, better equipped for war, better armed for peace, more

skilled in agriculture, in navigation, in engineering, in surgery, has steam, electricity, gunpowder, dynamite-all of this, it seems, is of little moment to literature. Are men better? Are men greater? Is life sweeter? These are the test questions. Time has been saved, almost annihilated, by steam and electricity, yet where is the leisure The more time we save the less we have. The hurry of the machine passes into the man. We can outrun the wind and the storm, but we cannot outrun the demon of Hurry. The farther we go the harder he spurs us. What we save in time we make up in space; we must cover more surface. What we gain in power and facility is more than added in the length of the task. The needle woman has her sewing-machine, but she must take ten thousand stitches now where she took only ten before, and it is probably true that the second condition is worse than the first. In the shoe factory, knife factory, shirt factory, and all other factories, men and women work harder, look grimmer, suffer more in mind and body, than under the old conditions of industry. The iron of the machine enters the soul; man becomes a mere tool, a cog or spoke or belt or spindle. More work is done, but in what does it all issue? Certainly not in beauty, in power, in character, in good manners, in finer men and women; but mostly in giving wealth and leisure to people who use them to publish their own unfitness for leisure and wealth.

It may be said that science has added to the health and longevity of the race; that the progress in surgery, in physiology, in pathology, in therapeutics, has greatly mitigated human suffering and prolonged

This is unquestionably true; but in this service science is but paying back to one hand what it robbed the other of. With its appliances, its machinery, its luxuries, its immunities, and its interference with the law of natural selection, it has made the race more delicate and tender, and if it did

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not arm them better against disease also, we should all soon perish. old physician said that if he bled and physicked now, as in his early practice, his patients would all die. Are we stronger, more hardy, more virile than our ancestors? We are more comfortable and better schooled than our fathers, but who shall say we are wiser or happier? "Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers," just as it always has, and always will. The essential conditions of human life are always the same; the non-essential change with every man and hour.

Literature is more interested in some branches of science than in others; more interested in meteorology than in mineralogy; more interested in physiology than in chemistry; more interested in the superior sciences, like astronomy and geology, than in the inferior experimental sciences; has a warmer interest in Humboldt the traveller, than in Humboldt the mineralogist; in Audubon and Wilson, than in the experts and feathersplitters who have finished their tasks; in Watts, Morse, Franklin, than in the masters of theories and formulas; and has a greater stake in virtue, heroism, character, beauty, than in all the knowledge in the world. There is no literature without a certain subtle and vital blending of the real and the ideal.

Unless knowledge in some way issues in life, in character, in impulse, in motive, in love, in virtue, in some live human quality or attribute, it does not belong to literature. Man, and man alone, is of perennial interest to man. In nature we glean only the human traits-only those things that in some way appeal to, or are interpretative of, the meaning or ideal within us. Unless the account of your excursion to field and forest, or to the bowels of the earth, or to the bottom of the sea, has some human interest, and in some measure falls in with the festival of life, literature will none of it.

All persons are interested in the live

bird and in the live animal, because they dimly read themselves there, or see their own lives rendered in new characters on another plane. Flowers, trees, rivers, lakes, mountains, rocks, clouds, the rain, the sea, are far more interesting to literature, because they are more or less directly related to our natural lives, and serve as vehicles for the expression of our natural emotions. That which is more directly related to what may be called our artificial life our need for shelter, clothing, food, transportation-such as the factory, the mill, the forge, the railway, and the whole catalogue of useful arts, is of less interest, and literature is shyer of it. And it may be observed that the more completely the thing is taken out of nature and artificialised, the less interest we take in it. Thus the sailing vessel is more pleasing to contemplate than the steamer; the old grist-mill, with its dripping water-wheel, than the steammill; the open fire than the stove or register. Tools and implements are not so interesting as weapons; nor the trades as the pursuit of hunting, fishing, surveying, exploring. A jackknife is not so interesting as an arrowhead, a rifle as a war-club, a watch as an hour-glass, a threshing-machine. as the flying flail. Commerce is less interesting to literature than war, because it is more artificial; nature does not have such full swing in it. The blacksmith interests us more than the gunsmith, we see more of nature at his forge; the farmer is dearer to literature than the merchant; the gardener than the agricultural chemist; the drover, the herder, the fisherman, the lumberman, the miner, are more interesting to her than the man of more elegant and artificial pursuits.

The reason of all this is clear to see. We are embosomed in nature, we are an apple on the bough, a babe at the breast. In nature, in God, we live and move and have our being. Our life depends upon the purity, the closeness, the vitality of the connection. We want and must have nature

at first hand; water from the spring, milk from the udder, bread from the wheat, air from the open. Vitiate our supplies, weaken our connection, and we fail. All our instincts, appetites, functions must be kept whole and normal; in fact, our reliance is wholly upon nature, and this bears fruit in the mind. In art, in literature, in life, we are drawn by that which seems nearest to, and most in accord with, her. Natural or untaught knowledge, how much closer it touches us than professional knowledge. Keep me close to nature, is the constant demand of literature; open the windows and let in the air, the sun, let in health and strength; my blood must have oxygen, my lungs must be momentarily filled with the fresh unhoused element. I cannot breathe the cosmic ether of the abstruse inquirer, nor thrive on the gases of the scientist in his laboratory; the air of hill and field alone suffices.

The life of the hut is of more interest to literature than the life of the palace, except so far as the same nature has her way in both. Get rid of the artificial, the complex, and let in the primitive and the simple. Art and poetry never tire of the plough, the scythe, the axe, the hoe, the flail, the oar; but the pride and glory of the agricultural warehouse-can that be sung? The machine that talks and walks and suffers and loves, is still the best. Artifice, the more artifice there is thrown between us and nature, the more appliances, conductors, fenders, the less freely her virtue passes. The direct rays of the open fire are better even for roasting a potato than conducted heat.

Science will no doubt draw off, and has already drawn off, a vast deal of force and thought that has heretofore found an outlet in other pursuits, per haps in law, criticism, or historical inquiries; but is it probable that it will nip in the bud any great poets,

painters, romancers, musicians, orators Certain branches of scientific inquiry drew Goethe strongly, but his aptitude in them was clearly less than in his own chosen field. Alexander Wilson left poetry for ornithology, and he made a wise choice. He became eminent in the one, and he was only mediocre in the other. Sir Charles Lyell also certainly chose wisely in abandoning verse-making for geology. In the latter field he ranks first, and in making "nature's infinite book of secrecy," as it lies folded in the geological strata, he found ample room for the exercise of all the imagination and power of interpretation he possessed. His conclusions have skyroom and perspective, and give us a sort of poetic satisfaction.

The true poet and the true scientist are not estranged. They go forth into nature like two friends. Behold them strolling through the summer fields and woods. The younger of the two is much the more active and inquiring; he is ever and anon stepping aside to examine some object more minutely, plucking a flower, treasuring a shell, pursuing pursuing a bird, watching a butterfly; now he turns over a stone, peers into the marshes, chips off a fragment of a rock, and everywhere seems intent on some special and particular knowledge of the things about him. The elder man has more an air of leisurely contemplation and enjoyment is less curious about special objects and features, and more desirous of putting himself in harmony with the spirit of the whole. But when his younger companion has any fresh and characteristic bit of information to impart to him, how attentively he listens, how sure and discriminating is his appreciation. The interests of the two in the universe are widely different, yet in no true sense are they hostile or mutually destructive.

JOHN BURROUGHS.

MY FRIEND THE PROFESSOR.

"MY DEAR VANE,-A line in haste. If you can possibly manage it, come down here by the four o'clock train. My mother's diamond has been stolen. Don't bring a detective; we'll try it ourselves first. Telegraph, if you

can come.

"Yours in haste,

"H. CARGILL."

I found this letter waiting for me at my club one morning towards the end of May. Go! of course I should; I had nothing particular to keep me in town; so by the four o'clock train I found myself travelling south in a much more lively frame of mind than I had experienced in the morning, endeavouring to while away the time with conjectures as to what could really have taken place. The diamond I knew well. It was truly a precious stone, not only for its intrinsic worth, but also from the fact that it had been given by an Indian Rajah to Mrs. Cargill's father, and, further, it was the last gift of a parent whose memory was loved by all who had known him. Mrs. Cargill wore it plainly set in gold as a brooch, and wore it more frequently than perhaps most women would have thought it wise to air so valuable a treasure.

My friend lived with his mother and a little sister in a quaint old house with considerable grounds, in a very quiet and unpretending manner. The nearest village of any importance was at a distance of some four and a half miles. Often had I envied him the quiet peace of his home. His tastes were artistic, like mine; and, with such work as he might choose to do, and the occasional superintendence of his family acres, as might be necessary to divert his attention, life must have been very pleasant indeed.

My friend Harold was waiting for me when I reached the little station about seven in the evening, and on

the drive home I learned a few more particulars. The robbery had taken place, as far as could be judged, either during the night before last or on the preceding day. The house and the effects of the servants had been searched without avail, and Harold had only waited my arrival before taking further steps. We talked the matter over at great length both on our way home and after dinner. That one of the servants was guilty seemed to me quite evident, but I could convince neither of the others on this point.

Mrs. Cargill left us soon to our wine, and I continued my endeavours without avail to prove to Harold that strict measures should at once be taken with all the servants. He contended that a thorough search had already been made.

"My dear fellow," I said at length, "you should have allowed me to use my discretion in the matter, and I would have brought you down French detective or two."

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"And what would your detectives have done? Made up a nice story, implicating one or all of the servants, and probably the gardener as an outdoor agent, but not found the diamond. Now where is the use of investigations unless we recover the diamond?"

A happy thought struck me as he spoke. "If your object, Harold, is entirely the recovery of the diamond and not the punishment of the thief, I have a suggestion to make; and it may be, after all, that if we discover the stone first we may learn more afterwards. Let us have down this great mesmerist and thought-reader who is making such a small commotion just now. We'll tax him (if he'll come) to conduct us to the stone. It is probably still in the house; the

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