B. A second lesson may confine itself more closely to the figures of speech. Naturally this study of figures belongs with language and literature, but the point we wish to make is one of correlation. There is a literary side to nature study, and a natural history side to literature. Many of the greatest authors have been ardent lovers of nature, and have drawn liberally on their knowledge of nature in beautifying what they have written. Many a reader, from lack of knowledge or from careless habits, passes over the most delightful things, as blind and deaf as he who sees no beauty in the wild flowers and hears no melody in the songs of birds.
For the second lesson of this character we will take the second and third chapters of The King of the Golden River, hoping to find an abundance of figures based on nature in some of its forms. We may not find many. Some writers use few. We suspect that Ruskin used them freely; as a matter of fact he was one of the greatest lovers of nature, a man who labored hard to bring art and nature together and to find a place for them in the lives of all.
We find in the second chapter the following nature figures:
a. Southwest Wind, Esquire, page 418.
b. His relations, the West Winds, page 418.
c. It looks more like silk, page 419.
d. The hot breath of the furnace, page 420.
e. Bright tongues of fiery cloud burning and quivering about them, page 420.
f. A clear metallic voice, page 420.
g. Like that of a kettle on the boil, page 421.