Finally, after discussing these and various other matters which once engaged his attention, also the little book he gave to the world so long ago, there would still remain another subject to be mentioned about which I should feel somewhat shy—namely, the marked difference in manner, perhaps in feeling, between the old and new writers on animal life and nature. The subject would be strange to him. On going into particulars, he would be surprised at the disposition, almost amounting to a passion, of the modern mind to view life and nature in their æsthetic aspects. This new spirit would strike him as something odd and exotic, as if the writers had been first artists or landscape-gardeners, who had, as naturalists, retained the habit of looking for the picturesque. He would further note that we moderns are more emotional than the writers of the past, or, at all events, less reticent. There is no doubt, he would say, that our researches into the kingdom of nature produce in us a wonderful pleasure, unlike in character and perhaps superior to most others; but this feeling, which was indefinable and not to be traced to its source, was probably given to us for a secret gratification. If we are curious to know its significance, might we not regard it as something ancillary to our spiritual natures, as a kind of subsidiary conscience, a private assurance that in all our researches into the wonderful works of creation we are acting in obedience to a tacit command, or, at all events in harmony with the Divine Will?
Ingenious! would be my comment, and possibly to the eighteenth century mind it would have proved satisfactory. There was something to be said in defence of what appeared to him as new and strange in our books and methods. Not easily said, unfortunately; since it was not only the expression that was new, but the outlook, and something in the heart. We are bound as much as ever to facts; we seek for them more and more diligently, knowing that to break from them is to be carried away by vain imaginations. All the same, facts in themselves are nothing to us: they are important only in their relations to other facts and things—to all things, and the essence of things, material and spiritual. We are not like children gathering painted shells and pebbles on a beach; but, whether we know it or not, are seeking after something beyond and above knowledge. The wilderness in which we are sojourners is not our home; it is enough that its herbs and roots and wild fruits nourish and give us strength to go onward. Intellectual curiosity, with the gratification of the individual for only purpose, has no place in this scheme of things as we conceive it. Heart and soul are with the brain in all investigation—a truth which some know in rare, beautiful intervals, and others never; but we are all meanwhile busy with our work, like myriads of social insects engaged in raising a structure that was never planned. Perhaps we are not so wholly unconscious of our destinies as were the patient gatherers of facts of a hundred years ago. Even in one brief century the dawn has come nearer—perhaps a faint whiteness in the east has exhilarated us like wine. Undoubtedly we are more conscious of many things, both within and without—of the length and breadth and depth of nature; of a unity which was hardly dreamed of by the naturalists of past ages, a commensalism on earth from which the meanest organism is not excluded. For we are no longer isolated, standing like starry visitors on a mountain-top, surveying life from the outside; but are on a level with and part and parcel of it; and if the mystery of life daily deepens, it is because we view it more closely and with clearer vision. A poet of our age has said that in the meanest floweret we may find "thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." The poet and prophet is not alone in this; he expresses a feeling common to all of those who, with our wider knowledge, have the passion for nature in their hearts, who go to nature, whether for knowledge or inspiration. That there should appear in recent literature something of a new spirit, a sympathetic feeling which could not possibly have flourished in a former age, is not to be wondered at, considering all that has happened in the present century to change the current of men's thoughts. For not only has the new knowledge wrought in our minds, but has entered, or is at last entering, into our souls.
Having got so far in my apology, a feeling of despair would all at once overcome me at the thought of the vastness of the subject I had entered upon. Looking back it seems but a little while since the introduction of that new element into thought, that "fiery leaven" which in the end would "leaven all the hearts of men for ever." But the time was not really so short; the gift had been rejected with scorn and bitterness by the mass of mankind at first; it had taken them years—the years of a generation—to overcome repugnance and resentment, and to accept it. Even so it had wrought a mighty change, only this had been in the mind; the change in the heart would follow, and it was perhaps early to boast of it. How was I to disclose all this to him? All that I had spoken was but a brief exordium—a prelude and note of preparation for what should follow—a story immeasurably longer and infinitely more wonderful than that which the Ancient Mariner told to the Wedding Guest. It was an impossible task.
At length, after an interval of silence, to me full of trouble, the expected note of dissent would come.
I had told him, he would say, either too much or not enough. No doubt there had been a very considerable increase of knowledge since his day; nevertheless, judging from something I had said on the hibernation, or torpid condition, of swallows, there was still something to learn with regard to the life and conversation of animals. The change in the character of modern books about nature, of which I had told him, quoting passages—a change in the direction of a more poetic and emotional treatment of the subject—he, looking from a distance, was inclined to regard as merely a literary fashion of the time. That anything so unforeseen had come to pass,—so important as to change the current of thought, to give to men new ideas about the unity of nature and the relation in which we stood towards the inferior creatures,—he could not understand. It should be remembered that the human race had existed some fifty or sixty centuries on the earth, and that since the invention of letters men had recorded their observations. The increase in the body of facts had thus been, on the whole, gradual and continuous. Take the case of the cuckoo. Aristotle, some two thousand years ago, had given a fairly accurate account of its habits; and yet in very recent years, as I had informed him, new facts relating to the procreant instincts of that singular fowl had come to light.
After a short interval of silence I would become conscious of a change in him, as if a cloud had lifted—of a quiet smile on his, to my earthly eyes, invisible countenance, and he would add: "No, no; you have yourself supplied me with a reason for questioning your views; your statement of them—pardon me for saying it—struck me as somewhat rhapsodical. I refer to your commendations of my humble history of the Parish of Selborne. It is gratifying to me to hear that this poor little book is still in such good repute, and I have been even more pleased at that idea of modern naturalists, so flattering to my memory, of a pilgrimage to Selborne; but, if so great a change has come over men's minds as you appear to believe, and if they have put some new interpretation on nature, it is certainly curious that I should still have readers."
It would be my turn to smile now—a smile for a smile—and silence would follow. And so, with the dispersal of this little cloud, there would be an end of the colloquy, and each would go his way: one to be re-absorbed into the grey stones and long grass, the ancient yew-tree, the wooded Hanger; the other to pursue his walk to the neighbouring parish of Liss, almost ready to believe as he went that the interview had actually taken place.
It only remains to say that the smile (my smile) would have been at the expense of some modern editors of the famous Letters, rather than at that of my interlocutor. They are astonished at Gilbert White's vitality, and cannot find a reason for it. Why does this "little cockle-shell of a book," as one of them has lately called it, come gaily down to us over a sea full of waves, where so many brave barks have foundered? The style is sweet and clear, but a book cannot live merely because it is well written. It is chock-full of facts; but the facts have been tested and sifted, and all that were worth keeping are to be found incorporated in scores of standard works on natural history. I would humbly suggest that there is no mystery at all about it; that the personality of the author is the principal charm of the Letters, for in spite of his modesty and extreme reticence his spirit shines in every page; that the world will not willingly let this small book die, not only because it is small, and well written, and full of interesting matter, but chiefly because it is a very delightful human document.
INDEX