New York MACMILLAN AND CO. AND LONDON 1892 All rights reserved Copyright , 1892, By MACMILLAN AND CO. Typography by J. S. Cushing & Co., Boston, U.S.A. Presswork by Berwick & Smith, Boston, U.S.A. CHAPTER I PAGE Introduction 1 Beauty and Happiness 3 The Love of Nature 5 Enjoyment of Scenery 14 Scenery of England 19 Foreign Scenery 21 The Aurora 33 The Seasons 34 CHAPTER II On Animal Life 39 Love of Animals 41 Growth and Metamorphoses 43 Rudimentary Organs 45 Modifications 48 Colo

Burnham Beeches Frontispiece Windsor Castle. (From a drawing by J. Finnemore) To face page 13 Aquatic Vegetation, Rio. (Published by Spooner and Co.) 145 Tropical Forest, West Indies. (After Kingsley) 179 Summit of Mont Blanc 203 The Mer de Glace, Mont Blanc 229 Rydal Water. (From a photograph by Frith and Co., published by Spooner and Co.) 247 Windermere 253 View in the Valais below St. Maurice 264 View up the Valais from the Lake of Geneva 268 The Land's End. (From a photograph by Frith and Co

If any one gave you a few acres, you would say that you had received a benefit; can you deny that the boundless extent of the earth is a benefit? If any one gave you money, you would call that a benefit. God has buried countless masses of gold and silver in the earth. If a house were given you, bright with marble, its roof beautifully painted with colours and gilding, you would call it no small benefit. God has built for you a mansion that fears no fire or ruin ... covered with a roof which glit

The world we live in is a fairyland of exquisite beauty, our very existence is a miracle in itself, and yet few of us enjoy as we might, and none as yet appreciate fully, the beauties and wonders which surround us. The greatest traveller cannot hope even in a long life to visit more than a very small part of our earth, and even of that which is under our very eyes how little we see! What we do see depends mainly on what we look for. When we turn our eyes to the sky, it is in most cases merely to

If thy heart be right, then will every creature be to thee a mirror of life, and a book of holy doctrine. Thomas à Kempis....

There is no species of animal or plant which would not well repay, I will not say merely the study of a day, but even the devotion of a lifetime. Their form and structure, development and habits, geographical distribution, relation to other living beings, and past history, constitute an inexhaustible study. When we consider how much we owe to the Dog, Man's faithful friend, to the noble Horse, the patient Ox, the Cow, the Sheep, and our other domestic animals, we cannot be too grateful to them;

An organic being is a microcosm—a little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and numerous as the stars of heaven. Darwin....

We constantly speak of animals as free. A fish, says Ruskin, "is much freer than a Man; and as to a fly, it is a black incarnation of freedom." It is pleasant to think of anything as free, but in this case the idea is, I fear, to a great extent erroneous. Young animals may frolic and play, but older ones take life very seriously. About the habits of fish and flies, indeed, as yet we know very little. Any one, however, who will watch animals will soon satisfy himself how diligently they work. Eve

We are told that in old days the Fairies used to give presents of Flowers and Leaves to those whom they wished to reward, or whom they loved best; and though these gifts were, it appears, often received with disappointment, still it will probably be admitted that flowers have contributed more to the happiness of our lives than either gold or silver or precious stones; and that our happiest days have been spent out-of-doors in the woods and fields, when we have To many minds Flowers acquired an a

"By day or by night, summer or winter, beneath trees the heart feels nearer to that depth of life which the far sky means. The rest of spirit, found only in beauty, ideal and pure, comes there because the distance seems within touch of thought." Jefferies....

Rural life, says Cicero, "is not delightful by reason of cornfields only and meadows, and vineyards and groves, but also for its gardens and orchards, for the feeding of cattle, the swarms of bees, and the variety of all kinds of flowers." Bacon considered that a garden is "the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man, without which buildings and palaces are but gross handyworks, and a man shall ever see, that when ages grow to civility and elegancy men come to build stately sooner than to gar

Mountains "seem to have been built for the human race, as at once their schools and cathedrals; full of treasures of illuminated manuscript for the scholar, kindly in simple lessons for the worker, quiet in pale cloisters for the thinker, glorious in holiness for the worshipper. They are great cathedrals of the earth, with their gates of rock, pavements of cloud, choirs of stream and stone, altars of snow, and vaults of purple traversed by the continual stars."— Ruskin....

The Alps are to many of us an inexhaustible source of joy and peace, of health, and even of life. We have gone to them jaded and worn, feeling, perhaps without any external cause, anxious and out of spirits, and have returned full of health, strength, and energy. Among the mountains Nature herself seems freer and happier, brighter and purer, than elsewhere. The rush of the rivers, and the repose of the lakes, the pure snowfields and majestic glaciers, the fresh air, the mysterious summits of the

Of all inorganic substances, acting in their own proper nature, and without assistance or combination, water is the most wonderful. If we think of it as the source of all the changefulness and beauty which we have seen in the clouds; then as the instrument by which the earth we have contemplated was modelled into symmetry, and its crags chiselled into grace; then as, in the form of snow, it robes the mountains it has made, with that transcendent light which we could not have conceived if we had

In the legends of ancient times running water was proof against all sorcery and witchcraft: There was much truth as well as beauty in this idea. Flowing waters, moreover, have not only power to wash out material stains, but they also clear away the cobwebs of the brain—the results of over incessant work—and restore us to health and strength. Snowfields and glaciers, mountain torrents, sparkling brooks, and stately rivers, meres and lakes, and last, not least, the great ocean itself, all alike po

In the last chapter I have alluded to the wanderings of rivers within the limits of their own valleys; we have now to consider the causes which have determined the directions of the valleys themselves. If a tract of country were raised up in the form of a boss or dome, the rain which fell on it would partly sink in, partly run away to the lower ground. The least inequality in the surface would determine the first directions of the streams, which would carry down any loose material, and thus form

When the glorious summer weather comes, when we feel that by a year's honest work we have fairly won the prize of a good holiday, how we turn instinctively to the Sea. We pine for the delicious smell of the sea air, the murmur of the waves, the rushing sound of the pebbles on the sloping shore, the cries of the sea-birds; and long to How beautiful the sea-coast is! At the foot of a cliff, perhaps of pure white chalk, or rich red sandstone, or stern grey granite, lies the shore of gravel or sand,

A man can hardly lift up his eyes towards the heavens without wonder and veneration, to see so many millions of radiant lights, and to observe their courses and revolutions, even without any respect to the common good of the Universe.— Seneca....

Many years ago I paid a visit to Naples, and ascended Vesuvius to see the sun rise from the top of the mountain. We went up to the Observatory in the evening and spent the night outside. The sky was clear; at our feet was the sea, and round the bay the lights of Naples formed a lovely semicircle. Far more beautiful, however, were the moon and the stars overhead; the moon throwing a silver path over the water, and the stars shining in that clear atmosphere with a brilliance which I shall never fo