Abstract
THE critic to whom these volumes were entrusted read a good part of them with a growing sense of perplexity not unmixed with enjoyment. When he attempted to write down what he had found in them, he could for a long time do nothing but gnaw his pen. At last it occurred to him that almost any reader of NATURE would have found himself in a like difficulty, and that the best plan would be to speak of the books from his and their point of view. We, the readers of NATURE, are accustomed to read for information, and we judge of books mainly by the quantity and quality of the matter which they contain. Now the two books before us may be shortly said to contain no information at all; to give information is no part of their plan. They are akin to the sonnet, the symphony, and the landscape painting, and make their appeal to sympathies of which the mere naturalist is quite devoid. Even the dull soul of the mere naturalist is, however, faintly stirred now and then, as he reads these pages, wondering all the time what he can find to say about them. Mr. Phil Robinson throws in many a pleasant phrase, many an apt quotation, and there is plenty of movement in his descriptions. Mr. Thomas' touch is not so light, but among his abundant epithets are not a few which show real familiarity with the natural objects, especially the birds, which catch his eye. Though these books make no pretence of being founded on inquiry, nor of adding to knowledge in any way, it is quite possible that a competent judge of literary form would give them a good place as prose poems.
In Garden, Orchard and Spinney.
By Phil Robinson. Pp. iv + 287. (London: Isbister and Co., Ltd., 1897.)
The Woodland Life.
By Edward Thomas. Pp. viii + 234. (Edinburgh and London: Blackwood and Sons, 1897.)
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M., L. In Garden, Orchard and Spinney The Woodland Life. Nature 56, 222 (1897). https://doi.org/10.1038/056222c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/056222c0