LETTER XVII.

SHOES AND APPARATUS FOR WALKING.--RURAL SEATS.--NATURAL OBJECTS NOTED IN A COUNTRY WALK: THE MOLE; THE SHRIKE; THE BLACK SNAIL; THE SILLER CUPS; THE WOUNDWORT.--PLEASURES OF STUDYING BOTANY.--GRANITE.--APPEARANCE OF THE CLOUDS.

It gives me the greatest pleasure, my dear Annie, to find that you are entering so warmly into country pursuits, and I have read over repeatedly the passage in which you thank me for having taught you to love the country, and in which you say that when you look at your beautiful garden (now so brilliant with bright scarlet verbenas and golden-yellow calceolarias, that you can scarcely gaze at it in the sunshine), and that when you sit in your light cheerful room, or wander near the house, and see in one direction the village church peeping through the trees, and in another a river winding like a silver riband through the valley, you can scarcely believe it is the same place as that which struck you as the very palace of gloominess only a few months ago. "The very rooms themselves seem changed," you add, "and even the situation of the house; for, instead of being buried in a deep valley, and surrounded by a thick forest which rose on every side as if to entomb it, and which appeared to forbid the possibility of walking out, it is now every thing I could desire, and I would not alter it even if I had Aladdin's lamp."

I am not, however, quite so well pleased to find that it is several weeks since you have been beyond the precincts of what you call your own domain; that is, the garden, poultry-yard, &c., immediately adjoining the house. It is well to love home, and to take a deep interest in all relating to it; but it is not well to live entirely in so confined a sphere. The mind indeed becomes contracted by dwelling only on a limited number of objects, and those all in what may be called an artificial state; while, on the contrary, it is expanded, and noble feelings are elicited, by communion with nature. "I have been talking to the vines," said the great Goethe after paying a visit to the country, "and you cannot think what beautiful things they have said to me." Seek nature then, my dear Annie; leave your trim flower-garden, and your tame poultry, and wander in the woods, admiring the poetry of forest scenery, and watching the habits of the various creatures which people what seems to the careless observer only one vast solitude.

You must not suppose, however, that I want you to set forth like a female knight-errant in quest of adventures; but I do think that attended by your maid, who I was glad to hear is a highly respectable and well-educated young woman, you may wander through the woods of your own park without incurring any very serious dangers.

In the first place, however, I would advise you to provide yourself with a pair of strong and yet comfortable boots. I prefer German boots made to tie round the ankles, so that they can be easily taken off when you come home with them dirty; as it is not very agreeable, when you are tired, to wait till your boots are unlaced before you can enjoy the comfort of clean dry shoes after a fatiguing walk. If you can walk in clogs comfortably they will keep you very dry, as two pairs of even thin soles admit less damp to the feet than one pair of thick ones. I do not, however, think you will find clogs advisable, unless you walk to church, or to make calls, as they fatigue the feet exceedingly by their irregular pressure; and, while Indian rubber clogs make the feet cold by preventing the evaporation of the insensible perspiration, the jointed clogs may very probably break at a considerable distance from the house, and reduce you to the disagreeable necessity of walking home in thin shoes through the mud. When you lived in town I remember you were not capable of bearing much fatigue, and though I have no doubt but the country air has greatly invigorated you, yet I think you will find it advisable to let your maid carry a camp stool with you in your excursions, as nothing can be more injurious to a person of delicate constitution than over-fatigue.

In the course of your walks, you will doubtless find many situations where a rustic seat might be introduced advantageously. I do not mean one of those distorted chairs or garden-seats made of crooked pieces of wood nailed together in the strangest possible shapes and then painted and varnished, but a real rustic seat formed by the stump of an old tree or the trunk of a fallen one, only made sufficiently smooth to prevent it from tearing your clothes; or, at most, only a few plain pieces of wood nailed together by some village workman, and placed under the spreading branches of a tree, so as to be not at all obtrusive.

When you first begin to walk out you will probably find the beauty of the scenery quite sufficient to interest you; but after a time, as your walks must all necessarily partake of the same character, you will want a little variety, and you must make sources of interest to yourself by observing the various natural objects you meet with, and when you come home endeavouring to make yourself acquainted with some particulars respecting them. To illustrate what I mean by an example, I will just enumerate the objects you may very probably meet with in a morning's walk, and show you how much entertainment you may derive from them.

I will suppose first, that you see a mole-hill with a mole caught and hanging in a trap near it. Struck with the curious form of the mole, its long snout, its hands, and its velvet fur, and your curiosity being excited to know something of its habits, you write the word "mole" in your notebook. A little farther on, you see a rather small bird, with a dead mouse in its beak almost as large as itself, dash the mouse violently against the branch of a tree, and leave it there sticking in the fork of the branch. This appears so strange that you approach the branch to examine it, and find on another branch an insect completely impaled on a twig, which apparently some boy has forced through its body. Shuddering at the cruelty of human nature you walk on; but shortly afterwards perceiving a curious excrescence on the trunk of a tree, which is almost above your reach, you stand to look at it, and see to your astonishment some other insects impaled in the same manner as the first, at a height no boy could reach; and, quite puzzled, you enter a note in your journal. A little farther on, you meet with a black snail that crawls across your path, and leaves a long line of shining slime behind; and you then find some curious little fungi (fig. 18.) which look like fairy birds' nests full of eggs. Your attention is next attracted by a plant with a square stem, and soft hairy leaves, heart-shaped at the base, and tapering to the point; and very pretty spotted pink flowers, something like those of the snapdragon, but much smaller. You afterwards pick up a bit of stone that appears composed of various particles; and, lastly, as you go home you observe the singular appearance of the clouds, which look like long plumes of feathers streaming in the wind. You make notes of all that you have seen, and when you get home amuse yourself by searching in books for an explanation of those subjects which have excited your curiosity.

First, if you will look for the article Mole in Bell's _British Quadrupeds_, you will find an engraving of the curious little hands, or rather paws, by which the mole makes its passages through the earth, with a plan of its castle under ground; and you will read a description of the little animal itself, and of its fur which is set horizontally from its skin, so as not to offer any obstruction in the narrow passages through which it moves, sometimes forward and sometimes backward. You will also read an account of the ingenious experiment of M. Henri Le Court, who, to discover how fast a mole could go, fixed straws in the track of the mole's burrow; and then, blowing a horn at the entrance, counted with what rapidity the different straws were thrown down, and calculated that a mole can run as fast as a horse can trot. The whole account is extremely curious; and I am quite sure, when you have read it, you will feel an interest in moles that you have never had before; and that you will look with quite different feelings at every mole-hill that you may see.

The next thing you saw was a bird hanging a field-mouse upon the fork of a branch, and near it you saw several insects impaled upon twigs, too high for it to have been the work of a mischievous boy. The bird you saw was the Greater Shrike, or butcher bird, whose habit it is to hang up the insects or small animals it kills as a butcher does the meat in his stall, and afterwards to return to feed upon them. You will find accounts of this curious bird in Yarrell's _British Birds_; Montagu's _Ornithological Dictionary_; and the _Penny Cyclopædia_, under the article Shrike.

You will next find entered in your journal the creature called a black snail, but which is in fact a slug, as it has no visible shell. On looking for the word Slug in the _Penny Cyclopædia_ you will find yourself referred to Limax, and under that head you will find a figure very nearly resembling the creature you are seeking for, though it differs in colour; as it is called Arìon rùfa, or the red slug, while the creature you saw was the black slug, called Arìon àter; and if you have the courage to examine the living animal you will find it very curiously formed. Its back is covered with a black ribbed skin, and on the upper part it bears a shield, which consists of a piece of bone, the only one in the slug's body, covered with skin; the shield being designed to protect the air-hole through which the creature breathes. What we are accustomed to call its horns are, in fact, tentacula or feelers, which the creature has the power of drawing into its body or pushing out at pleasure, and which are gifted with an exquisitely fine sense of touch. The long shining line with which the creature marked its path is the slime which proceeds from its body, and with which it is enabled to glide smoothly over sand or gravel that would otherwise injure it. I have said more on this subject than I should otherwise have done, because I wish to point out to you that even a creature so humble and so despicable as a slug, is as curiously and wonderfully made, and displays the power and wisdom of its Creator, as decidedly, as the noblest and most beautiful animal. The study of natural history is, indeed, I think, more fitted than any other to open our minds to a proper knowledge of the wisdom and goodness of God; and the more we study it the more firmly we shall be convinced that nothing has been made in vain, and that everything has been most admirably suited to the station which it is destined to fill.

The curious fungus you will find, by comparing it with the _Encyclopædia of Plants_, is Nidulària campanulàta, which the Scotch call "Siller Cups." There is a popular superstition in Scotland respecting these pretty little cups, which says that if you find them alone you will have as much money as they contain little balls. These balls are, however, cases containing the sporules, or seeds, of the fungus.

I now come to the flower which I have supposed to have attracted your attention, and you will find, upon a minute examination, that it has a corolla divided into two distinct parts, the upper one standing up like a hood or helmet, and the lower one hanging down like a pouting under lip. It is this last which gives you a clue to find out what the plant is, as you perceive immediately that it belongs to the Labiàtæ, or lipped plants. You may then turn to any work you may possess on the British wild flowers, when, if the text is arranged according to the natural system, you will find your plant under the head of Labiàtæ, and, if the work has coloured plates, you will recognise it without any further trouble; but, if the work has no plates, you must endeavour to identify it by the description, and finding your plant has a square solid stem, soft, hairy, heart-shaped leaves, which taper gradually to a point, and that the lower lip of the flower, which is much larger than the helmet, is spotted, you discover that the plant agrees in description with the common woundwort (_Stàchys sylvática_.) If you want to find it in Sowerby's _English Botany_, you had better take the second edition of that work, where you will find the plant in question in the Linnæan class and order Didynàmia Gymnospérmia, from two of the stamens being longer than the others, and the seeds being what is called naked, that is, not enclosed in any visible pod or other seed-vessel. This will appear difficult to you at first; but, as I think you have told me that your husband understands botany, it will be an amusement to him to explain to you at his convenience the principles both of the Linnæan and the natural systems, and to leave you to make a practical application of them in your morning walks.

Nothing can be more delightful than to study a science in this manner. It is pleasing to be schooled by the lips of those we love, and the wish to prove yourself deserving of the pains your master takes with you, will make you exert yourself to conquer any little difficulty you may meet with; while, on the other hand, your husband will be proud of the proficiency of his pupil, and a new occupation will be given to you, which will prevent your conversations becoming so monotonous as those of two persons who live together, and who see few strangers, would otherwise inevitably become. One of the great secrets for enabling a woman to render her husband happy, and, of course, to be happy herself, is partaking with him as much as possible in both his amusements and his studies. A woman should have as many subjects of interest as possible in common with her husband; and, in fact, she should have no objects of interest in the cares for which he cannot participate. It is true that in her domestic occupations she must be employed differently from him, as a man cannot interfere in the details of household arrangements; but a good wife will always have her husband's comfort in view, even when she is attending to her store-room or her kitchen; and she will be proud to show him the result of her labours in their due season. Men also have duties to attend to in which a woman cannot participate, such as those of a justice of the peace; and some manly sports, such as shooting and hunting. But these will often supply subjects for conversation, and afford that variety which gives life its greatest charm. It is, indeed, better that married people should have separate occupations during a part of the day; but they should never have separate interests, and they should always study to have as many subjects in common as possible.

But I am forgetting that you have still two objects of natural history to be explained, which excited your attention during your walk. The first is the piece of stone that was picked up, and which, from the numerous particles it contains, was probably a piece of Granite, that is to say, if shining particles were mixed with others of a different nature; and it will be an amusement to you if you have any mineralogical specimens, to endeavour to find out what it is by comparing it with them; or, if you have not, to take it with you the first time you go to a town where there is a museum. The curious appearance you noticed in the clouds you will find, by consulting a book on meteorology, was of the kind called Cirrus, or, popularly, mare's tail, and that it is said to indicate the approach of windy weather.

It would be useless to multiply instances of the mode in which an interest may be created in country walks; but what I have said will be sufficient to show that, though we may complain of the monotony of a country life, there are a thousand sources of interest in it within our reach, if we will only give ourselves the trouble to observe them.