He actually
gathered the dandelion and took it to bits like a scientific child; he
touched nature with his fingers instead of sitting looking out of
window--perhaps the first man who had ever done so for seventeen hundred
years or so, since superstition blighted the progress of pagan Rome. The
work he did! But no one reads Linnaeus now; the folios, indeed, might
moulder to dust without loss, because his spirit has got into the minds
of men, and the text is of little consequence. The best book he wrote to
read now is the delightful 'Tour in Lapland,' with its quaint pen-and-ink
sketches, so realistically vivid, as if the thing sketched had been
banged on the paper and so left its impress. I have read it three times,
and I still cherish the old yellow pages; it is the best botanical book,
written by the greatest of botanists, specially sent on a botanical
expedition, and it contains nothing about botany. It tells you about the
canoes, and the hard cheese, and the Laplander's warehouse on top of a
pole, like a pigeon-house; and the innocent way in which the maiden
helped the traveller in his bath, and how the aged men ran so fast that
the devil could not catch them; and, best of all, because it gives a
smack in the face to modern pseudo-scientific medical cant about hygiene,
showing how the Laplanders break every 'law,' human and 'divine',
ventilation, bath, and diet--all the trash--and therefore enjoy the most
excellent health, and live to a great old age.
Pages:
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41