Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to our visitors.
Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker.

Download links will be available after you disable the ad blocker and reload the page.
Showing: 21-30 results of 33

PREFACE. The following lectures, drawn up under the pressure of more imperative and quite otherwise directed work, contain many passages which stand in need of support, and some, I do not doubt, more or less of correction, which I always prefer to receive openly from the better knowledge of friends, after setting down my own impressions of the matter in clearness as far as they reach, than to guard myself against by submitting my manuscript,... more...

INTRODUCTION 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... more...

I. THE WOODLANDS IN JANUARY Humanity has always turned to nature for relief from toil and strife. This was true of the old world; it is much more true of the new, especially in recent years. There is a growing interest in wild things and wild places. The benedicite of the Druid woods, always appreciated by the few, like Lowell, is coming to be understood by the many. There is an increasing desire to get away from the roar and rattle of the... more...

VII.—AN OLD ROAD IN JULY In the old woods road a soft haze hung, too subtle to see save where its delicate colorings were contrasted against the dark green leaves of the oaks beyond the fence. Not the tangible, vapory haze of early morning, but a tinted, ethereal haze, the visible effluence of the summer, the nimbus of its power and glory. From tall cord grasses arching over the side of the road, drawing water from the ditch in which their... more...

IV. APRIL—BUDS AND BIRD SONGS “Has she not shown us all?From the clear space of ether, to the smallBreath of new buds unfolding? From the meaningOf Jove’s large eyebrow, to the tender greeningOf April meadows?” “And whiles Zeus gives the sunshine, whiles the rain.” A strong southeast wind is blowing straight up the broad river, driving big undulations up the stream, counter to the current which, in... more...


PREFACE This little book is but another chapter in the shy 'wild life of the fields and woods' of which "Ways of Wood Folk" and "Wilderness Ways" were the beginning. It is given gladly in answer to the call for more from those who have read the previous volumes, and whose letters are full of the spirit of kindness and appreciation. Many questions have come of late with these same letters; chief of which is this: How shall one discover such... more...

olitude! Where under trees and sky shall you find it? The more solitary the recluse and the more confirmed and grounded his seclusion, the wider and more familiar becomes the circle of his social environment, until at length, like a very dryad of old, the birds build and sing in his branches and the "wee wild beasties" nest in his pockets. If he fails to be aware of the fact, more's the pity. His desolation is within, not without, in spite of,... more...

TO THE KING. SIR, Do here most humbly lay this small Present at Your Majesties Royal feet. And though it comes accompany'd with two disadvantages, the meanness of the Author, and of the Subject; yet in both I am incouraged by the greatness of your Mercy and your Knowledge. By the one I am taught, that you can forgive the most presumptuous Offendors: And by the other, that you will not esteem the least work of Nature, or Art, unworthy your... more...

CHAPTER 1. FROM GANTHEAUME BAY TO THE HUTT RIVER. WRECK OF THE SECOND BOAT IN GANTHEAUME BAY. A few moments were sufficient to enable us all to recollect ourselves: two men endeavoured to keep the boat's stern on to the sea, whilst the rest of us lightened her by carrying everything we could on shore, after which we hauled her up. The custom had always been for the other boat to lie off until I made the signal for them to run in, and it... more...

CHAPTER 1. COMMENCEMENT OF THE EXPEDITION. TENERIFE. GENERAL PLAN AND OBJECTS. The Expeditions of which the results are narrated in the following pages took their origin from a proposition made to Government by myself, in conjunction with Lieutenant Lushington,* in the latter part of the year 1836. (*Footnote. Now Captain Lushington of the 9th Foot.) At that time a large portion of the western coast and interior of the great Australian... more...