The heart of nature ; or, The quest for natural beauty

THE

HEART OF NATURE

SIR FRANCIS YOUNGHUSBAND

K.C.SJ., K.C.LE,

c

THE HEART OF NATURE

BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE HEART OF A CONTINENT

A Narrative of Travels in Manchuria, across
the Gobi Desert, through the Himalayas,
the Pamirs, and Chitral, 18*4-1894. With
Maps and Illustrations.

AMONG THE CELESTIALS

A Narrative of Travel. With Map and
Illustrations.

INDIA AND TIBET

A History of the Relations which have sub-
sisted between the two countries from the
time of Warren Hastings to 1910; together
with a particular account of the Mission to
Lhasa of 1904. With Maps and Illustrations.

THE
HEART OF NATURE^

OR

THE QUEST FOR NATURAL BEAUTY

BY SIR FRANCIS YOUNGHUSBAND

K.C.S.I., i£t:.i.E.

PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY
AUTHOR OF "THE HEART OF A CONTINENT"

LONDON

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1921

PREFACE

THE value of Knowledge and Character is duly im-
pressed upon us. Of the value of Freedom we are
told so much that we have come to regard it as an
end in itself instead of only a means, or necessary
condition. But Beauty we are half -inclined to
connect with the effeminate. Poetry, Music, and
Literature are under suspicion with the average
English schoolboy, whose love of manliness he will
share with nothing else. Yet love of Beauty per-
sists in spite of all discouragement, and will not be
suppressed. Natural Beauty, especially, insists on
a place in our affections. Derived originally from
Love, and essentially and inseparably connected
with it, Natural Beauty acknowledges supremacy to
Love alone. And it deserves our generous recog-
nition, for it is wholesome and refreshing for our
souls.

The acute observation and telling description of
Natural Beauty is at least as necessary for the enjoy-
ment of life as the pursuit of Natural Science to
which so much attention is paid. For the concern
of the former is the character, and of the latter only
the cause of natural phenomena ; and of the two,
character is the more important. It is, indeed, high
time that we Englishmen were more awake than
we are to the value of Natural Beauty. For we are
born lovers of Nature, and no more poetic race than

ix

x PREFACE

ourselves exists. Our country at its best, on an
early summer day, is the loveliest little home in all
the world. And we go out from this island home
of ours to every land. We have unrivalled oppor-
tunities, therefore, of seeing innumerable types of
natural objects. By observing Nature in so many
different aspects, and by comparing our impressions
with one another, we ought to understand Nature
better than any other race. And by entering more
readily into communion with her we, better than
others, should realise the Beauty she possesses.

I am conscious of having myself made most
inadequate use of the splendid opportunities my
travels afforded me of seeing the Beauty of Nature.
So I am all the more anxious that those following
after me should not, by like omission, commit the
same sin against themselves and against our country.
We owe it to ourselves and to mankind to give full
rein to our instinctive love of Natural Beauty, and
to train and refine every inclination and capacity we
have for appreciating it till we are able to see all
those finer glories of which we now discern only the
first faint glow.

And if any other country excel us in apprecia-
tion, then it behoves us to brace ourselves up to
emulate and surpass that country, and learn how to
understand Nature better and see more Beauty.
For in love of Natural Beauty, and in capacity for
communicating that love, England ought to be pre-
eminent. She above every other country should
come nearest to the Heart of Nature.

F. E. Y.

June, 1921.

CONTENTS

PAGKS

PREFACE - - ix-x

INTRODUCTION ..... xv-xxviii

PART I

CHAPTER I
THE SIKKIM HIMALAYA

The sacred Ganges — A beneficent power — Beauty of the

plains — First sight of the Himalaya - - 3-12

CHAPTER II

THE TEESTA VALLEY

Mystery of the forest— The gorges — Sequestered glens 13-19

CHAPTER III
THE FOREST

Butterflies— Ferns— Orchids — Flower friends— Rhododen-
drons — Temperate vegetation — Primulas — Arctic
vegetation — The range of vegetation - • 20-37

CHAPTER IV

THE DENIZENS OF THE FOREST

Butterflies — Moths — Birds — Reptiles — Mammals — Animal

beauty — Primitive man — Higher races 38-54

xii CONTENTS

CHAPTER V
THE SUM IMPRESSION

PAGES

Two views of Nature — Variety of life — Intensity of life —
The battle of life — Adaptation and selection — Pur-
posi veness — Purposeful structures — Interdependence
— Organising Activity — Gradation — Care of off-
spring— The Activity not mechanical but Spiritual —
Nature's end — A common aspiration - 55-85

CHAPTER VI
KINCHINJUNGA

The foothills — Darjiling — A vision of the mountain — Full
view — Mountain grandeur — Dawn on the mountain —
Sunset on the mountain - - - 86-99

CHAPTER VII

HIGH SOLITUDES

Kashmir— Barren mountains — Dazzling peaks— Purity of

beauty - - - . 100-108

CHAPTER VIII

THE HEAVENS

Desert sunsets — Tibetan sunsets — The stars — The whole

universe our home — A Heavenly Presence - 109-120

CHAPTER IX

HOME BEAUTY

One's own country— Woman's beauty — Love and beauty—
Their Divine Source — Wedding — Divine union — The
Inmost Heart of Nature - - - 121-134

CONTENTS xiii

CHAPTER X
THE NATURE OF NATURE

PAGES

A spiritual background — Purpose in Nature — Higher
beings — No confining plan — Immanent Spirit — Col-
lective personality — England a Person — Nature a
Person — Moved by an ideal — The ideal in plants —
The ideal in animals— The ideal in the world - 135-160

CHAPTER XI
NATURE'S IDEAL

Battling with physical Nature — Battling with man — In
tune with Nature — At the heart of the Universe is
Love — Divine fellowship is Nature's Ideal - 161-171

CHAPTER XII
THE HEART OF NATURE

Picturing the Ideal — The Ideal Man— Man and woman —
Perfecting the Ideal — Discipline necessary — Leader-
ship— Nature's method — Our own responsibility — The
lovability of Nature — God at the Heart of Nature 172-192

PART II

NATURAL BEAUTY AND GEOGRAPHY

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE EOYAL GEOGRAPHICAL

SOCIETY - - - 195-216

AN ADDRESS TO THE UNION SOCIETY OF UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE, LONDON - - 217-235

INTRODUCTION

TOWN children let loose in a meadow dash with
shouts of joy to pluck the nearest flowers. They
ravenously pick handfuls and armfuls as if they
could never have enough. They are exactly like
animals in the desert rushing to water. They are
satisfying a great thirst in their souls — the thirst
for Beauty. Some of us remember, too, our first
sight of snowy mountains in the Alps or in the
Himalaya. We recall how our spirits leaped to
meet the mountains, how we gasped in wonder and
greedily feasted our eyes on the glorious spectacle.
In such cases as these there is something in the
natural object that appeals to something in us.
Something in us rushes out to meet the something
in the natural object. A responsive chord is struck.
A relationship is established. We and the natural
object come into harmony with one another. We
have recognised in the flower, the mountain, the
landscape, something that is the same as what is in
ourselves. We fall in love with the natural object.
A marriage takes place. Our soul is wedded to the
soul of the natural object. And at the very
moment of wedding Beauty is born. It springs
from Love, just as Love itself originally sprang
from the wedding of primitive man and woman.

xvi INTRODUCTION

In this process all will depend upon the mood.
If we are not in the mood for it, we are unreceptive
of Nature's impressions, and we are irresponsive.
We do not come into touch with Nature. Conse-
quently we see no Beauty. But if we are in a
sensitive and receptive mood, if our minds are not
preoccupied, and if our soul is open to the impres-
sions which Nature is ever raining on it, then we
respond to Nature's appeal. We feel ourselves in
tune with her. We come into communion with her,
and we see Beauty.

If we are ourselves feeling sad and sorrowful
when we look out on Nature, and there all should
happen to be bright and gay, we shall feel out of
harmony with Nature, we shall not feel in touch
with her, and we shall not see Beauty.

On the other hand, when we are in a glad
and overflowing mood we shall be extraordinarily
responsive to Nature's appeal, and see Beauty in
a nigged, leafless oak tree or a poor old woman at
the corner of some mean street. And if when we
are in such a mood Nature happens to be at her
best and brightest, as on some spring morning, the
Beauty we shall then see will be overpowering, and
we shall scarcely be able to contain ourselves for
ecstasy of joy.

We shall have discovered an identity between
what is in Nature and what is in us. In looking
on Nature, we shall have been introduced into a
Presence, greater than ourselves but like ourselves,
which stirs in us this which we feel. When we see
Beauty in Nature we are discovering that Nature is
not merely a body, but has or is a soul. And the

INTRODUCTION xvii

joy we feel is produced by the satisfaction our soul
feels in coming into touch and harmony with this
soul of Nature. Our soul is recognising samenesses
between what is in it and what is in the soul of
Nature, and feels joy in the recognition.

And the instinct of fellowship with our kind
impels us to communicate to others what we our-
selves have felt. We want to tell others what we
have seen and what we have experienced.

We long, too, to share the joy which others also
must have felt in contemplating Nature. We want
especially to know and feel what those with far more
sensitive souls than our own — the great poets,
painters, and musicians — have felt. So we com-
municate our feelings to others ; and we communi-
cate with others, either personally or through their
books or pictures or music, so that we may find out
from them what more to look for, and may know
better how to look for it. By so doing, our souls
become more sensitive to the impressions of Nature,
and we are better able to express those impressions.
Our power of vision increases. Our soul's eye
acquires a keener insight and sees deeper into the soul
of Nature. We are able to enter more into the
spirit of Nature, and the spirit of Nature is able to
enter more into us. We arrive at a completer
understanding between ourselves and Nature, are
more in harmony with her, and consequently see
more Beauty.

We see, indeed, what Nature really is. We
see the reality behind the appearance — the content
within the outward form. We are not for the
moment concerned with the cause but with the

2

xviii INTRODUCTION

character of Nature. We see the "I" behind
the outward manifestation and representation. And
if we have sympathy and understanding enough and
are able truly to enter into the soul of Nature, we
shall see the real " I " behind the common everyday
44 1" — just as the few who intimately know some
great man see the real man behind the man who
appears in the public eye — the real Beaconsfield or
Kitchener behind the Beaconsfield or Kitchener of
the daily press. And, as we see more of this real
" I " in Nature and are better able to get in touch
and harmony with her, so shall we see greater
Beauty in Nature.

If we have petty, meagre souls we shall find little
in common with the great soul of Nature, and conse-
quently see only shallow Beauty. If we have great
souls we shall have more in common and see more
Beauty. But to arrive at a full understanding of
the real Nature we must observe her from every
point of view and see her in all her aspects. Only
so shall we be able to understand her real self and see
her full Beauty. And her aspects and the points
of view from which we may observe them change
so incessantly that the greatest of us falters.
The more we see of Nature, the more we find
there is to understand. And the more we under-
stand Nature and commune with her, the more
Beauty do we find there is to see. So to arrive
at a complete understanding of Nature and see
all her Beauty is beyond the capacity of us finite
men.

Yet we are impelled to go on striving to see all
we can. And in the following pages an attempt is

INTRODUCTION xix

made to show how more Beauty in Nature may be
discovered.

Often in the Himalaya I have watched an eagle
circling overhead. I have sat on the mountain-side
and watched it sail majestically along in graceful
curves and circles, and with perfect ease and poise.
Far above the earth it would range, and seemingly
without exertion glide easily over tracts that we
poor men could only enter by prodigious effort.
Captivated by its grace of motion, and jealous of its
freedom, I would for hours watch it. And this eagle
I knew, from the height and distance from which it
would swoop down on its prey, to be possessed of
eyesight of unrivalled keenness in addition to its
capacity for movement.

So this bird had opportunities such as no human
being — not even an airman — has of seeing the earth
and what is on it. At will it could glide over the
loftiest mountain ranges. At will it could sail above
the loveliest valleys. At will it could perch upon
any chosen point and observe things at close range.
In a single day this one eagle might have seen the
finest natural scenery in the world — the highest
mountain, the most varied forest, thickly populated
plains and bare, open plains, peoples, animals, birds,
insects, trees, flowers, all of the most varied descrip-
tion. In one day, and in the ordinary course of its
customary circlings and sailings, it might have seen
what men come from the ends of the Earth to view,
and are content if they see only a hundredth part of
what the eagle sees every day.

From its mountain eerie in Upper Sikkim it

xx INTRODUCTION

might have seen the rose of dawn flushing the snowy
summits of Kinchinjunga, and far away Mount
Everest. And soaring aloft, the eagle might have
looked out over the populous plains of India and
seen, like silver streaks, the rivers flowing down
from the Himalaya to join in the far distance the
mighty Mother Ganges. Then its eye might have
ranged over the vast forest which clothes in dense
green mantle the plain at the foot of the mountains
from Nepal to Bhutan and Assam, and from the
plain spreads up on the mountain-sides themselves
and reaches to the very borders of eternal snow.
Over this vast forest with its treasures of tree and
plant, animal and insect life, tropical, temperate,
and alpine, the eagle might have soared ; and then,
passing over the Himalayan watershed, have looked
down upon the treeless, open, undulating, almost
uninhabited plain of Tibet, and in the distance seen
the great Brahmaputra River, which, circling round
Bhutan, cuts clean through the Himalaya and, turn-
ing westward, also joins the Ganges.

In the whole world no more wonderful natural
scenery is to be found. And the eagle with no
unusual effort could see it all in a single day, and
see it with a distinctness of sight no man could
equal. But keen though its eyesight was and wide
though its range, the eagle in all that beautiful
region would see not a single beauty. Neither in
the sunrise, nor in the snowy mountains, nor in the
luxuriant tropical forest, nor in the flowers, the
birds, the butterflies, nor in the people and animals,
nor in the cataracts and precipices would it see any
beautv whatever. The mountain would be to it a

INTRODUCTION xxi

mere outline, the forests a patch of green, the rivers
streaks of white, the animals just possible items of
food. The eagle would see much, but it would see
no beauty.

Perhaps we shall understand why it is that the
eagle with these unbounded opportunities sees no
beauty if we consider the case of a little midge
buzzing round a man's body. The midge is roughly
in about the same relation to the body of a man that
the eagle is to the body of the Earth. The midge
in its hoverings sees vast tracts of the human body ;
sees the features — the nose, the eye, the mouth ; sees
the trunk and the limbs and the head. But even in
the most beautiful of men it would see no beauty.
And it would see no beauty because it would have
no soul to understand expression. It might be
hovering round the features of a man when the
smile on his lips and the exaltation in his eyes were
expressive of the highest ecstasy of soul, but the
midge would see no beauty in those features because
it had not the soul to enter into the soul of the man
and understand the expression on his face. All the
little shades and gradations and tones and lights in
the features of the man would be quite meaningless
to the midge because it would know nothing of the
man's soul, of which the features and the changes
and variations in them were the outward manifesta-
tion. The midge would know nothing of the
reality of the man which lay hidden behind the
appearance.

It is the same with the eagle in respect to natural
features as it is with the midge in respect to the
features of the man. The eagle sees only the bare

xxii INTRODUCTION

outward appearance of Nature, and sees no meaning
in her features. It has no soul to enter into the soul
of Nature and understand what the natural features
are expressing. The delicate lights and shades and
changes on the face of Nature have no meaning for
it. It sees the bare appearance. It sees nothing of
the reality behind the appearance. It has no soul to
wed to the soul of Nature. It therefore sees no
beauty.

But now7 supposing that among all the midges
that buzz about a man there happened to be an
artist-midge with exceeding sensitiveness of soul,
one which was able to recognise a fundamental
identity of life between it and the man, one which
was able to recognise samenesses of feelings and
emotions and aspirations, and by recognition of the
samenesses between it and the man enter into the
very life and soul of the man, then that midge would
be able to understand all the varying expressions on
the face of the man, and by understanding those
expressions see their beauty.

We cannot expect an eagle in a similar way to
have that sensitiveness of soul which would enable
it to enter into the soul of Nature, understand
Nature, and so see its Beauty. But what we cannot
expect of the eagle we can expect of man. We can
expect an Artist to appear who will be to the Earth
what the artist-midge was to the man.

Man does to some extent enter into the soul of
Nature. He has some understanding of Nature.
He sees Beauty ; and whenever he sees Beauty in
Nature he is in touch with the soul of Nature. Even
ordinary men see some of the Beauty of Nature and

INTRODUCTION xxiii

have some feeling of kinship with her. They have
something in common between their soul and the
soul of Nature. They have the sense of more in
common between them and Nature than a midge
has between it and a man.

And in a delicately sensitive man such as an
artist — painter, poet, or musician — this sense of
kinship with Nature is highly developed. In regard
to his relationship with Nature he is like the finely
sensitive and cultured artist-midge would be in
regard to a man — the midge who, through under-
standing the inner soul and character of the man,
was able to read the expression on his features and
see their beauty.

What we ordinary men have to do, and what we
especially want those gifted with unusually sensitive
souls to do, is to bear in mind the difficulties which
the midge has in understanding us and in seeing any
beauty in us, and the way in which it would have to
train and cultivate its faculties before it could ever
hope to understand the expression on our features —
to bear this in mind, and then to take ourselves in
hand and develop the soul within us till it is fine
enough and great enough to enter into the great
soul of Nature.

The sense of Beauty we all possess in some slight
degree is in itself a proof that behind the outward
appearance of Nature there is a spiritual reality —
an "I " — just as behind the outward appearance of
the man which the artist-midge sees there is the " I "
of the man. And by cultivating this sense — that
is, by training and developing our capacity to see
deeper into the heart of Nature, see more signifi-

xxiv INTRODUCTION

cance and meaning in each shade and change of her
features, and read more understandingly what is
going on deep within her soul — we shall enable
ourselves to see a fuller and richer Natural
Beauty.

So we look forward to the appearance among us
of a great Artist who, born with an exceptionally
sensitive soul, will deliberately heighten and in-
tensify this sensitiveness, learn what others have
experienced, compare notes with them, and train
himself to detect the significance of every slightest
indication which Nature gives of the workings of
the soul within her ; and then, recognising the same-
ness between his own feelings and the feelings of
Nature, will fall deeply in love with her, give
himself up utterly to her, marry her, and in their
marriage give birth to Beauty of surpassing rich-
ness and intensity.

What we await, then, is an Artist with a soul
worthy of being wedded to Nature. Puny, shallow
artists will not be able to see much more of Nature
than a midge sees of a man. What we want is a
man with the physique, the abounding health and
spirits, the fine intellect, the poetic power and
imagination, the love of animals and his fellow-men,
the skill, fitness, and gay courage of a Julian
Grenfell. We want a man with the opportunities
he had of mixing from childhood in London and in
country houses with every grade and condition of
men, with statesmen, soldiers, men of art, hunting
men, racing men, schoolboys, undergraduates, liter-
ary men, gamekeepers, old family retainers — every
kind and sort of human being. We want a man of

INTRODUCTION xxv

such qualifications combined with the qualifications
of a Darwin — with his love of natural history, his
power of close and accurate observation, his genius
for drawing right inferences from what he observed,
his wide knowledge of Nature in her many manifes-
tations, his sympathetic touch \vith every plant and
animal, and his warm, affectionate nature in all
human intercourse.

We want, in fact, a Naturalist- Artist — a com-
bination of Julian Grenfell and Darwin. And this
is no outrageously impossible, but a very likely and
fitting combination. For Julian Grenfell wrote
great poetry even in the trenches in Flanders
between the two battles of Ypres. And with his
love of country life, shooting, fishing, and hunting,
his inclination might very easily have been directed
towards natural history. If it had been and the
opportunity had offered, we might have had the
very type of Naturalist- Artist wre are now awaiting.
He would have had the physical fitness and capacity
to endure hardships which are required for travel in
parts of the Earth where the Natural Beauty is
finest, and he would have had, too, the sensitiveness
of soul to receive impressions and the power of
expressing himself so that others might share with
him the impressions he had felt. If after passing
through the earlier stages of shooting and hunting
birds and animals he had come to the more profitable
stage of observing them, and had devoted to the
observation of their habits and ways of life the same
skill and acumen which he had shown in hunting
them, he might, with his innate and genuine love of
animals, very well have become a great naturalist as

xxvi INTRODUCTION

well as what he was — a great sportsman and a writer
of great poetry.

It is for the advent of such Naturalist-Artist that
we wait. But we have to prepare the way for him
and do our share in helping to produce him. And
this will now be my endeavour, for it so happens
that I have been blessed with opportunities — some
of my own making, some provided for me — of seeing
Nature on a larger scale and under more varied
aspects than falls to the lot of most men. I am
ashamed when I reflect how little use I have made
of those opportunities — how little I was prepared
and trained to make the most of them. But this at
least I can do : I can point out to the coming Artist
those parts of the world where he is likely to see
the Beauty of Nature most fully, and in greatest
variety.

With this end in view I shall begin with the
Sikkim Himalaya, over which the eagle flew,
because it contains within a small area a veritable
compendium of Nature. Rising directly out of the
plains of India, practically within the tropics, these
mountains rise far above the limits of perpetual
snow. Their base is covered with luxuriant
vegetation of a truly tropical character, and this
vegetation extends through all the ranges from
tropical to temperate and arctic. The animal,
bird, and insect life does the same. And here also
are to be found representative men of every clime.
Similarly does the natural scenery vary from plain
to highest mountain. There are roaring torrents and
wide, placid rivers. The Sikkim Himalaya, looking
down on the plains of India on the one side and the

INTRODUCTION xxvii

steppes of Tibet on the other, is the most suitable
place I know for a study of Natural Beauty.

But there are beauties in Kashmir and in the
great Karakoram Mountains behind Kashmir which
are not found in Sikkim. And there are beauties in
the Desert which are not found in either Sikkim or
Kashmir. So I must take the Artist to these
regions also.

And I choose Sikkim and Kashmir because these
are easily accessible regions to which men with a
thirst for Beauty can return again and again, till
they are saturated with the atmosphere and have
imbibed the true spirit of the region — till they have
realised how much these natural features express
sentiments which they, too, are wanting to express
— their aspirations for the highest and purest, their
longing for repose, their delight in warmth and
affection, or whatever their sentiment might be.
Thousands of Englishmen, cultured Indians, and
travellers from all over the world, visit the Himalaya
every year — some for sport, some for health, some
for social enjoyment. Amongst these may be our
Naturalist-Artist who year after year, drawn to
Sikkim and Kashmir by his love of Natural Beauty,
would learn to know Nature in the wonderfully
varied aspects under which she is to be seen in those
favoured regions, who would come into ever-deepen-
ing communion with her, would yearly see more
Beauty in her, and would communicate to us the
enjoyment he had felt.

But Natural Beauty includes within its scope
a great deal more than only natural scenery. It
includes the beauty of all natural objects — men and

xxviii INTRODUCTION

women as well as mountains, animals, and plants.
So these also the Artist will have to keep within his
purview. And his love of Nature, and consequently
his capacity for seeing Natural Beauty, will be all
the surer if he uses his head as well as his heart in
forming his final conception of her — that is to say,
his final for the moment, as no man ever has or can
come to a literally final conception of Nature. So
the Artist will pause now and then to test his view
of Nature in the light of pure reason. For he will
be well enough aware that neither Love nor Beauty
can be perfect unless it be irradiated with Truth,
and the three he will ever strive to keep together.

PART I

THE HEART OF NATURE

CHAPTER I

THE SIKKIM HIMALAYA

THE Sikkim Himalaya is a region first brought
prominently into notice by the writings of Sir
Joseph Hooker, the great naturalist, who visited it
in 1848. It lies immediately to the east of Nepal,
and can now be reached by a railway which ascends
the outer range to Darjiling. It is drained by the
Teesta River, up the main valley of which a railway
runs for a short distance. The region is therefore
easily accessible. For the purposes of this book it
may be taken to include the flat open forest and
grass-covered tract known as the Terai, imme-
diately at the base of the mountain. This is only a
few hundreds of feet above sea-level, so that from
there to the summit of the Himalaya there is a rise
of nearly 28,000 feet in about seventy miles. The
lower part is in the 26th degree of latitute, so that
the heat is tropical. And as the region comes
within the sweep of the monsoon from the Bay of
Bengal, there is not only great heat in the plains
and lower valleys, but great moisture as well. The
mountain-sides are in consequence clothed with a
luxuriant vegetation.

To enter this wonderful region the traveller has
first to cross the Ganges — the sacred river of the
s

4 THE SIKKIM HIMALAYA

Hindus. Great rivers have about them a fascina-
tion all their own. They produce in us a sense of
everlastingness and irresistibility. The Ganges,
more than a mile wide, comes sweeping along in
deep majestic flood from the far distance to the far
distance, on and on unendingly, from all time to all
time, and in such depth and volume that nothing
human can withstand it. In the dry season, when
it is low and the sun is shining, it is placid and
benign with a bright and smiling countenance.
Stately temples, set amidst sacred groves and grace-
ful palms, lighten the banks. On the broad steps
of the bathing ghats are assembled crowds of pious
worshippers in clothes of every brilliant hue. The
river has an aspect of kindliness and geniality and
life-givingness. Its waters and rich silt have
brought plenty to many a barren acre, and the
dwellers on its banks know well that it issues from
the holy Himalaya.

But the Ganges is not always in this gracious
mood, and does not always wear this kindly aspect.
In the rainy season it is a thing of terror. Over-
head black, thundery clouds sweep on for days and
weeks together towards the mountains. There is
not a glimpse of sun. The rain descends as a
deluge. The river is still further swollen by the
melting of the snow on the Himalaya, and now
comes swirling along in dark and angry mood, rising
higher and higher in its banks, eating into them,
and threatening to overtop them and carry death
and destruction far and wide. Men no longer go
down to meet it. They shrink back from it. They
uneasily watch it till the fulness of its strength is

THE SACRED GANGES 5

spent and it has returned to its normal beneficent
aspect.

No wonder such a river is regarded as sacred.
To the more primitive people it is literally a living
person — and a person who may be propitiated, a
person who may do them harm if they annoy him,
and do them good if they make themselves agree-
able to him and furnish him with what he wants.
To the cultured Hindus it is an object of the
deepest reverence. If they can bathe in its waters
their sins are washed away. If after death their
ashes can be cast on its broad bosom, they will be
secure of everlasting bliss. From perhaps the
earliest days of our race, for some hundreds of thou-
sands of years, men may have lived upon its banks.
For it was in the forests beside great rivers, in a
warm and even climate, that primitive men must
have lived. They would have launched their canoes
upon its waters, and used it as their only pathway
of communication with one another. And always
they would have looked upon it with mingled awe
and affection. Besides the sun it would have been
the one great natural object which would attract
their attention. Insensibly the sight of that ever-
rolling flood must have deeply affected them. They
must have come to love it as they beheld it through
the greater part of the year. The sight of its de-
structive power may have made them recoil for a
time in fear and awe. But this would be forgotten
as the flood subsided, and the river was again smooth
and smiling and passing peacefully along before
them.

So men do not run away from it. They gather

6 THE SIKKIM HIMALAYA

to it. They build great cities on its banks, and
come from great distances to see it. They perform
pilgrimages every year in thousands to the spot
where it issues from the Himalaya. And they
penetrate even to its source far back and high up
in the mountains.

To the most enlightened, also, the Ganges
should be an object of reverence for its antiquity,
for its future, and for its power. From the surface
of the Bay of Bengal the sun's rays have drawn par-
ticles of water into the atmosphere. Currents in
the air have carried them for hundreds of miles over
the sea and over the plains of Bengal, till the chill of
the Himalaya Mountains has caused them to con-
dense and fall in snow and rain. But some have
been carried farther. They have been transported
right over the Himalaya at a height of at least
20,000 feet, till they have finally fallen in Tibet.
It is a striking fact that some of the water in the
Ganges is from rivers in Tibet which have cut their
way clean through the mighty range of the Hima-
laya. The Arun River, for example, rises in Tibet
and cuts through the Himalaya by a deep gorge in
the region between Mount Everest and Kinchin-
junga. These rivers are, indeed, much older than
the mountains. They were running their course
before the Himalaya were upheaved, and they kept
wearing out a channel for themselves as the moun-
tains rose and slowly over-towered them.

Reverence, therefore, is due to the Ganges on
account of its vast antiquity. Reverence also is
due because it will flow on like now for hundreds of
thousands and perhaps for millions of years to come.

A BENEFICENT POWER 7

Round and round in never-ceasing cycle the water
is drawn up from the ocean, is carried along in the
clouds, descends upon the mountains, and gathers
in the Ganges to flow once more into the sea. The
Ganges may gradually change its course as it eats
into first one bank and then the other. But it will
flow on and on and on for as far into the future as
the human eye can ken.

And its power, so terrifying to primitive man —
even to us at times — will become more and more a
power for good. Already great canals have been
taken from its main stream and its tributaries, and
millions of acres have been irrigated by its water,
thus helping to bring to birth great crops of wheat
and rice, cotton, sugar-cane, and oil-seeds.
Schemes for utilising the \vater-power in its fall
through the mountains by converting it into electric
power are in contemplation, so that railways may
be run by it and power for great industries be
furnished. Once more, too, the course of the river
may become a line of communication as sea-planes
are used to fly from town to town and alight upon
its surface.

So as we come to know the river in its deepest
significance, our impression of its everlastingness
and its irresistible power remains. But our sense
of fear diminishes. We feel that the river is ready
to co-operate with us. That it is capable of being
taken in hand and led. That its power is not essen-
tially destructive but beneficent. That there is in
it almost inexhaustible capacity for helping plant
and beast and man. And that it is a friend and
anxious to help us.

8 THE SIKKIM HIMALAYA

The Hindus have been right all along in wor-
shipping it. Their worship, with tropical luxu-
riance, may have developed to extravagant lengths.
But the instinct which promoted this worship was
perfectly sound. The river bears within its breast
great life-giving properties, and in worshipping the
river the Hindus were half-consciously expressing
their sense of dependence on these life-giving pro-
perties, and of affection and gratitude to the river
for the benefits it conferred. Mere fear of its
destructive character — fear alone — would not pro-
duce the desire for worship. They did and do fear
the river, but behind the fear is a feeling that it can
be propitiated, that it can be induced to help man
and does not want to thwart him. And here they
were perfectly right. We are at last learning the
way by which this may be done, and now see clearly
what the Hindus only vaguely felt, that the heart
of the river is right enough — that once it is tamed
and trained it can bring untold good to man.

This the Artist will readily discern. He will
enter into the spirit of the river. He will read
its true character. Refusing to be terrorised by
its more tremendous moods, he will exult in its
might, and see in it a potent agency for good. In
these ways the river will make its appeal to him ;
and responding to the appeal, the Artist will see
great Beauty in the river and describe that Beauty
to us.

Beyond the river, before we reach the moun-
tain, wre have to pass over absolutely level cultivated
plains, without a single eminence in sight. To

BEAUTY OF THE PLAINS 9

most they would appear dull, monotonous, unin-
teresting. There is no horizon to which the eye
can wander and find satisfaction in remote distance.
There is no hill to which to raise our eyes and our
souls with them. The outlook is confined within
the narrowest limits. Palm trees, banyan trees,
houses, walled gardens, everywhere restrict it.
The fields are small, the trees and houses numerous.
Nothing distant is to be seen. To the European
the prospect is depressing. But to the Bengali it
is his very life. These densely inhabited plains are
his home. They have, therefore, all the attraction
which familiar scenes in which men have grown up
from childhood always have . A Bengali prefers them
to high mountains. He loves the sight of the bril-
liant emerald rice-fields, of the tall feathery palms,
of the shady banyan trees, of the flaming poin-
settias, the bright marigolds, cannas and bougain-
villea, the many-coloured crotons and calladiums,
the sweet-scented jasmine, oranges, tuberoses, and
gardenia ; and the gaudy jays, the swiftly darting
parrots, and the playful squirrels. He loves, too,
the bathing-pools, and the patient oxen, and the
cool, sequestered gardens. And he loves these
things for their very nearness. His attention
is not distracted to distant horizons and inac-
cessible heights. All is close to the eye and easily
visible. His world may be small, but it is all within
reach. He can know well each tree and flower,
each bird and animal. It is not a wide and varied
life. But it is an intense and very vivid life ; and
to the Bengali, on that account, more preferable.
And if it is confined it is at least confined in

10 THE SIKKIM HIMALAYA

the open air, and in a climate of perpetual
summer.

Beyond this highly cultivated and thickly popu-
lated part, and still in the plains, we come to a wild
jungle country which stretches up to the foothills,
and is swampy, pestilential, and swarming with
every kind of biting insect. It is a nasty country
to travel through. But it has its interests. There
grow here remarkable grasses, with tall straight
shoots gracefully bending over at the top from the
weight of their feathery heads ; and so high are
these gigantic grasses that they often reach above
the head of a man on an elephant. The areas
covered by them are practically impenetrable to
men on foot, and there is a mysterious feel about
this region, for it is the haunt of rhinoceros, tigers,
and boars. In passing through it we have an un-
easy feeling that almost anything may appear on
the instant, and that once we were on foot and away
from the path we would be irretrievably lost —
drowned in a sea of waving grass.

From this sea of grass rise patches of forest and
single trees. The most prevalent is the Sal tree
(Shorea robusta), a magnificent gregarious tree with
a tall straight stem and thick glossy foliage. But
the most conspicuous in March and April is the
Dak tree (Butea /rondosa), an ungainly tree, but
remarkable for its deep rich scarlet flowers, like
gigantic sweet-peas but of a thick velvety texture.
These flowers blossom before the leaves appear, and
when the tree is in full bloom it looks like a veritable
flame in the forest.

FIRST SIGHT OF HIMALAYA 11

Another beautiful tree which is found in this
lower part is the Acacia catechu, known in Northern
India as the Khair tree, and found all about the
foothills of the Himalaya. Not tall and stately,
but rather contorted and ample like the oak, it has
a graceful feathery foliage and a kindly inviting
nature.

Proceeding over these level plains, which as we
approach the mountains are covered with dense
forest, stagnant morasses, and trim tea-gardens,
we one morning awake to find that over the horizon
to the north hangs a long cloud-like strip, white
suffused with pink — level on its lower edge but
with the upper edge irregular in outline. No one
who had not seen snow mountains before would
suppose for a moment that that strip could be a line
of mountain summits. For there is not a trace of
any connection with the earth. Between it and
the earth is nothing but blue haze. And it is so
high above the horizon that it seems incredible that
any such connection could exist. Yet no one who
had seen snow mountains could doubt for an instant
that that rose-flushed strip of white was the Hima-
laya. For it possesses two unmistakable charac-
teristics which distinguish it from any cloud.
Firstly, the lower edge is absolutely straight and
horizontal : it is exactly parallel with the horizon.
Secondly, the upper edge is jagged, and the outline
of the jaggedness cuts clean and perfectly defined
against the intense blue of the sky.

No one who knows mountains could doubt that
this line was the Himalaya, yet every time we see it

12 THE SIKKIM HIMALAYA

afresh we marvel more. We know for certain that
those sharp edges are the summits of mountains
whose base is on this solid earth. Yet, however sure
we may be of that fact, we do not cease to wonder.
And as we gaze upon that line of snowy summits
no more — indeed, less — intrinsically beautiful than
many a cloud, yet unspeakably more significant, we
are curiously elated. Something in us leaps to
meet the mountains. And we cannot keep our
eyes away. We seem lifted up, and feel higher
possibilities within ourselves and within the world
than we had ever known before. As we travel on-
ward we strain to keep the mountains continually in
sight, for we cannot bear to leave them. We feel
better men for having seen them, and for the re-
mainder of our days we would keep them in
continuing remembrance.

As we come closer under the mountains the base
emerges from the haze and the line of snowy peaks
disappears behind the nearer outer ranges. Then
we come to these ranges themselves, which rise
with considerable abruptness out of the level
plains with very little intermediate modulation of
form, and we find them densely clothed in forest —
true, rich, luxuriant, tropical forest with all the de-
lights of glistening foliage, graceful ferns and palms,
glorious orchids, and brilliant butterflies.

CHAPTER II

THE TEESTA VALLEY

THIS great forest, which extends for hundreds of
miles along the slopes of the Himalaya, reaches up
from the plains to the snows. In the lower part it
is a truly tropical forest, and about a tropical forest
there is something peculiarly mysterious. A
strange stillness is over all. Not, indeed, the abso-
lute silence of the desert, where literally not a sound
is heard ; for here in the forest, even during the hot
noonday quiet, there is always the purring of insect
life. But that stillness when not a leaf moves and
no harsh noise is heard, when an impressive hush
is laid upon the scene and we seem to be in some
mysterious Presence dominating all about us and
rousing our expectancy.

A kind of awe seizes us, and with it also comes a
keen exhilaration. We can see at most for a hun-
dred yards in any direction. But we know that the
forest extends like this for hundreds of miles. And
we realise that if we wandered off the track we
might never find it again. It is all very awe-inspir-
ing, and in some ways frightening. Still, we are
thrilled by the sight of such a profusion, in-
tensity, and variety of life. In this hot, steamy
atmosphere plants and trees grow in luxuriant
abundance. Every inch of soil is occupied. And

13

14 THE TEESTA VALLEY

these forests are not like woods in England, which
contain only three or four species — oaks, beeches,
sycamores, etc. In these Sikkim forests we seldom
see two trees of the same kind standing next each
other. One tree may be more prevalent than
others, but there is always great variety in the forms
and colours of the stems, the branches, the leaves,
the flowers, the habit of growth. There are trees of
immense height with tall, strong, straight stems, and
there are shrubs like hydrangeas of every size and
description. There are climbers as huge as cables.
And there are gentle little plants hardly rising
above the ground. There is no end to the variety
of plant life, and we have an inner spring of delight
as we come across treasure after treasure that
hitherto we had only seen reared with infinite care
in some expensive hot-house.

And what we see is only, we feel, a stray sample
of what there is to be seen. What may there not
be in those forest depths which we dare not enter
for fear of losing our way ! What other towering
forest monarchs might we not come across if we
plunged into the forest ! What other exquisite
flowers, what insects, what birds, what animals !
What wealth of insect life may there not be at the
tops of the trees where the fierce sunshine hidden
from us by their leaves is drawing out their flowers !
What may there not be going on in the ground
beneath us! We know, that in these forests,
perhaps near enough to see us, though their
forms are hidden by their likeness to their
leafy surroundings and the dappled sunlight, are
animals as various as elephants, tigers, leopards,

MYSTERY OF THE FOREST 15

foxes, squirrels, and bats ; birds as various as hawks,
parrots, and finches ; and insects from butterflies,
bees, and wasps to crickets, beetles, and ants. The
forest, we know, in addition to all the wealth of tree
and plant life, is teeming with animal and insect
life, though of this we are able to see very little, so
carefully do animals conceal themselves. In the
night they emerge, and in the morning and evening
there is a deafening din of insect Me. But at noon-
day there is a soft and solemn hush, and we are tense
with curiosity to know all that is going on in those
mysterious forest depths and up among the tree-
tops, so close but so impossible of access.

The great forest is the very epitome of life.
Concentrated here in small compass is every form
and variety of living thing, from lowliest plant to
forest monarch, from simplest animalcule to
elephant, monkey, and man. There is life and
abundant life all about us. But it is not the noisy,
clamorous, obtrusive life of the city. It is a still,
intense life, full of untold possibilities for good or
harm. And herein lies its mystery : we see much,
but we feel that there is infinitely more behind.

Of this life of the forest in all its richness, in-
tensity, and variety we shall come to know more as
we ascend the Teesta Valley till it reaches the
snows, and tropical plant and animal life changes
first to temperate and then to arctic forms. But
first we must note some beauties of the valley itself.

The valley of the great Teesta River, the valleys
of its tributaries, the gorges through which the main
river and its tributaries rush, the cascades pouring

16 THE TEESTA VALLEY

in succession down the mountain-sides, the seques-
tered glens and dells — all these have beauties which
the terrific rain and the mists in which they are
usually enveloped do not hide but augment.

The River Teesta itself, though only a minor
contributor to the Brahmaputra, is nevertheless
during the rainy season, when it is fed both by the
falling rain and by the melting snows and glaciers
of the Kinchinjunga region, impressive in its
might and energy. With a force and tumult
that nothing could withstand it comes swirling
down the valley. Before its rushing impetuosity
everything would be swept away. For it is no
little tossing torrent : it possesses depth and weight
and volume, and sweeps majestically along in great
waves and cataracts. In comparison with the
serene composure of the lofty summits here is life
and force and activity to the full — and destructive
activity at that, to all appearance. Yet as, from
the safety of a bridge by which the genius of man
has spanned it, we look upon the turmoil, a strange
thrill comes through us. There is such splendid
energy in the river. We are fascinated by the
power it displays. It is glorious to look upon.
Alarming in a way it is. But we know it can only
act within certain strictly defined bounds. A foot
beyond those bounds it is powerless. And while it
is already confined by Nature within these limits,
we know the day will come when it will be com-
pletely within the control of man and its very power
available for our own purposes. So in the end it
is with no sense of terror that we watch the raging
river in its headlong course. Rather do we enjoy

THE GORGES 17

the sight of such exultant energy, which will one
day be at man's disposal. We rejoice with the
river in a feeling of power, and herein lies its Beauty
for us.

As we look at the tremendous gorges through
which the river clears its way we again are filled with
awe and wonder. Straight facing us is a clean,
sheer cliff of hardest, sternest rock. It cannot be
actually perpendicular, but to all appearance it is.
And the mere sight of it strengthens our souls.
Here is granite solidity, and yet no mere stolid
obstinacy. For these cliffs have risen — so the
geologists tell us — through their own internal
energy to their present proud position. They have,
indeed, had to give place to the river to this extent
that they have had to acknowledge his previous right
of way and to leave a passage for him in their upward
effort. The river is careful to exact that much toll
from them year by year. But having paid that
toll, they have risen by a process of steady, long
persistence, and have maintained themselves in
their exalted position by sheer firmness and tenacity
of character. And as, dripping with warm moisture
and carrying with them in any available crevice
graceful ferns and trees, they rise above us high up
into the clouds, and form the buttresses of those
snowy peaks of which we catch occasional glimpses,
we are impressed not only with the height of the
aspiration those peaks embody, but with the
strength and persistency of purpose which was
necessary to carry the aspiration into effect.

Overpowered, indeed, we feel at times — shut

18 THE TEESTA VALLEY

in and overshadowed by what seems so infinitely
greater than ourselves. The roaring river fills the
centre of the gorge. The precipitous cliffs rise
sheer on either hand. We seem for the moment
too minute to cope with such titanic conditions.
But sometimes by circumventing the cliffs and after
a long tedious detour appearing high above them,
sometimes by blasting a passage across their very
face, we have proved ourselves able to overcome
them. They no longer affright us. And as we
return down the valley after a journey to its
upmost limit, it is with nothing but sheer delight
that we look upon these cliffs. They simply im-
press us with the strength that must go along with
elevation of purpose if that purpose is to be achieved.
Unbuttressed by these staunch cliffs the mountains
could never have reached their present height.
We glory, then, with the cliffs in their solidity and
strength as they proudly face the world. And we
recognise that in this firmness and consistency of
purpose lies their especial Beauty.

In contrast with the swirling river and hard,
rugged cliffs we, quite close to them, and hidden
away in a modest tributary of a tributary in the
quiet forest depths, will happen upon some deep
sequestered pool which imbues us with a sense of the
delicacy and reserve of Nature. We here see her
in a peculiarly tender aspect. The pool is still and
clear. The lulling murmurs of a waterfall show
whence it draws its being. A gentle rivulet carries
the overbrim away. It is bounded by rocks and
boulders green with exquisite ferns and mosses.

SEQUESTERED GLENS 19

Overhanging it are weeping palms with long
straight leaves. Trees, with erect stems as tall as
Nelson's Column, strain upward to the light. But-
terflies in numbers flutter noiselessly about. The
air is absolutely still and of a feel like satin. Clouds
of intangible softness and clean and white as
snow float around, appear, dissolve, and reappear.
Through the parting in the overhanging trees the
intense blue sky is seen in glimpses. The sun here
and there pierces through the arching foliage, and
the greens of the foliage glisten brighter still.
The whole atmosphere of the spot is one of reticence
and reserve. Yet quiet though it be and restful
though it be, there is no sense of stagnation. The
pool, though deep and still, is vividly alive. Its
waters are continually being renewed. And the
forest, though not a leaf moves, is, we know, strain-
ing with all the energy of life for food and light, for
air and moisture. So by this jewel of a pool in its
verdant setting we have a sense of an activity which
is gentle and refined. The glen's is a shy and in-
timate Beauty, especially congenial to us after the
forceful Beauty of the river and the bold, proud
Beauty of the cliffs. But it is no insipid Beauty :
in its very quietness and confidence is strength.

CHAPTER III

THE FOREST

THE Teesta Valley in its lowest part is only 700 feet
above sea-level. It is deep and confined and satu-
rated with perpetual moisture. Hardly a breath
of wind stirs, and all plant life is forced as in a hot-
house. The trees do not, indeed, grow as high as
the Big Trees of California or the eucalyptus in
Australia, but some of these in the Teesta Valley
are 200 feet in height with buttressed trunks be-
tween 40 and 50 feet in girth, and give the same
impression of stateliness and calm composure.
With incredible effort and incessant struggle they
have attained their present proud position, and the
traveller most willingly accords them the tribute
that is their due.

Grand tropical oaks nearly 50 feet in girth also
occur, screw-pines 50 feet in height with immense
crowns of grassy leaves 4 feet long, palms of many
kinds, rattan-canes, bamboos, plantains, and tall
grasses such as only grow in dense, hot jungles.
Gigantic climber*, tackle the loftiest trees. One
allied to the gourd bears immense yellowish-white
pendulous blossoms ; another bears curious pitcher-
shaped flowers. Vines, peppers, and pothos inter-
lace with the palms and plantains in impenetrable
jungle. Orchids clothe the trees. Everywhere

20

BUTTERFLIES 21

and always we hear the whirr and hum of insect life,
sometimes soft and soothing, sometimes harsh and
strident. And floating about wherever we look are
butterflies innumerable, many dull and unpreten-
tious, but some of a brilliancy of colour that makes
us gasp with pleasure.

We may be pouring with perspiration, pestered
by flies and mosquitoes, and in constant dread of
leeches. But we forget all such annoyances in the
joy of these wonders of the tropics, whether they be
trees or orchids, ferns or butterflies. And to see
one of these gorgeous insects alight in front of us,
slowly raise and lower his wings and turn himself
about almost as if he were showing himself off for our
especial pleasure, compensates us for every worry
his fellows in the insect world may cause us.

As might be expected, in the steamy, dripping
atmosphere ferns are a predominating feature in the
vegetation. Not less than two hundred different
kinds are found. The most noticeable are the tree
ferns, of which alone there are eight species. Their
average height is about 20 feet, but plants of 40 and
50 feet are not uncommon. And with their tall
trunks and crown of immense graceful fronds
they form a striking feature in the forest, and in
the moister valleys where they attain their full
luxuriance they may be seen in extensive groves as
well as in little groups. Four kinds of maidenhair,
always light and graceful and attractive, are found ;
and of ferns common to Europe, Osmunda regalis,
the Royal fern of Europe, and the European
moonwort and alder 's-tongue ferns. Then there
is a fern which attains to gigantic proportions,

22 THE FOREST

especially in the cool forests, where its massive
fronds grow to more than 5 yards in length and 3 in
breadth, with a spread over all, measuring from tip
to tip of opposite fronds, of 8 yards. One hand-
some climbing fern clothes the trunks of tall trees ;
another which climbs on grasses and the smaller
shrubs is common ; and another forms almost im-
penetrable thickets 15 or 20 feet high. Of the
kinds which grow on rocks and trees the most
delicately beautiful are the filmy ferns, of which
there are eight kinds. The Irish filmy is the largest,
covering the face of large rocks under dense shade,
its fronds growing to over a foot in length. Many
polypodiums and aspleniums grow gracefully on the
rocks and trees during the rainy season. One
especially elegant polypodium growing on the
ground has fronds about 6 or 7 feet long, and some-
times as much as 20 feet, and of proportionate
width. Another conspicuous fern is the bird's-nest
fern with its large, massive fronds growing under
shade on rocks and stems of trees.

Unless we are fern experts it is impossible for us
to identify each among so many species. But, at
any rate, we gather an impression of elegance and
grace, often of airy lightness, and of wonderful
variety of size and form.

From the ferns we look to the rest of the forest,
and after the first bewilderment at the profusion
and variety of vegetation we try to fasten on to a
few individuals or types which we can identify as
having seen elsewhere in some other part of India
or in some palm-house in England. We are in the

FERNS 28

still, steamy atmosphere of a hot-house, and we are
conscious that all round us, growing in luxuriant
abundance, are rare and beautiful plants of which a
single specimen would be treasured and treated with
every fostering care in England. But we sigh to be
able to recognise these treasures and make contact
between home and this exceptionally favoured
region — favoured, that is to say, as regards plant
life. From among the giant trees, the bamboos,
the palms, the climbers, the shrubs, the flowers, the
orchids, we look out anxiously for friends — or at
least for acquaintances whom we hope may develop
into friends as we meet them again and again on
our journeys through the forest.

Of the flowers, the orchids are naturally the first
to attract us. They shine out as real gems in the
greenery around them. The eye jumps to them at
once. Here seems to be something as nearly perfect
in colour, form, and texture as it could possibly be.
If the orchid is white it is of the purest whiteness,
and shines chaste and unsullied amidst its dull sur-
roundings. If it is purple, or pale yellow, or golden-
yellow, or rose, or violet, or white, the colour has
always a depth and purity which is deeply satisfying.
And it seems to be because the waxy texture of
these orchids is such a perfect medium for the dis-
play of colour that orchids are so exceptionally
beautiful. The texture is of the very consistency
best adapted for revealing the beauty of colour.
And when we pluck a spray of these choice treasures
from the forest branch and hold it in the sunlight,
we feel we are seeing colour almost in perfection.

The colour and texture are beautiful enough

24 THE FOREST

in themselves. But an added attraction in these
orchids is their form — the curvature of their sepals
and petals, and the wonderful little pitchers and
cups and lips and tongues which an orchid exhibits.
And the form is no mere geometrical pattern of
lines and curves. It is obviously an ingenious con-
trivance devised for some special purpose. That
purpose we now know to be the attraction of insects,
who in sucking the orchid's honey will unconsciously
carry on their wings or backs the flower's pollen to
fertilise another orchid. Though whether the insect
in the long centuries by probing at the orchid has
forced it to adapt itself to it, or whether the flower
has forced the insect to adapt itself to the flower,
or wrhether — as seems most likely — a process of
mutual adaptation has been going on century by
century, and the flower and insect have been
gradually adapting themselves to one another, is
still a matter of discussion among naturalists.

We cannot gather an orchid of any kind without
marvelling at its intricate construction. And when
we are looking at the orchid in its natural surround-
ings in the forest itself and see the enormous
numbers and the immense variety, in size and form
and habits, of the insects around the orchid, and
think how the orchid has to select its own particular
species of insect and cater for that, and the insect
among all the flowers has to select the particular
species of orchid ; and how the insect, whether
butterfly or bee or moth or gnat or ant, or any other
of the numerous kinds of insect, and the orchid
have to adapt themselves to each other — we see how
marvellous the mutual adaptation of flower to insect

ORCHIDS 25

and insect to flower must have been. We see how
the particular species of orchid must have chosen the
particular species of bee, and the particular species
of bee that particular species of orchid, and the bee
and orchid set themselves to adapt themselves to one
another, the orchid using all the devices of colour,
scent, sweetness of honey, to attract the insect, and
gradually shaping itself so that the insect can better
reach the honey, and the insect lengthening its
proboscis and otherwise adapting itself so that it can
better secure what it wants. And we see how per-
fectly— how nearly perfectly — the flower is designed
for its purpose.

But what is perhaps most remarkable of all about
an orchid is that this marvel of colour and form and
of texture of fabric unfolds itself from within a most
ungainly, unsightly, unlikely-looking tuber. From
shapeless, colourless tubers, which attach themselves
to trunks and branches of trees and cling on to rocks,
there emerge these peerless aristocrats of the flower-
world, finished, polished, immaculate, and reigning
supreme through sheer distinction and excellence at
every point — and also because theirs is clearly no
ephemeral convolvulus-like beauty which will fade
and vanish away in a twinkling, but is a beauty
intensely matured, strong and deep and firm.

Of the 450 species of orchids found in the Sikkim
Forest, many are very rare. But fortunately the
rarest are not the most beautiful in colour and form.
Some very beautiful orchids are also very common.
The most common are the dendrobiums, of wrhich
there are about forty species. The finest and best

26 THE FOREST

known is the Dendrobium nobile. It grows in the
lower hills and valleys up to 5,000 feet, and also in
the plains. The flowers vary both in size and shade
of colour; but in Sikkim the sepals and petals are
always purple, shading off into white at the base.
The tip has a central blotch of very deep purple
surrounded by a broad margin of pale yellow or
white. This orchid is now very common in English
hot-houses, so here is one point of contact with the
tropical forest.

The JD. densiflorum is equally common and grows
in much the same region. It flowers in a dense
cluster on a stalk somewhat after the fashion of a
hyacinth. The sepals and petals of this beautiful
species are of a pale yellow, while the lip is of a rich
orange. One of the most charming of the Sikkim
dendrobiums has the smell of violets, and the sepals
and petals are white-tipped with violet, the stem
being sometimes 2j feet long. Another noteworthy
dendrobium is the D. pierardi, whose prevailing
colour is a beautiful rose or pale purple.

After the dendrobiums the coelogyne are the
most worth noting. The Cozlogyne cristata is
common at elevations of from 5,000 to 8,000 feet,
and flowers during March and April. It has
numerous large flowers, which are pure white
throughout, with the exception of the lamellae of
the lip, which are yellow. It may be seen in flower
in March in the orchid-house at Kew. In the forest
it grows in such profusion as to make the trunk of
a dead tree look as if it wrere covered with snow.

The C. humilis is known as the Himalayan
crocus. It grows like a crocus from a pseudo-bulb

FLOWER FRIENDS 27

at elevations from 7,000 to 8,500 feet, and flowers
during February and March. The flowers are white
and from 2 to 2j inches in diameter. The lip is
speckled with purple towards the edge.

Not so common but larger and handsomer than
the dendrobiums are the cymbidiums, of which there
are sixteen different species, usually with long grassy
leaves and many-flowered drooping racemes with
large handsome flowers. A very sweet-scented
species is the Cymbidium eburneum, which is
common between elevations of 1,000 to 3,000 feet,
and flowers during March and April. The prevail-
ing colour of the flowers is an ivory white, but the
ridge on the lip is a brilliant yellow. This also may
be seen at Kew in March.

These are some of the commonest orchids and
all now grow in England, so that we can begin to
get a footing in the forest and not feel that it is so
completely strange to us. And as we ascend higher
we shall find many more friends among the flowers.
And to guide us among the trees and flowers we
fortunately have Sir Joseph Hooker, who in his
"Himalayan Journals " has described this botanist's
paradise in loving detail, so we cannot do better
than follow him. Amid the many plants he
mentions we can only select a few, but these
few will at least help to give us some conception of
the whole and show the range of variation as we
ascend.

As we proceed higher up the valley to an altitude
of about 4,000 feet, European trees and plants begin
to be intermingled with the tropical vegetation.
Hornbeams appear, and birch, willow, alder, and

28 THE FOREST

walnut grow side by side with wild plantains, palms,
and gigantic bamboos. Brambles, speedwells, for-
get-me-nots, and nettles grow mixed with figs,
balsams, peppers, and huge climbing vines. The
wild English strawberry is found on the ground,
while above tropical orchids like the dendrobiums
cover the trunks of the oaks. The bracken and the
club-moss of our British moors grow associated with
tree-ferns. And English grow alongside Himalayan
mosses.

The valley itself continues of the same
character — deep with its steep sides clothed in
forest and the path scrambling over spurs, making
wide detours up side valleys, or scraping along the
sides of cliffs which stand perpendicularly over the
raging river below. Only here and there are clear-
ings in the forest where Lepchas or Nepalese have
built themselves a few wooden houses and roughly
cultivated the land. Otherwise we are under the
same green mantle of forest which extends every-
where over the mountains ; and though we are now
piercing straight through the main axis of the
Himalaya, we seldom catch even a glimpse of the
snowy heights w^hich must be so near.

But the vegetation is distinctly changing in
character as we ascend — the most tropical trees and
plants gradually disappearing, and more and more
flowers of the temperate zone coming into evidence.
And as wre pierce farther into the mountains the
climate becomes sensibly drier and the forest lighter.
There is still a heavy enough rainfall to satisfy any
ordinary plant or human being. But there is not
the same deluge that descends upon the outer ridges.

RHODODENDRONS 29

So the forest is not so dense. Frequently in its
place social grasses clothe the mountain-sides ; and
yellow violets, primulas, anemones, delphiniums,
currants, and saxifrages remind us of regions more
akin to our own.

Now, too, we have reached the habitat of the
rhododendrons, which are so peculiarly a glory of
Sikkim, and it is worth while to pause and take
special note of them. Out of the thirty species
which are found in Sikkim, all the most beautiful
have been introduced — chiefly by Sir Joseph
Hooker — into England, and are grown in many
parks and gardens as well as at Kew. So English
people can form some idea of what the flowering
trees of the Sikkim Forest are like. But they must
multiply by many times the few specimens they see
in an English park or hot-house, and must realise
that as cowslips are in a grassy meadow, so are these
rhododendron trees in the Sikkim Forest. Red,
mauve, white, or yellow, they grow as great flowers
among the green giants of the forest and brighten
it with colour. The separate blossoms of a rhodo-
dendron tree cannot compare in beauty with the
individual orchid. There is in them neither the deep
richness of colour nor wonder of form nor sense of
deeply matured excellence. The claim of the rhodo-
dendron to favour is rather in the collective quantity
and mass of flowers so that by sheer weight of num-
bers it can produce its effect of colour. In some
of the upper valleys the mountain slopes are clothed
in a deep green mantle glowing with bells of scarlet,
white, or yellow.

Perhaps the most splendid of these rhodo-

30 THE FOREST

dendrons is Rhododendron grande or argenteum,
which grows to a height of from 30 to 40 feet, and
has waxy bell-shaped flowers of a yellowish-white
suffused with pink, 2 to 3 inches long and about
the same across. The scarlet R. arboreum, so
general in the Himalaya, is common in Sikkim and
furnishes brilliant patches of colour in the forest.
And a magnificent species is R. Aucklandii or
Griffithianum, which has large white flowers tinged
with pink, of a firm fleshy texture and with a mouth
5 inches across. It has been called the queen of all
flowering shrubs. It grows well in Cornwall, and
among the hybrids from it is the famous Pink Pearl.

JR. Falconeri, a white-flowered species, is
eminently characteristic of the genus in habit,
place of growth and locality, never occurring below
10,000 feet. In foliage it is incomparably the finest.
It throws out one or two trunks clean and smooth,
30 feet or so high, the branches terminated by
immense leaves, deep green above edged with yellow
and ruby red-brown below. The creamy white
flowers are shaded with lilac and are slightly scented.
They are produced in tightly-packed clusters 9 to
15 inches across and twenty or more in numbers.

A peculiar (in that it is of all the species the only
one that is epiphytal) but much the largest flowered
species is the R. Dalhousiae. It grows, like the
orchids, among ferns and moss upon the trunks of
large trees, especially oaks and magnolias, and
attains a height of 6 to 8 feet. The flowers are
three to seven in a head, and are 3| to 5 inches
long and as much across the mouth, white with an
occasional tinge of rose and very fragrant. In size,

TEMPERATE VEGETATION 31

colour, and fragrance of the blossoms this is the
noblest of the genus. It grows out-of-doors in
Cornwall and in the greenhouse in other parts of
England as a scraggy bush 10 to 12 feet high.
R. barbatum is a tree from 40 to 60 feet high,
producing flowers of a rich scarlet or blood-colour,
and sometimes puce or rich pink. It is one of the
most beautiful of the Himalayan rhododendrons,
and is now very common in England, growing freely
out-of-doors. Another truly superb plant is R.
Maddeni, with very handsome pure white flowers
3£ to 4 inches long and as much across the mouth.
This is now a special favourite in England. It
grows in large bushes in the open in Cornwall and
is very sweet-scented. R. virgatum is a beautiful
delicately white-flowered shrub. And R. campylo-
carpum displays masses of exquisite pale yellow
bells of rarest delicacy.

Besides rhododendrons, ash, walnut, and maple
become more abundant as we ascend, and at 9,000
feet larch appears, and there are woods of a spruce
resembling the Norwegian spruce in general appear-
ance. Among the plants are wood-sorrel, bramble,
nut, spiraea, and various other South European and
North American genera.

The climate is no longer stifling and the leeches
have disappeared. We miss many beauties of the
tropical forest. But, with the vegetation more and
more resembling what we are accustomed to in
Europe, we are feeling more at home. The path
winds through cool and pleasant woods, following
the varying contour of the mountain-sides. We are
no longer oppressed by the strangeness of the life

32 THE FOREST

around us. At almost every turn we come across
something new yet not wholly unfamiliar. And
standing out especially in our memory of this region
will be the sight of a gigantic lily rearing itself ten
feet high in the forest, and as pure in its perfect
whiteness as if it had been grown in a garden. It is
the Lilium giganteum, and it has fourteen flowers
on a single stalk and each 4j inches long and the
same across.

We still love most of all the white violets we
have as children picked in an English wood, and
even this great white lily will never supplant them
in our affections. But the sight of that glorious
plant rising proudly from amidst the greenery of
its forest setting .will be for us more than any
picture. And its being "wild" has the same
fascination for us that a flower that is "wild,"
and not garden grown, has for a child. In a florist's
shop we may see lilies even more beautiful than this,
but the enjoyment \ve get from seeing the florist's
production bears no comparison whatever with the
enjoyment we get from seeing this lily in a distant
Himalayan forest where not so many white men
ever go. We often have experiences which per-
ceptibly age us. But this is one of those experiences
which most certainly make us younger. We are
once again children finding flowers in a wood.

As we proceed upward the valley opens out, the
mountains recede and are less steep. They are also
less wooded, their slopes become more covered with
grass, and the river, no longer a raging torrent,
now meanders in a broad bed. The great peaks are
somewhere close by, but we do not see the highest,

PRIMULAS 33

and for the Himalaya the scenery is somewhat tame.
But the number of herbaceous plants is great. A
complete record of them would include most of the
common genera of Europe and North America.
Among them are purple, yellow, pink, and white
primulas, golden potentillas, gentians of deepest
azure, delicate anemones, speedwells, fritillaries,
oxalis, balsams, and ranunculus. One special
treasure of this part is a great red rose (Rosa
macrophylla), one of the most beautiful of
Himalayan plants whose single blossoms are as
large as the palm of the hand. With these plants
from the temperate zone are mixed the far outliers
of the tropical genera — orchids, begonias, and
others — whose ascent to these high regions has been
favoured by the great summer heat and moisture.

We are now in the region of the primulas for
which (besides its orchids and rhododendrons)
Sikkim is famous. Sikkim may indeed be called
the headquarters of the Indian primroses, and
many species are found there which appear to occur
nowhere else. There are from thirty to forty species,
the majority growing at altitudes from 12,000 to
15,000 feet, two or three only being found below
10,000 feet, and two or three as high as 16,000 to
17,000 feet. The best known is the Primula
sikkimensis, which grows well in England and
resembles a gigantic cowslip. It thrills us to see it
growing in golden masses in the high valleys in wet
boggy places — though the precise colour may be
better described as lemon-yellow rather than gold.

The prevailing colour of the primulas is purple,
but white, yellow, blue, and pink are also found.

34 THE FOREST

The P. denticulata has purple to bright sapphire
blue flowers, and great stretches of country are
almost blue with the lovely heads of this primrose.
Miles of country can be seen literally covered with
P. obtusifolia, which has purple flowers and a strong
metallic smell. P. Kingii is a lovely plant with
flowers of such a dark claret colour that they are
almost black. And perhaps the most striking
primula is P. Elwesiana, with large solitary deflexed
purple flowers.

Poppies also are a feature of the Sikkim vegeta-
tion. Near the huts the people cultivate a majestic
species near Menconopsis simplicifolia, but it grows
in dense clusters 2 or 3 feet high. The flowers vary
in diameter from 5 to 7 inches, and are an intensely
vivid blue on opening, though they change before
fading into purple. M. simplicifolia itself is also
found at altitudes from 12,000 to 15,000 feet— a
clear light blue species of special beauty, growing
as a single flower on a single stem, and now to be
seen at both Edinburgh and Kew. Another beauti-
ful poppy is the M. nepalensis, which grows in the
central dampest regions of Sikkim at elevations of
10,000 to 11,000 feet and resembles a miniature
hollyhock, the flowers being of a pale golden or
sulphur-yellow, 2 or 3 inches in diameter and
several on a stalk.

As Tangu is approached the valley expands into
broad grassy flats, and here at about 13,000 feet the
vegetation rapidly diminishes in stature and abund-
ance , and the change in species is very great . Larch ,
maple, cherry, and spiraea disappear, leaving wil-
lows, juniper, stunted birch, silver fir, mountain

ARCTIC VEGETATION 55

ash berberis, currant, honeysuckle, azalea, and
many rhododendrons. The turfy ground is covered
with gentians, potentillas, geraniums, and purple
and yellow meconopsis, delphiniums, orchids, saxi-
frage, campanulas, ranunculus, anemones, primulas
(including the magnificent Primula Sikkimensis),
and three or four species of ferns. The country
being now so much more open, the valley bottom
and the mountain-sides glow with purples and yel-
lows of various shades. Not even here, nor indeed
anywhere in the Himalaya, do we see that mass and
glow of colour we find in California, where wide
sheets of meadow-land are ablaze with the purple of
the lupins and the gold of the Calif ornian poppy.
But for the number of varieties of plants these upper
valleys of the Teesta River can scarcely be excelled.
As we ascend the mountain-sides above Tangu we
find them covered with plants of numerous different
kinds, and even at about 14,000 feet Hooker
gathered over two hundred plants.

But now we are nearing the limit of plant life.
At 17,000 feet the vegetation has ceased to be alpine
and has become arctic, and the plants nearest the
snow-line are minute primulas, saxifrages, gentians,
grasses, sedges, some tufted wormwood, and a dwarf
rhododendron, the most alpine of wooded plants.

At the summit of the Donkia Pass Hooker
found one flowering plant, the Arenaria rupifragia.
The fescue (Festuca ovina), a little fern (Woodsid),
and a saussurea ascend very near the summit. A
pink-coloured woolly saussurea and Delphinium
glaciale are two of the most lofty plants, and are
commonly found from 17,500 feet to 18,000 feet.

36 THE FOREST

Besides some barren mosses several lichens grow on
the top, as Cladonia vermicularis, the yellow Lecidea
geographica and the orange L. miniata.

At 18,300 feet Hooker found on one stone only
a fine Scottish lichen, a species of gyrophora, the
" tripe de roche " of Arctic voyagers and the food
of the Canadian hunters. It is also abundant in the
Scotch Alps.

On the summit of Bhomtso, 18,590 feet, the
only plants were the lichens Lecidea miniata (or
Parmalia miniata) mentioned above, and borrera.
The first-named minute lichen is the most arctic,
antarctic, alpine, and universally diffused in the
world, and often occurs so abundantly as to colour
the rocks an orange red.

The entire range of plant life, from the truly
tropical to the hardiest arctic, is now complete. As
we look back from the limit of perpetual snow we
see the whole great procession in a glance. We
have come across no African, nor South American,
nor Australian plants, so we have not seen anything
like the whole of plant life. But the range from
the tropic to the arctic has been complete and con-
tinuous. In no other region could we in so short a
space as a hundred miles — the distance from Bath
to London — see the entire range so fully represented.

And actually seeing how vast is the range and
variety of plant life is a very different thing from
knowing that it exists ; seeing the flowers in the
flesh is altogether different from only reading de-
scriptions of them ; and seeing them in masses and
in their natural surroundings affects us quite dif-

THE RANGE OF VEGETATION 37

ferently from seeing only a few in a garden or in a
hot-house. Here on the spot we feel close in touch
with Nature's own heart. We see Nature's pro-
ductions springing up fresh and new straight from
the very fountain source. We have the joy of being
able to stretch out a hand and pick a flower direct
from its own surroundings, and to fondle it,
examine it all round, admire its colour, form, and
texture, compare its beauty with the beauty of
other flowers and settle wherein its special beauty
lies. We shall never be able to give to even the
most exquisite orchid or the most perfect lily the
same affection that we give to the primroses and
violets of our native land. But we may be sure that
our Naturalist- Artist, wrhen he gathers together in
his mind the impressions which have been made
upon him by his passage through the tropical forests
to the alpine uplands and thence to the limit of per-
petual snow, will find that his sense of the variety
of beauty to be found in trees and leaves, in ferns
and flowers, has immeasurably expanded. He will
have acquired a firmer grasp of plant life as a whole.
He will have a truer measure of the beauty in it.
And irresistibly, but most willingly, he will have
been more closely drawn to Nature's heart.

CHAPTER IV

THE DENIZENS OF THE FOREST

So far we have paid attention almost exclusively to
the plant life. But all through Sikkim the insect
life presses itself just as insistently on our notice.
In the tropical portion it is unbelievably abundant
and varied. It swarms about us and is ever present.
And much of it is as beautiful as the flowers. For
sheer attractiveness the butterflies are as compelling
as the orchids. Mosquitoes, gnats, flies, leeches,
every torment there is. But we forgive everything
for the chance of being able to see alive and in the
full glory of their colouring these brilliant gems of
the insect world which we can in places view in hun-
dreds and thousands at a time — and in extraordinary
variety, for in this little country more than six
hundred species are found — about ten times as
many as are met with in England. Moreover,
there is no season when they are wholly absent, for
in the hot valleys they may be seen all the year
round, though naturally there are more in the
summer than in the winter.

If it were not for other attractions we would like
to concentrate our attention on these beautiful
creatures alone. For they fascinate us by the
daring of their colours, by their bold designs, by the
way in which they blend the colours with one an-

BUTTERFLIES 89

other, and by the extreme delicacy and chasteness
of both colour and design. We are reluctant to
take the life of a single one of the thousands we see,
but yet we are itching, too, to lay hold of one after
another as it sails into sight displaying some fresh
beauty. We want to handle it as we would a
flower, turn it about and examine it from every
point of view till not a shade or aspect of its beauty
has escaped us. In the presence of these brilliant
butterflies we are children once more. We want
to have them in our hands and feel that they are in
our possession. It is tantalising merely to view
them from a distance. We want to enjoy their
beauty to the full.

These butterflies of Sikkim are such complete
strangers to us we do not even know their names.
From the " Gazetteer," however, we learn that the
most beautiful of them are the papilios, of which
alone there are no less than forty-two species. And
three of these — namely, the Teinophalus imperialis
(which occurs on Tiger Hill above Darjiling) and
two ornithopteras, or bird-butterflies — are among
the most splendid of all butterflies. The former is
green on the upper side with yellow spots on the
hind- wing, and the long tails are tipped with yellow.
The two bird-butterflies are common in the low
valleys from May to October. They are truly
magnificent insects, measuring from 6 to 8 inches
across. Their fore- wings are wholly of a velvety
black and the hind-wing golden yellow scolloped
with black.

Of the well-known green species of papilio, with
longish tails and blue or green spots on the hind-

40 THE DENIZENS OF THE FOREST

wing, there are four species, of which one is Euro-
pean. Some have semi-transparent wings of a lace-
like pattern, with long slender tails to the hind-
wings, and are of a very elegant shape.

A most gorgeously-coloured butterfly is the
Thaumantis diores, black with large spots (which
cover a great part of both fore and hind wings) of a
brilliant metallic, changeable blue. It measures
4f inches across the outspread wings. It avoids the
direct sunlight and dodges about among the scrub
growing under the deep shade of tall trees in the
hottest and moistest valleys.

One of the most lovely butterflies in the world
is the Stichophthalma camadeva, which is one of the
largest of the Sikkim butterflies, being from 5 to 6j
inches in expanse. It is more soberly coloured on
the upper side than the last-named, being chiefly
white and brown, but the underside is more beauti-
ful, having a row of five red ocelli with black irides
on each wing and other pretty markings.

The lycoenides, or " blues," are represented by
no less than 154 species, several of them of sur-
passing beauty. Many are marked with changeable
metallic hues on the upper side of the fore-wing :
some violet, some with green, and some with golden
bronze. The most lovely of all is the Ilerea brahma,
of which the colouring of the upper side of the male
is unique.

Then there is the curious leaf -butterfly, which
has a marvellous resemblance to a dead leaf with its
wings folded over the back and showing the under-
side only, the leaf -stalk veins being excellently
mimicked. But when flying about its upper side,

MOTHS 41

which is a deep violet-blue with a conspicuous yel-
lowish bar across the fore-wing, is exposed, and
the butterfly is then most beautiful. I have seen
many of these lovely butterflies flying about in the
Teesta Valley, glistening in the dappled light of the
forest, and then settle on a branch; and unless I
had actually seen them alight, I should never have
known them from leaves.

The moths, though naturally not as beautiful as
the butterflies, are far more numerous, there being
something like two thousand species. Several of
them are the largest of the insect race. And one
of them, the famous atlas moth, is sometimes nearly
a foot across. Next in size come several species of
the genus Actias, of which selene is the most com-
mon. It is of a pale green colour with a pinkish;
spot, and has long slender tails. It measures about
8 inches across the fore- wings, and nearly as much
from shoulder to the tip of the tail.

Other insects numerously represented in Sikkim
are beetles, bugs, grasshoppers, praying insects,
walking-stick insects, dragon-flies, ants, lantern-
flies, cicadse, etc.

Plant life and insect life are abundant enough,
but of birds there seem to be comparatively few.
As we travel through the forest we do not notice
many of them, and we do not hear many. We do
not everywhere find great flocks of birds as we see
swarms of insects. And we do not find the forest
resounding with the songs of birds as it does with

42 THE DENIZENS OF THE FOREST

the hum and crackle of insects. In this respect we
are disappointed.

But the birds of Sikkim, if few in number, are
great in variety. Birds feed on fruits, berries,
seeds, insects, grubs, caterpillars, small animals, and
even little birds. Some birds like a still, hot, damp
climate. Other birds like a cold, dry climate.
Some birds like the shade and quiet and protection
of the forest. Others like the open and the sun-
shine. Some birds find their food in the water,
others on the land. And the Sikkim Himalaya,
from the plains to the mountains, provides such a
rich variety of plant and insect life, such a variety
of climate and of country, and so plentiful a supply
of water, that birds of the widest difference of
requirements can here be provided with their needs.

Consequently birds of numerous different species
make Sikkim their habitat, either permanently or for
certain seasons of the year. And Gammie, who has
specially studied the natural history of Sikkim, says
in the " Sikkim Gazetteer " that in no part of the
world of an equal area are birds more profusely
represented in species. The birds may not be so
numerous as in other parts, but they are more
varied. Between five and six hundred species are
represented, varying from the great vulture known
as the lammergeyer, which is 9j feet across the out-
stretched wring, down to the tiny flower-pecker,
barely exceeding 3 inches from the end of its beak
to the tip of its tail.

Of the birds found in the forest itself, the honey-
suckers or sun-birds are perhaps the most beautiful.
There are no gorgeous birds of paradise, and even

BIRDS 43

resplendent parrots are not very numerous. But
these little sun-birds glitter like jewels among the
leafy foliage, and the lustrous metallic hues of dif-
ferent shades with which they are richly coloured on
the head and long tail-feathers change and flash in
the sunlight with every slightest movement.

Not all so brilliant in colour but very delightful
to watch are the fly-catchers. Of these there are
no less than twenty-six species, the most remark-
able being the fairy blue-chat, which is brilliantly
marked with different shades of glistening blue, and
another which is strikingly coloured in almost uni-
form verditer blue. In the very lowest valleys is
found the beautiful paradise fly-catcher, with a long-
pointed black crest, the rest of the plumage white
with black shafts and the tail 1 4 inches in length . The
quickness and agility this lovely bird displays as it
darts and twists and turns in the pursuit of butter-
flies in their uneven dodging flight is one of the
marvels of forest life.

Game-birds are not abundant, but four species
of pheasant are found, of which the largest and
handsomest is the moonal, bronze-green glossed
with gold and with a tail of cinnamon red. Sports-
men in the Himalaya are familiar with the sight of
this radiantly-coloured bird swishing down the
mountain-side with apparently the speed and almost
the brilliancy of a flash of lightning. Not so hand-
some as the moonal, being small and greyish in
colour on the back, is the blood-pheasant, remark-
able for its blood-red streaks on the breast and its
blood-red under-tail-coverts.

Bulbuls are largely represented and may be seen

44 THE DENIZENS OF THE FOREST

in large flocks among the scrub — delightful, homely
little birds with bright and cheery ways which
specially attract us. Not very common, but to be
found in the lower part of the valley, is the beauti-
ful fairy bluebird, a large bird 10 inches in length
with a glistening cobalt-blue upper part and velvet
black beneath. The European cuckoo may be
heard all day long in the season from about 3,500
feet upwards. And about a dozen other cuckoos
visit Sikkim, of which by far the prettiest is the
emerald cuckoo, a small bird not much more than
6 inches long, of a brilliant emerald green with
golden sheen, and below white barred with shining
green. Kingfishers are not numerous, as fish are
scarce. But there are four species, of which the
prettiest is a lovely little creature about 5 inches
long, coloured with rufous, white, and different
shades of blue and violet.

These are only a few of the most striking birds ;
but to give an idea of the variety of other birds
which may be found in Sikkim, many of which are
hardly less beautiful than those above described, we
may learn from Gammie that among the birds of
prey there are eleven eagles ; the peregrine falcon, a
little pigmy falcon, and five other falcons ; a big
brown wood-owl, 2 feet in length, a pigmy owlet
measuring only 6 inches, and nine other owls ;
and six kites ; — among the game-birds, besides
pheasants, three quails, two hill-partridges, a
jungle-fowl, woodcock, a snow-cock, and a snow-
partridge ; — among other classes of birds, nine or
ten species of pigeons and doves; the European
raven and a jungle crow ; one jay and several mag-

REPTILES 45

pies ; two hornbills, one of which is 4 feet in length ;
the common and the Nepal swallow ; about thirty
species of finches, among them being three bull-
finches and eight rose-finches ; three or four larks ;
numerous and varied tits ; wagtails ; five species of
parrots ; eight or nine species of wren ; thrushes of
a dozen species ; ten species of robin ; and, lastly,
many species of waders such as florekin, cranes,
plovers, snipe, sandpipers, coots, water-hen, storks,
heron, cormorants, terns, divers, and ducks.

Reptiles are not commonly accounted among the
beauties of Nature ; but they must not be lost sight
of in reviewing the life of the forest. The largest
is the python, whose usual length is 12 feet, though
individuals of 16 to 20 feet are not very rare. A
very beautiful snake found in the cool forests is
green with a broad black band on each side of the
hinder half of the body and tail, the green scales
being margined with black. Another snake of the
same length is a handsome green whip-snake, grace-
ful in its movements, but ferocious and aggressive
in its habits, although quite harmless. The
ordinary cobra is not uncommon. The giant cobra
is also found in the lower valleys, and grows to a
length of 12 or 13 feet. Four species of pit vipers
are found. The krait occurs, but is not common.
Altogether there are nine species of venomous
snakes and thirty species of non-venomous snakes
found in Sikkim.

Of lizards there are ten species. One is popu-
larly known as the chameleon on account of its
rather showy colours, but does not really belong to

46 THE DENIZENS OF THE FOREST

that family. And a beautiful grass-snake, which,
as it is limbless, is often mistaken for a tree-snake,
is also of the lizard genus.

Of frogs and toads there are about sixteen
species. Among them are several prettily-coloured
tree-frogs. Several of the species are recognised by
their call.

Of mammals about eighty-one species are found.
They include three monkeys, eight of the cat tribe,
two civet cats, one tree cat, two mongooses, two of
the dog tribe, five pole-cats and weasels, one ferret-
badger, three otters, one cat-bear, two bears, one
tree-shrew, one mole, six shrews, two water-shrews,
twelve bats, four squirrels, two marmots, eight rats
and mice, one vole, one porcupine, four deer, two
forest-goats, one goat, one sheep, and one ant-eater.

The common monkey of India, the Bengal mon-
key, is found in large companies at low elevations.
The Himalayan monkey is abundant from 3,000 to
6,000 feet ; and the Himalayan langur frequents the
zone from 7,000 to 12,000 feet.

The tiger inhabits the Terai at the foot of the
mountains, but is only an occasional visitor to
Sikkim proper. But the leopard and the clouded
leopard are permanent residents and fairly common.
This last is of a most beautiful mottled colouring.
Another leopard is the snow-leopard, which in-
habits high altitudes only. The marbled-cat is a
miniature edition of the clouded leopard, and the
leopard-cat of the common leopard. The large
Indian civet-cat is not uncommon, but the spotted
tiger-civet, a very beautiful and active creature, is

MAMMALS 47

rare. The jackal is not uncommon, and there is at
least one species of wild-dog. These dogs hunt in
packs and kill wild-pig, deer, goats, etc. A very
peculiar and interesting animal is the cat-bear,
which has the head and arms of a minute bear and
the tail of a cat. The brown bear occurs at high
altitudes, and the Himalayan black bear is common
lower down. The black hill squirrel is a large hand-
some animal of the lower forests, and a very hand-
some flying squirrel inhabits the forests between
5,000 and 10,000 feet.

The great Sikkim stag is not found in Sikkim
proper, but inhabits the Chumbi Valley. The
sambhar stag is abundant. The commonest of the
deer tribe is the khakar, or barking deer. It is,
says Hodgson, unmatched for flexibility and power
of creeping through tangled underwood. The musk
deer remains at high elevations.

In addition to the above, elephants come up
from the forests in the plains, and in these plain
forests are found (besides tigers and boars) rhino-
ceros, bison, and buffalo.

This has been a long enumeration of the animal
life, in its many branches, which is found in the forest.
The mere cataloguing of it is sufficient to show the
extent and variety of insect, bird, reptile, and
mammal life which the forest contains. But it is
with the beauty of this animal life, rather than with
its extent and variety, that we are concerned. And
if the Artist is to see its full beauty, he must see it
with the eyes of the naturalist and sportsman — men
whose eyes are trained to observe in minutest detail

48 THE DENIZENS OF THE FOREST

the form and colour and character of each animal,
bird, or insect, and who know something of the
life each has to lead, and the conditions in which it
is placed. More sportsmen than naturalists, and
more naturalists than artists, observe these and other
animals in their natural surroundings. But, nowa-
days, at least photographers and cinematographers
are going into the wilds to portray them. And
perhaps naturalist-artists will arise who, every bit as
keen as sportsmen now are to get to close quarters
with game animals, will want to get into positions
from which they will be able carefully to observe
animals of all kinds and take note of every character-
istic. These artists will have to be fully as alert as
the sportsmen, and be able on the instant, and from
a fleeting glimpse, to note the lines and shades and
character of the animal. But, if they do this, they
will, in all probability, bring back more lasting and
deeper impressions of the animals than the sports-
man with all his keen observation ever receives —
and they will enjoy a greater pleasure. An artist,
who from observing an animal in its own haunts,
and from the sketches and notes he made there,
could paint a picture of it in its own surroundings,
would assuredly derive more pleasure from his enter-
prise than the sportsman who simply brought back
the animal's head. In addition he wrould have
enabled others to share his enjoyment with him.
There is a great field here for the painter ; and many
would welcome a change from the same old cows
and sheep tamely grazing in a meadow, which is all
that artists usually present to us of animal life.

Among the most conspicuous animals met with

ANIMAL BEAUTY 49

are the elephant, the bison, the buffalo, and the
rhinoceros. And it would be hard to discover
beauty in any of these. As we see the rhinoceros,
for example, in the Zoological Gardens nothing
could be more ugly. Yet we should not despair of
finding beauty even in a rhinoceros if we could study
him in his natural surroundings and understand all
the circumstances of his life. If we observed him
and his habits and habitat with the knowledge of the
naturalist and the keenness of the sportsman, we
might find that in his form and colour he does in his
own peculiar fashion fitly express the purpose of his
being. And whatever adequately expresses a
definite purpose is beautiful. Where a dainty ante-
lope would be altogether out of place, the ponderous
rhinoceros may be completely in his element.
Where a tender-skinned horse would be driven mad
by insects, the thick-skinned beast passes the time
untroubled. In a drawing-room a daintily-dressed
lady is a vision of loveliness. In a ploughed field she
would look ridiculous. In a drawing-room a peasant
would look uncouth. In a field, as Millet has shown
us, he possesses a beauty, dignified and touching.
It is not impossible, therefore, that an artist who
had the opportunity of entering into the life of a
rhinoceros, as Millet had of entering into the life of
a peasant, might discover beauty even in that
monstrosity. This, however, I allow is an extreme
case.

In a less extreme case beauty has already been dis-
covered . The bison does not at first sight strike us as
a beautiful animal. Yet Mr. Stebbing, the naturalist-
sportsman, says that, as he caught sight of one after

50 THE DENIZENS OF THE FOREST

a long stalk, and watched it with palpitating heart,
he was fascinated by the grand sight — 18 hands of
coal-black beauty shining like satin in the light
filtering through the branches of the trees.

When we move on from the bison to the stag
the beauty is evident enough. A stag carries him-
self right royally, and has a rugged, majestic beauty
all his own. There are few more beautiful sights in
the animal world than that of a lordly stag standing
tense with preparedness to turn swiftly, and, on the
instant, bound away in any direction.

Not majestic like the great deer, but of a more
airy grace and daintiness, are the smaller deer and
antelope. The lightness of their tread, their supple-
ness of movement, and their spring and litheness,
fill us with delight.

We now come to the crown of the animal king-
dom— man. And in the Sikkim Himalaya are to
be found men of all the stages of civilisation from
the most primitive to the most advanced. Inhabit-
ing the forests at the foot of the mountains are cer-
tain jungle peoples of extreme interest simply by
reason of their primitiveness. They represent the
very early stages of man, and in observing them in
their own haunts, we shall understand something of
the immensity and the delicacy of man's task in
gaining his ascendancy in the animal world and
acquiring a greater mastery over his surroundings.

In these forests teeming with animal life of all
kinds man had to hold his own against dangerous
and stronger animals, and to supply himself with
food in the face of many rivals. He had to be as

PRIMITIVE MAN 51

alert as the sharpest-witted and as cunning as the
most crafty, and to have physical fitness and endur-
ance to stand the strain of incessant rivalry. This
is what these jungle people have. Their alertness,
their capacity to glide through the forest almost as
stealthily as an animal, their keenness of sight, their
acute sense of hearing, their knowledge of jungle
lore and of the habits of animals, and their ability to
stand long and hard physical strain, are the envy of
us civilised men when we find ourselves among
them. Particularly is this shown when tracking.
They will note the slightest indication of the pas-
sage of the animal they are after — the faintest foot-
print, a stone overturned and showing the moisture
on its under surface, a broken twig, a bitten leaf,
the bark rubbed — and they will be able to judge
from the exact appearance of these signs how long
it is since the animal made them. They will, too,
detect sounds which we civilised men would cer-
tainly never hear, and from a note of alarm in these
sounds, or from excitement among birds, infer the
presence of a dangerous animal.

When seen outside the forests these jungle men
look wild and unkempt, but seen in their natural
surroundings and compared there with the white
man, they have a Beauty which is wanting in the
white man. In these surroundings they have a
dignity and composure and assurance which the
European lacks. They are on their own ground,
and there they are beautiful.

And these primitive men are worthy of being
painted by the very greatest of painters, and of
having their praises sung by the very first of poets.

52 THE DENIZENS OF THE FOREST

For it is they and their like who, with only such
weapons as the forest affords and their own in-
genuity devised, won the way through for us civilised
men, won the battle against the fierce and much
more powerful beasts around them, and by great
daring and through sheer skill, courage, and endur-
ance led the way to the light. It was a marvellous
feat. For all the privileges and immunities which
we men of to-day enjoy we have to thank these
primitive forest men, and our gratitude could never
be too great. They are deserving of the closest
attention and the warmest appreciation.

Not many of these really primitive peoples are
nowadays left in the jungles. But the tea-gardens
have attracted a primitive people, the Santals, who
are typical of the true Dravidian stock of India — a
jolly, cheerful, easy-going, and, on the whole,
law-abiding, truthful, and honest people who
love a roaming life, with plenty of hunting and
fishing.

The Lepchas of Sikkim have risen above the
first primitive stage. They clothe themselves well
and dwell in well-built houses. They do not possess
for us the same essential interest as belongs to truly
primitive people. But on account of their intimate
knowledge of the forest and its denizens, and by
reason also of their being a remarkably simple,
gentle, and likeable people, they have an unusual
attraction for travellers. Hooker, who was one of
the first to live among them, and Claude White,
who lived among them for many years, both write
of them in affectionate terms. They are child-like
and engaging, good-humoured, cheery and amiable,

HIGHER RACES 53

free and unrestrained. They have, too, a reputa-
tion for honesty and truthfulness.

More vigorous, capable, and virile than the
Lepchas are the Nepalese, who, migrating from
Nepal, are found in great numbers in this region.
They are more given to agriculture than the
Lepchas, and are thrifty, industrious, and resource-
ful. Though excitable and aggressive, they are also
law-abiding.

Less numerous but prominent inhabitants of this
region are the Bhutias, who consist of four classes ;
Bhutias, who are a mixed race of Tibetans and
Lepchas ; Sherpa Bhutias, who come from the east
of Nepal, the word sher merely meaning "east";
the Drukpa or Dharma Bhutias, whose home is
Bhutan ; and the Tibetan Bhutias from Tibet.
They are strong, sturdy men, merry and cheerful.

These Lepchas, Nepalese, and Bhutias are all
of Mongolian origin, and therefore have the dis-
tinctively Mongolian appearance. But besides
these, in Darjiling and on the tea-gardens are to be
found Bengali clerks, Marwari merchants from
Rajputana, Punjabi traders, Hindustani mechanics,
and Chinese carpenters. And in addition to all
these are British Government officials, tea-planters,
and a continual stream of visitors from all parts of
Europe and America, who come to Darjiling to
view the snowy range.

So that in this small region may be found repre-
sentatives of every grade of civilisation and a great
variety of types. And what an amount of Beauty
— as distinct from mere prettiness — there is to dis-
cover in even the rough local people may be seen

6

54 THE DENIZENS OF THE FOREST

from the pictures of the Russian painter Verest-
chagin, engravings from which are given in his
autobiographical sketches entitled " Vassili Verest-
chagin." This great painter evidently succeeded
in getting inside the wild peoples he loved ; and his
pictures reveal to us beauties we might without them
never have known. In these people's gait, their
attitudes, their grouping, as well as in their features,
he was able to discern the hardihood, the patience,
the impetuosity, the gentleness of their character,
and portray it for us.

Putting aside the obvious differences between us
and them, we are able to detect our fundamental
identity of nature, have a fellow-feeling with them,
recognise sameness between us and so see their
beauty.

CHAPTER V

THE SUM IMPRESSION

THE Artist has now to stand back and view the forest
as a whole. And he must test his view in the light
of reason — bring Truth to bear upon Beauty. The
forest with its multitudinous and varied life, ranging
from simplest to most cultured man, is an epitome
of Nature so far as she is manifested on this planet.
And he will from this epitome try to get a view of
the real character of Nature. As he takes stock of
the impressions which have been made upon him, he
will have to form a conclusion of absolutely funda-
mental importance for the enjoyment of Natural
Beauty.

Men's hearts instinctively go out to Nature, and
in consequence they see Beauty in her. As children
they love flowers and love animals. And the most
primitive races have the same feeling though they
are just as callous in their treatment of animals as
children are in their treatment of one another. In
the more cultured races this instinctive love of
Nature and appreciation of Natural Beauty has
enormously developed. But if men ever came to
hold the idea — as so many since the doctrine of the
survival of the fittest has come into prominence are
inclined to do — that Nature is at heart cold and
hard, and recks nothing of human joys and sorrows,

55

56 THE SUM IMPRESSION

then love of Nature would fade away from men's
hearts. Being out of sympathy and repelled from
entering into deep communion with her, men
would never again see Beauty in her. The enjoy-
ment of Natural Beauty would pass from them
for ever.

So the Artist will try to get at the true Heart of
Nature. If the Naturalist part of him tells him that
at bottom Nature is merciless and unrelenting,
utterly regardless of the things of most worth in
life ; that Nature is indeed * ' red in tooth and
claw ' ' ; that all she cares for — all she selects as the
fittest to survive — are the merely strongest, the
most pushing and aggressive, the individuals who
will simply trample down their neighbours in order
that they themselves may " survive " ; or if, again,
the Naturalist convinces him that all he has seen in
the forest has come about by pure chance ; that it is
by a mere fluke that we find orchids and not mush-
rooms, men and not monkeys, at the head of plant
and animal life ; and that Nature herself is wholly
indifferent as to which of the two establishes its pre-
eminence— then he will feel the chill upon his soul,
he will shrivel up within himself, the very fountain-
spring of Beauty will be frozen up, and never again
will he see Beauty in any single one of Nature's
manifestations.

But if, on the other hand, the Naturalist is able
to convince the Artist that in spite of the very
evident struggle for existence Nature does not care
twopence whether the " fittest " survive or not so
long as what is best in the end prevails ; that far from
things coming about by mere chance Nature has a

TWO VIEWS OF NATURE 57

distinct end in view, and that end the accomplish-
ment of what he himself most prizes, then the
heart of the Artist will warm to the heart of Nature
with a fervour it had never known before ; his heart
will throb with her heart, and every beauty he has
seen in plain or mountain, in flower, bird, or man,
will be a hundredfold increased.

Which of these two views of Nature, so far as
Nature can be judged from what we see of her on
this planet, is correct, he has now to determine.
The profound mystery which everywhere prevails in
the forest and which exerts such a compelling spell
upon us he will want to probe to the bottom. He
will not be content with the outward prettiness of
butterfly and orchid, or with the mere profusion and
variety of life, or with the colossal size of animals
and trees. He will want to burrow down and get at
the very root and mainspring of this forest life. He
will want to reach the very Heart of Nature here
manifested in such manifold variety. He will want
to arrive at the inner significance of all this variety of
life. Then only will he understand Nature and be
able to decide whether Nature is cruel and therefore
to be feared, or kind and gracious and therefore to
beloved.

Now, when we go into the forest and look into it
in detail, the profusion is even greater than we ex-
pected. In this damp tropical region where there is
ample heat and moisture, plant life comes springing
out of the earth with a prolificness which seems inex-
haustible. And when plant life is abundant, animal
and insect life is abundant also. So profuse, indeed,

58 THE SUM IMPRESSION

is the output of living things that it seems simply
wasteful. A single tree may produce thousands of
flowers. Each flower may have dozens of seeds.
The tree may go on flowering for a hundred or two
hundred years. So a single tree may produce mil-
lions of seeds, each capable of growing into a forest
giant like its parent.

With insect life the same profusion of life is evi-
dent. A single moth or butterfly lays thousands of
eggs. Mosquitoes, flies, gnats, midges, leeches
swarm in myriads upon myriads.

The abundance and superabundance of life is the
first outstanding — though it will prove not the most
important — impression made upon us by a contem-
plation of the forest as a whole.

Scarcely less striking than the abundance is the
variety. Life does not spring up from the earth in
forms as alike one another as two peas. Each indi-
vidual plant or animal, however small, however
simple, has its own distinctive characteristics. There
is variety and variation everywhere. Variety in
form, variety in colour, variety in size, variety in
character and habit. In size there is the difference
between the huge terminalia towering up 200 feet
high and the tiny little potentilla ; between the atlas
moth 12 inches in spread and the hardly discernible
midges ; between the elephant, massive enough to
trample its way through the densest forest, and the
humble little mouse peeping out of its hole in the
ground. In colour the difference ranges from the
light blue of the forget-me-not to the deep blue of
the gentian ; from the delicate pink of the dianthus

VARIETY OF LIFE 59

to the deep crimson of the rhododendron ; from the
brilliant hues of the orchids to the dull browns and
greens of inconspicuous tree flowers ; from the vivid
light greens, yellows, and reds of the young leaves
of these tropical forests to the greyer green of their
maturity ; from the smiting reds and blues of the
most gaudy butterflies, beetles, and dragon-flies to
the modest browns of night-flying moths ; from the
gorgeous colours of the parrots to the familiar black
of crows ; from the yellow-striped tiger to the earth-
coloured hare ; from the dark-skinned aborigine to
the yellow-skinned Mongolian and the fair Euro-
pean. Similarly do plants and animals vary in
form : from the straight pines and palms to the
spreading, umbrageous oaks and laurels ; from up-
standing lilies to parasitical orchids ; from monstrous
spiky beetles to symmetrical dragon-flies ; from un-
gainly rhinoceros to graceful antelope ; from short,
sturdy Bhutias to tall, slim Hindustanis. Likewise
in character individuals are as different as the
strong, firm tree standing open-faced, four-square
to all the world and the creeping, insinuating para-
site ; as the intelligent, industrious ant and the
clumsy, plodding beetle ; as the plucky boar and the
timid hare ; as the rough forest tribesman and the
cultured Bengali.

Lastly, there is variety among not only the dif-
ferent species of plants, animals, insects, etc., but
also the individuals of the same species. We our-
selves know the differences there are between one
man and another, and as far as that goes between
ourselves on one day and ourselves on the next.
Each plant — and still more each animal — has its

60 THE SUM IMPRESSION

own unique individuality. Every cavalry officer,
every shepherd, every dog-owner, every pigeon-
fancier knows that each horse, sheep, dog, pigeon
has its own individuality and is distinctly different
from all others of its kind. And so does every
gardener know that each rose, each tulip, each
pansy is different from all other roses, tulips, and
pansies. It is the same in the forest. Hardly two
trees or plants of the same species develop their
young leaves, open their flowers, ripen their seeds,
and drop their leaves at the same tune. Apart
from the size of the flower and leaf there are differ-
ences in colour, shape, and marking. Each in
appearance and in habit has an individuality of its
own.

Such is the variety in the abundant life of the
forest that no two individuals, no two blades of
grass, or no two leaves are in every detail precisely
alike. And this is the second outstanding impres-
sion we receive.

The abundance and variety of life are evident
enough. Not so evident but equally noteworthy is
the intensity. In the still forest one of the giant
trees looks utterly impassive and immobile. It
stands there calm and unmoved. Not a leaf stirs.
Yet the whole and every minutest part of it is in-
stinct with intensest life. It is made up of count-
less microscopic cells in unceasing activity. Highly
sensitive and mobile cells form the root-tips and
insinuate their way into every crevice in search of
food for the tree, rejecting what is unpalatable and
forwarding what is useful for building up and sus-

INTENSITY OF LIFE 61

taining the monarch. Other cells take in necessary
food from the air. Others build up the trunk and
its protective bark. Others, and most important
of all, go to make up the flowers of the tree and the
organs of reproduction which enable the tree to
propagate its kind.

All this activity of the separate cells and com-
binations of cells is taking place. And in addition
there is that activity of them all in their together-
ness, that activity which keeps the cells together,
and which if relaxed for a moment would mean that
the cells would all collapse as the grains of dust in
an eddying dust-devil at a street corner collapse
once the gust of wind which stirred them and keeps
them together drops away. What must be the
intensity of life required to develop the tree from
the seed and to rear that giant straight up from the
level soil 200 feet into the air and maintain it there
two hundred years, we can only imagine ; for to
outward appearance the tree is quite impassive. It
does not move a muscle of its face to reveal the
intensity of life within.

The tree is characteristic of every living thing.
Every plant and every animal, however seemingly
sluggish, is working to fulfil its life, to nourish itself,
to reproduce its kind.

Now, the amount of air and sunshine for plants
may be practically unlimited, but air and sunshine
are not all that plants require. They want soil and
moisture as well. And the standing-room for
plants is strictly limited. The forest stretches away
up to the snows ; but there it stops. Necessarily,

62 THE SUM IMPRESSION

therefore, there must be the keenest and most
incessant struggle among the plants for standing-
room. Only a comparatively few can be accom-
modated. The rest cannot survive. And as the
number of plants which can survive is thus limited,
the number of animals is limited also, for animals
are dependent on plants. Plants, therefore, in
spite of their eminently pacific appearance are
engaged in a fierce struggle with one another for
standing-room. And animals are likewise engaged
in a struggle among themselves for the plants.

There is competition among the roots of the
different individual plants for the food and water
of the soil. And there is competition among the
leaves for the sunlight. Each plant is pushing its
roots downwards and spreading outward for more
food and to root itself more firmly. Each is strain-
ing upward to receive more sunlight. Each is
struggling with its fellows for room and means to
develop its life. Competitors in hundreds and
thousands are forced to withdraw and succumb.
And even when a forest giant has defeated all com-
petitors and reached its full maturity it has still to
maintain the struggle and hold its own continually
against other individuals whose roots are reaching
out below and whose branches are spreading out
above ; against climbers who would smother it ; and
against parasites who would suck its very life-blood.
The battle, moreover, is often not so much between
one species and another species as between indi-
viduals of the same species. And it is a war which
continues through life.

THE BATTLE OF LIFE 63

The struggle for existence among the plants and
trees is keen beyond imagination. And the struggle
among the insects, birds and beasts, and man for
the plants and products of the trees is no less severe.
So now our impression is that of an abundant,
varied and intense life in which the individuals are
perpetually struggling with one another for bare
existence.

Under these stringent and stressful conditions
does each living being come into the world. He
has to battle his way through — or succumb. Plants
as well as men, and men as well as plants. So, as
we look into the structure of animals and plants,
we are not surprised to find that in order to cope
with their surroundings they have developed organs
which are specially adapted to enable them to secure
the needful food, to hold their own against the com-
petition of their neighbours, to meet the exigencies
of their surroundings, and to pursue their own life
to the full extent of its possibilities. Even plants
are like sentient beings in this respect. The
sensitive tips of their roots are organs admirably
adapted for feeling their way through the soil and
selecting from its constituents wrhat will best
nourish the plant. The leaves opening out to
the air and sunshine are other organs adapted
for gathering in nourishment. And thorns and
poisonous juices are means adapted to fend off
destructive neighbours. The eyes and ears in
animals are other instances of organs which
enable them to see what will serve them as food,
or to hear what may be possible enemies, and to

64 THE SUM IMPRESSION

make use of what will help them to the proper
fulfilment of their life.

We see each individual plant and animal striving
to the best of his ability to adjust himself to the con-
ditions in which he finds himself, trying to adapt
himself to his surroundings — to his physical sur-
roundings, such as the climate and soil, and to his
social surroundings, consisting of his plant and
animal neighbours and rivals. We shall probably
notice, too, that he seems to be driven by some
inner impulse (which in its turn is a responding to
the impress of the totality of the individual's sur-
roundings) to strive to do something more than
merely adapt himself to his surroundings. He is
urged on to rise superior to them.

So the course of the individual's life is con-
tinually being affected by surroundings which com-
pel him to adapt himself to them on pain of
extinction if he fails. On the other hand, he is
himself, in his own small way, affecting his sur-
roundings and causing them to adapt themselves to
him. Even the humblest plant takes from the sur-
rounding soil and air what it needs as food and
changes it in the process of assimilation, so that the
surroundings are, to a slight extent at least, changed
by the activity of the plant. And we already have
noticed how a plant's insect surroundings have to
adapt themselves to the plant. There is reciprocal
action, therefore — the surroundings forcing the
individual to adapt himself to them, and the indi-
vidual causing the surroundings to adapt themselves
to him.

Here we have reached the point where, besides

ADAPTATION AND SELECTION 65

the struggle for existence among the individuals of
an abundant, varied, and intense life, there is
adaptation among the individuals to their surround-
ings and of their surroundings to the individuals.

We have now to note how with the adaptation
goes selection. Set amid these physical and organic
surroundings, some helpful, some harmful, the
individual has to spend his life in selecting and
rejecting what will further or hinder his natural
development. He has to reject much, for there is
much that will harm him. He has to select a little
— for that little is vitally necessary for his upbuild-
ing and maintenance. From among the elements
of the soil he has to choose those particular elements
that he needs. Thus a plant selects through its
roots from the elements of the soil, and through its
leaves from the elements of the air, those elements
and in those quantities that it needs for nourishment
and growth. But it has also, by means of thorns
or poison juices or other device, to protect itself
from being itself selected by some animal for that
animal's own nourishment and growth.

So the individual is constantly selecting, and is
as constantly on the guard against being selected.
The principle of selection among the abundant and
varied life is in continual operation. And unless
he selects wisely he will not survive; for he will
either have insufficient to live on or else have what
is harmful to his life. Nor will he survive unless he
is able to fend off those who would select him for
their own maintenance. There is selection every-
where— selection by the individual and selection of

66 THE SUM IMPRESSION

the individual by surrounding neighbours and
circumstances.

Thus far we have only recapitulated what most
men are familiar with since Darwin commenced
preaching the doctrine of Evolution by Natural
Selection sixty years ago. But the Naturalist-
Artist of the future .will probably not be content
with the conclusion to which so many jump that all
that Nature teaches or expects of individuals —
plants, beasts, or men — is that they should adapt
themselves to their surroundings and fit themselves
to survive; that all Nature has at heart is adapt-
ability of individuals to their surroundings and their
fitness to survive. The lowly amoeba can perform
these unenterprising functions more fitly than him-
self. And the Artist would never be satisfied with
so mean and meagre an ambition as merely to adapt
himself to his surroundings and fit himself to survive.
If he saw evidence of no higher expectation than
that in the workings of Nature, his heart would cer-
tainly not cleave to her heart. And there being
estrangement and coolness between his heart and
hers, he would see no Beauty in Nature and his
pursuit of Natural Beauty might here end.

But an instinct within him tells him that this
cannot be the last word as to Nature's character
and methods. He himself is constantly risking his
life with no thought of trying to survive, and he
sees his neighbours doing the same. And his
inclination is to go a good deal farther than tamely
adapting himself to his surroundings. He wants
and strives to rise superior to them — and he finds

PURPOSIVENESS 67

his neighbours likewise striving. So with this
instinct goading him on he is driven to probe deeper
still into the mystery of the forest life.

Of selection and adaptation we have seen evi-
dence throughout the whole forest life. Now,
where there is selection and where there is adaptation
there must be purposiveness. Selection implies the
power of choice, and we have seen how plants as
well as animals deliberately and effectively exercise
this power of choice. And adaptation implies
adjustment to an end, and we have seen how won-
derfully plants no less than animals adapt them-
selves to certain ends. And where individuals have
the power of choice and exercise that power; and
where they have the power of adapting themselves
to certain ends and exercise that power, there
obviously is purposiveness.

Purposiveness runs like a streak through every
activity. It permeates the whole forest life. It is
observable in plants no less than in animals.
Naturalists, indeed, regard trees and plants as truly
sentient beings. And the means plants employ to
compass the end they have in view are truly won-
derful. Still more remarkable is the fact that
hardly two attain their object by exactly the same
means. The tropical forest is full of climbing
plants bent upon reaching the sunlight. But some
climb by coiling round the trunk of a tree like a
snake, some swarm up it by holding on with claws,
some ascend by means of adhering aerial roots, and
some reach what they want by pushing through a
tangle of branches spreading out arms and hauling

68 THE SUM IMPRESSION

themselves up. And when plants have attained
maturity and flowered, the flowers employ number-
less ways of attracting insects for the purpose of
fertilisation. In a still, tropical forest, such as that
of Lower Sikkim, there is no hope of the pollen
being carried from one flower to another by air-
currents. The flowers have therefore to devise a
means for the transport of the pollen. Efforts are
made to induce winged creatures — insects in most
cases, but sometimes birds — to render assistance.
Colours for day-flying insects and scent for night-
flying insects are accordingly employed as means to
this end. Brilliant colours attract butterflies and
bees by day. Strong scent — sometimes pleasant to
our taste, sometimes the reverse — attracts moths
and other insects by night. And the flowers which
depend on their scents and not on colour are usually
white or dull brown or green. And this scent is
not exhaled when it is not needed, but only when
the insects which the flowers wish to attract are
about.

Orchids especially seem to know what they
want. Their aerial roots wander about in search
of what they want and seem to smell their way.
They use discrimination in utilising their know-
ledge. They choose. And each individual seems
to choose in its own way. From among many
means of achieving the same end they make a
definite choice, and different plants make different
choices — they use different means.

Plants, therefore, quite evidently employ means
to an end. They have an end in view — sometimes
their own maintenance, sometimes the perpetua-

PURPOSEFUL STRUCTURES 69

tion of their kind, sometimes something else — and
they employ means to achieve that end. They are,
that is to say, purposive in their nature.

Evidence of purposiveness is also furnished by
the wonderful organs of adaptation, root-tips,
leaves, eyes, lungs, etc. It is extremely improb-
able that they came into being — or even started to
come into being — by mere chance alone. The
odds are countless millions to one against the atoms,
molecules, and cells — myriads in number — of any
one of these organs of adaptation having by mere
chance grouped themselves in such a way as to form
an effective eye, or lung, or leaf. It is, literally
speaking, infinitely improbable that the organs of
adaptation we see in a forest, in plant and animal,
should have come into existence through chance
alone.

The organs of adaptation are distinctly and defi-
nitely purposive structures — not purposed, perhaps,
but certainly purposeful. In its struggle with its
surroundings and with competitors the individual
has been compelled to bring into being organs to
fulfil a purpose. It is not the case that the organ
was first created and then a use found for it, or
use made of it. What actually happens is that first
there is a vague but insistent reaching out towards
an end, towards the fulfilment of some inner want
or need — the need for food or to propagate, or
whatever it may be — and that to achieve that end,
or fulfil that need, the individual is driven to create
a special organisation — as an Air Ministry was
created during the War to fulfil the new need for

7

70 THE SUM IMPRESSION

fighting in the air — and so a new organ is pro-
duced : an essentially purposive structure such as the
eye or the lung, though unpurposed before the need
arose. The organs we see, therefore, are outward
and visible signs of the existence within of a definite
striving towards an end — that is, of a purpose.

The forest shows an abundant, varied, and
intense life in which individuals are for ever battling
with one another. But all is not happening by
chance. Everywhere we see signs of purposive-
ness. Purposiveness — the striving towards an end —
stands out as a dominating feature in forest life.
Selections and adaptations are made, but they are
made with some purpose in view. Purpose governs
the adaptations and selections. What that purpose
is we shall try and discover as we get to know still
more of Nature.

So far we have been observing individuals as
separate individuals. Now we must look at them
gathered together as a whole. And the first point
we note is that though each individual has his own
unique individuality, whether he be plant or man,
all are kept together as a single whole. We have
seen the individuals battling with one another, com-
peting with one another, struggling against one
another. But that is only one side of the picture.
Just as remarkable as the way in which they have
to resist one another is the way in which they
depend on one another. Their interdependence is,
therefore, the point we have now to note.

Since Darwin drew our attention to the struggle
for existence and survival of the fittest, the per-

INTERDEPENDENCE 71

petual strife in Nature has been clear enough. But
hard, selfish, cruel, brutal though the struggle
frequently is, though the strong will often trample
mercilessly on the weak and let the unfit go to the
wall without any consideration whatever; yet the
very strongest and fittest individual could not sur-
vive for a moment by itself alone. And what is
just as remarkable as the struggle between indi-
viduals is their dependence upon one another.

All plants depend upon the natural elements —
the soil, water, air, and light. Animals depend on
plants. And many animals depend upon other
animals. A forest tree in its maturity is covered
with blossoms, some conspicuous, others incon-
spicuous to sight, but very conspicuous to smell.
These blossoms, either by sight or scent, attract
butterflies, bees, moths, and other insects to sip
their nectar, and in so doing carry away the pollen
of the flowers, and unwittingly pass it on to another
flower and fertilise it. The insect thus enables the
tree to procreate its species. But the butterfly,
after sipping the nectar of the flower of the tree,
deposits its eggs on the under surface of the leaves,
and the leaves give nourishment to the caterpillars
into which these eggs develop. Besides this, the
flowers, having been fertilised by the insects,
develop into fruits or berries containing seeds ; and
these fruits, berries, and seeds form food for
monkeys, birds, bats, and rodents. In quarrelling
for these many are dropped and form food for mice
and others below. Birds, finding food so near,
pair, build their nests, and bring up their young in
its branches. And in addition to the birds which

72 THE SUM IMPRESSION

are attracted by the berries, fruits, and seeds, other
birds which are attracted by the caterpillars come
there and build their nests. Without the flowers
the bees would be starved ; without the bees or
other insects the flowers would not be fertilised and
the tree would not perpetuate itself.*

The lives of all individuals, whether plants,
beasts, or men, are thus curiously interwoven with
and interdependent on one another. They are also
dependent upon the chemical elements in the soil
and air. And even then the dependence does not
cease, for they depend, too, upon the light and
heat from the Sun. And the Sun itself, and this
Earth as well, are subtly connected with the whole
Stellar Universe.

It is only within limits that any individual can
be regarded as a distinct and separate entity. It
has its own unique individuality, it is true. But it
is also connected with all the rest of the forest and
with all the rest of the Earth, of the Solar System,
and of the Universe. Each individual is to some
extent dependent upon all other individuals. All
influence and are influenced by all the rest. There
is mutual influence everywhere. And all are con-
nected in a whole — the whole influencing each
individual and each individual influencing the
whole.

So besides the resistance of individuals to one
another, there is attraction. Besides conflict there
is co-operation. Besides independence there is
interdependence.

* I take this illustration from Rodway's "In the Guiana
Forest." It applies equally to any tropical forest.

ORGANISING ACTIVITY 73

The life of the forest thus forms a whole. Indi-
viduals have their due allowance of freedom. But
they are kept together in a whole. Running
through the individuals in their ensemble, binding
them together, in spite of the tether they are
allowed, must therefore be some kind of Organising
Activity. We cannot look into that marvellous
forest life without seeing that at the back of it,
working all the way through it, controlling,
guiding, inspiring every movement, is some
dominating Activity, which, while allowing indi-
viduals freedom for experimenting by the process
of trial and error, yet keeps them all bound together
as a whole. And when we note the evidence of
purposiveness everywhere so abundant, we cannot
resist the conclusion that this Activity also gives
direction.

It is not necessary to suppose that this Activity
emanates from any thing or person outside Nature.
It may perfectly well exercise its control and
guidance from within — just as the activity which is
" I " controls, consciously or unconsciously, directly
or indirectly, the movements and actions of every
particle of which "my" body is made up. But
what we cannot but assume is that throughout this
prolific and marvellously varied forest life, through
every tiny plant and every forest giant, through
every leaf and petal, through each little insect and
every bird and butterfly, through the wild beasts of
the jungle, the wary forest folk, and the most cul-
tured men — through each and all and the whole in
its collectedness there runs some kind of unifying
Activity, holding the whole together, ordering all,

74 THE SUM IMPRESSION

dominating all, directing all — just as the orchid-
spirit holds together and directs the activities of
each particle which goes to make up the orchid ; or
the eagle-spirit directs the activities of each particle
which goes to make up the eagle.

Suffusing the whole, embracing the whole,
permeating each single member of the whole, there
must be an organising and directing Activity, or we
should not see the order and purposiveness we do.

We shall now see that this Organising Activity
gives not only direction, but an upward direction
to the whole which it controls.

We have already noted that among individuals
the variety is such that no two are exactly alike.
Each individual, however nearly alike, varies in
some slight degree from every other. And new
variations are constantly being created. Now we
have to note that besides variation there is gradation.
There is a scale of being. And individuals are
graded on that scale. One is higher than another.

As there are gradations in height from the plains
to the outlying spurs of the Himalaya, and from
these again to the higher ridges, and from these on
to the great mountains, and finally to Kinchin junga
and Mount Everest ; and as there are gradations in
size from tiny plants to the giant trees ; so there are
gradations in worth and value from the simple
lichen or moss to the highly complex orchid ; from
the microscopic animalculae of a stagnant pond to
monkeys and men ; from simple primitive men to
the highly cultured Bengali; and from the simple
Bengali villager to the poet Rabindranath Tagore.

GRADATION 75

Everywhere there is scale, gradation, grade. The
differences between individuals is not on the level
but on ascending stages. Even in very primitive
communities, where all men are equal to the extent
that there are no formal chiefs, one or two men
always stand out pre-eminently above the rest,
above the younger, the less skilful, the less
experienced.

There is variation everywhere, and wherever
there is variation there is gradation. Living beings
are no more exactly equal than they are exactly
alike. Either in proficiency, or in speed, or in
strength, or in cunning, or in alertness, or in
general worth, one is superior to the other. We
determine which is the faster horse by pitting one
against the other in a race. We find out which is
the superior boxer by making the two men fight
each other. We find out which is the cleverest
boy by testing him at an examination. We expect
to determine which is the ablest political leader by
making him submit himself to a General Election.
We decide which is the most beautiful rose or orchid
by putting the various flowers before a committee
of judges. It is seldom possible to say with strict
accuracy which one individual is superior to the
other, and to arrange the various individuals in their
truly right place in the scale. But quite evidently
we do recognise the scale and recognise that
theoretically it is possible to grade each individual
on it, even though our practical methods may be
somewhat rough-and-ready.

This fact that gradation, as well as variation,
exists is one of the great facts we have to note.

76 THE SUM IMPRESSION

For it indicates that the Organising Activity which
keeps the individuals together is not keeping them
together on a uniform dead level like the ocean, but
is propelling them upward like the mountain. The
significance of this fact has not hitherto been
adequately noted. We are for ever speaking of
equality when there is no equality. We have never
noted with sufficient attention that everywhere
there are grades and degrees. But it is a fact which
a contemplation of the forest indelibly impresses on
us. And it is a most welcome and inspiring fact,
for it gives us a vision of higher things and promotes
a zealous emulation among us.

And the Organising Activity is not only upward-
reaching, but forward-looking. It looks to the
future. We have remarked how the individuals
strive and compete with one another in order to get
food and air and light with which to nourish and
maintain themselves. But self-maintenance is not
their only object. They seek to propagate them-
selves— to perpetuate their kind. They even make
provision for their offspring. They go further still
and sacrifice themselves that their offspring may
flourish.

Here again selfishness is not the last word.
Even plants will make provision for their offspring,
and in the last resort will sacrifice themselves that
their offspring may survive. A plant will fight
with its neighbours for the means wherewith to
build itself up. But it will also provide for more
than mere maintenance. It will build up organs
for the purpose of propagating itself. Even ferns

CARE OF OFFSPRING 77

have their organs for producing seeds. And many
a plant will make a supreme effort to produce off-
spring rather than die without having perpetuated
its kind. And plants — and of course more markedly
animals and men — do not stop with merely repro-
ducing their kind. Besides devoting their energies
to propagation, they will deliberately make special
provision for their offspring ; they will supply it
with albumen and starch. And many insects are
not only indefatigable, but highly intelligent, in
providing food for their young even before the
young are hatched out. They do not lay their eggs
on any plant at random, but will wander for miles
to find a plant on which their young can feed, and
they then lay their eggs on that plant. Individual
plants, insects, animals, or men may be frightfully
selfish in their hard struggle for existence, but the
one thing in regard to which no individual is selfish
is in regard to its offspring. Primitive man, utterly
callous about the sufferings of animals and of his
own fellow-men and even of his wife, is tenderly
careful of his child while it remains a child — and
this is a very significant trait in his character.

However indifferent the individual may be to
the sufferings of those about him, he will make any
sacrifice for his offspring. There is some instinct
within plants and animals alike which impels them
to sacrifice themselves that their kind may continue.

So that Activity which is at the source of all life,
and is keeping living things together in an inter-
connected whole, not only forces them upward in
the scale of being, but is also driving them to look
forward into the future, to provide for the future —

78 THE SUM IMPRESSION

and, indeed, to make the future better than the
present.

This seems to be the way — judging by what we
see in the forest — the Activity works. Things have
not come to be as they are by the slap-dash,
irresponsible, unregulated methods of mere chance.
We cannot fail to see that chance does play some
part. One seed from a tree may fall into a rivulet
and be swept away to the sea, while another may be
borne by a gust of wind, or by a bird, on to rich
soil where competitors are few, and be able to grow
up into a monarch of the forest, to live for a hun-
dred years, and to give birth to thousands like itself.
This is true. But chance will not produce the
advancement and progress which is observable.
Chance will not produce a single one of those organs
of adaptation we see in myriads in the forest. And
chance would not have made the barren earth of
a hundred million years ago bring forth the plant,
animal, and human life we see on it to-day.

The Activity does not work on the haphazard
methods of pure chance. Nor, on the other hand,
are its operations conducted in the rigid, mechanical
method of a machine. Nor, again, can the result
we see be due to the working of blind physical and
chemical processes alone. There is a great deal
too much variety and spontaneity and originality
about. We could not possibly look upon the
forest as a machine — even of the most complicated
kind. A machine goes grinding round and round,
producing things of exactly the same pattern.
Whereas no two things exactly alike are ever turned

NO MECHANICAL ACTIVITY 79

out in the forest. And blind physical and chemical
processes could by themselves — by themselves alone
— never produce the novelties, the entirely new and
unique things, and things higher and higher in the
scale of being, which we see in the forest. Only a
man impervious to the teaching of common sense
could suppose that the care which plant, beast, and
man alike show for their offspring could be the
result of bare physical and chemical processes with-
out the inclusion with these processes of any other
agency whatsoever.

Nor, on the other hand, do we see any signs of
the forest being the result of a preconceived plan
gradually being worked out — as a bridge is
gradually built up according to the previously
thought out plan of the engineer. The carrying
out of a plan means that in course of time the plan
will be completed, and that each stage is a step
towards its completion. But in the forest life there
is no sign of any beginning of an approach towards
the completion of a plan. There is no tendency
to a closing in. There is a reaching upward, it is
true. But there is also a splaying outward. One
line leads up to man. But others splay out to
insects, birds, and elephants.

Another noticeable fact is that nowhere is per-
fection reached. If a plan were being worked we
should expect to see the lower stages — like the
foundations of the bridge — well and truly laid,
incapable of improvement. But no living being —
neither the lowliest nor the highest — is itself as a
whole or in any one particular absolutely perfect.
There is room for improvement everywhere. Most

80 THE SUM IMPRESSION

wonderful things we see. But not perfection. The
eye is a wonderful thing. But an oculist would
point out defects in even the best.

And if it be argued that there has not been suffi-
cient time yet to work out a plan, the reply is that
there has been infinite time. Time is infinite. If
the Activity \vere merely working out a plan, the
plan would have been completed ages ago.

So the Organising Activity which we see must
be working at the back of things, keeping all the
separate individuals together in a connected whole,
not only preserves the strictest order among them,
but grants them freedom, stimulates emulation
among them, inspires them to reach upward and
to look into and provide for the future. Such an
Activity is no mere mechanical activity. It is a
purposive Activity. It is an essentially spiritual
Activity. Spirit is not the casual flash flaming up
from the working of blind physical and chemical
forces. Spirit dominates these blind forces. Spirit
is a true determining factor in the whole process.
Spirit is at the root and source and permeates the
whole.

This Spiritual Activity is what in ordinary lan-
guage we speak of as "the Spirit of Nature," and
emanates from the Heart of Nature.

When, therefore, our Artist sums up his im-
pressions of Nature as epitomised in the life of the
forest ; when he has been able to feel that he has,
as it were, got inside the skin of Nature, entered
into her Spirit and really understood her — as the
artist-midge we have referred to would enter into

A SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY 81

the nature of a man and try and understand him —
he will probably find that Nature works in very
much the same way as he himself works, and is of
much the same character as himself.

The Artist will observe that Nature neither
works by mere chance, tossing up at each turning
whether she shall go to the right or to the left,
and quite indifferent as to which way she takes;
nor in the set and rigid manner of a machine ; nor
yet, again, in the cut-and-dried fashion which the
execution of a previously conceived plan implies.
Order everywhere the Artist will have observed.
But order need not mean woodenness and
machinery. Order is simply the absolutely
essential prerequisite of any Freedom. And it is
Freedom that the Artist everywhere observes.
Nature is not closed in by the designed overarch
of an eventually-to-be-completed plan. The
zenith and horizon are always open. There is
always order, but there is scope illimitable for
Nature's workings.

So the sum impression the Artist will probably
receive is that Nature is in her essential character
an Artist like himself — that she creates and goes
on creating, just as he creates and goes on creating.
A painter \vho is a true artist and not a mere
copyist paints "out of his head," as the saying
goes, pictures which are true creations — something
new and unique, though founded on and related
to the pre-existing. And there is no limit to the
pictures he might paint out of his head. He is
not tied down in advance by any preconceived plan.
According as he is roused and stirred by the

82 THE SUM IMPRESSION

complex life around him, he could — if he were
physically able — go on for ever painting picture
after picture, each a new creation. In the same
way a poet could go on writing poems. The
poet does not turn out poems like a machine turns
out pins, each like the other. He is not tied down
to what he writes. He writes out of his own heart
what he likes. And he does not and could not turn
out two poems exactly the same. Nor does he
write according to plan as the bridge-builder works
according to the plan of the engineer. He works
as he goes. He works by spontaneous creativeness.
He is utterly original — a true creator. And even
so will our Artist hold that Nature works.

The letters of Nature's alphabet which the
Artist sees in the forest are not in the places they
are either through mere chance or according to a
definitely prepared plan. The letters form words,
the words form lines, and the lines form poems.
The Artist reads the words and understands the
meaning of the poems, and so understands the
character of the Poet — the Poet whose name is
Nature. But the Artist knows that the words and
lines and poems he sees in the forest are there as
spontaneous creations from the mind of Nature as
poems arise in his own mind. And he knows that
Nature could go on — and must go on — creating
these poems, painting these pictures, for ever and
ever.

Nature will, indeed, work to an end as an Artist
works to an end. Nature has purposiveness as an
Artist has purposiveness. But that end is some-
thing which Nature, like the Artist, is always

NATURE'S END 83

revising, re-creating, improving, perfecting. An
Artist has the general end of creating Beauty, but
he is always striving to enrich and intensify it, to
create it in greater and greater perfection. And
even so does Nature work.

As the Artist puts himself in touch with the
Heart of Nature, the dominant impression he
receives is of Nature ever straining after higher
perfection, ever striving to achieve a greater
excellence, and create beings with higher and higher
modes of life. He sees her straining upward in the
mountain, in the trees, in the climbers on the trees,
in every blade of grass. He sees the whole of life
straining to achieve higher and higher forms, more
perfect flowers, more intelligent animals, more spirit-
ual men. He sees the life of the seas stretching up
out of the seas on to the land. He sees the life
of the land striving to reach the highest points on
the land. And he sees it also soaring up into the
air and making itself at home there, too. Every-
where he sees evidence of aspiration and upward
effort.

But he notes also that with this upward effort
there goes a downward pull. The mountain strives
upward, but it is drawn down by the forces of
gravitation. The eagle soars up in the sky, but
has to come down to earth to rest and feed. The
poet aspires to heaven, but has to stop on earth
and earn his daily bread.

Nature, like himself, the Artist finds, is engaged
in a constant struggle between an impulse to excen-
tration and the necessity for concentration. She
wants to fly off to the zenith and to the horizon,

84 THE SUM IMPRESSION

but is continually being drawn into the centre. She
wants to let herself go, but has to keep herself in.
And all this is to the good. For the necessity
for concentration only serves to strengthen and
refine her aspiration. And the net result is higher
and higher perfection. She cannot rise any higher
in a mountain, so she rises in a higher form in a
tree. She cannot rise any higher in a tree, so she
rises in higher form in an orchid. She cannot
rise any higher in an orchid, so she rises in higher
form in a man. She cannot rise any higher in man
as an intelligent animal, so she rises in higher
form in man as a spiritual being, capable of spiritual
appreciation and of spiritual communion with her.

The gravitation to a centre — the necessity for
concentration — does not suppress and crush the
aspiration of Nature ; it only serves to compel the
aspiration to refine and perfect itself.

In this spirit of aspiration checked by concentra-
tion the Artist will surely find what is after his own
heart. He will recognise that what is going on in
Nature is the same as what goes on in his own heart.
He and Nature have a common aspiration. As he
aspires but has to concentrate, so does Nature aspire
but has to concentrate. As he works, so does
Nature work. What he aims at, that also does
Nature aim at. And when the Naturalist within
him convinces him that, so far as forest life reveals
it, this is Nature's manner and this is Nature's end,
then his heart goes out to the Heart of Nature,
his heart and her heart become one ; and from that
community of heart Beauty unending springs.

He will without reserve or hesitation be able to

A COMMON ASPIRATION 85

throw his whole heart into the enjoyment of Natural
Beauty in a way that would have been utterly im-
possible if he had had to come to the conclusion
that Nature cared only for the brutally fittest, wholly
irrespective of their worth, or that Nature was at
the mercy of chance and had no wish, intention,
or power to make good prevail over ill. And with
his instinctive love of Natural Beauty thus con-
firmed and strengthened by this testing of his
instinct against what cool reasoning on the facts
revealed by observation in the forest had to say
about it, he can with lightened heart search still
further into Nature, and see her in higher, wider,
deeper aspects than the forest alone can disclose.

CHAPTER VI

KINCHINJUNGA

ASPIRATION is the root sentiment at the Heart of
Nature as she manifests herself in the forest —
aspiration upward checked by concentration upon
the inmost centre. And the very emblem of the
aspiration of Nature kept in hand and under con-
trol is to be found in that proud pinnacle of the
Sikkim Himalaya, Kinchinjunga, as it is seen from
Darjiling rising from amidst the rich tropical forests
which clothe its base. To Darjiling, therefore, we
should be wise to go.

To reach it we must ascend the slopes of the
outer ranges which rise abruptly from the plains.
A giant forest now replaces the stunted and bushy
timber of the Terai proper and clothes the steep
mountain-sides with dense, deep-green, dripping
vegetation. The trees are of great height, and are
sheathed and festooned with climbing plants of
many kinds. Bauhinias and robinias, like huge
cables, join tree to tree. Peppers, vines, and con-
volvulus twine themselves round the trunks and
branches, and hang in graceful pendants from the
boughs. And the trees, besides being hung with
climbers, are also decked with orchids and with foli-
aceous lichens and mosses. The wild banana with
its crown of glistening leaves is everywhere conspicu-

86

THE FOOTHILLS 87

cms. Bamboos shoot up through the undergrowth
to a hundred feet or more in height. The fallen
trees are richly clothed with ferns typical of the
hottest and dampest climates. And dendrobiums
and other orchids fasten on the branches.

At Kurseong there is another striking change,
for the vegetation now becomes more characteristic
of the temperate zone. The spring here vividly
recalls the spring in England. Oaks of a noble
species and magnificent foliage are flowering and
the birch bursting into leaf. The violet, straw-
berry, maple, geranium, and bramble appear, and
mosses and lichens carpet the banks and roadsides.
But the species of these plants differ from their
European prototypes, and are accompanied at this
elevation (and for 2,000 feet higher up) with tree
ferns forty feet in height, bananas, palms, figs,
pepper, numbers of epiphytal orchids, and similar
genuine tropical genera.

From Kurseong we ascend through a magnifi-
cent forest of chestnut, walnut, oaks, and laurels.
Hooker, when he subsequently visited the Khasia
Hills in Assam, said that though the subtropical
scenery on the outer Himalaya was on a much more
gigantic scale, it was not comparable in beauty and
luxuriance with the really tropical vegetation in-
duced by the hot, damp, and insular climate of
those perennially humid Khasia Hills. The forest
of gigantic trees on the Himalaya, many of them
deciduous, appear from a distance as masses of dark
grey foliage, clothing mountains 10,000 feet high.
Whereas in the Khasia Hills the individual trees are

88 KINCHINJUNGA

smaller, more varied in kind, of a brilliant green,
and contrast with grey limestone and red sandstone
rocks. Still, even of the forest between Kurseong
and Darjiling, Hooker says that it is difficult to
conceive a grander mass of vegetation — the straight
shafts of the timber trees shooting aloft, some
naked and clean with grey, pale, or brown bark ;
others literally clothed for yards with a continuous
garment of epiphytes (air-plants), one mass of
blossoms, especially the white orchids, coelogynes,
which bloom in a profuse manner, whitening their
trunks like snow. More bulky trunks bear masses
of interlacing climbers — vines, hydrangea, and
peppers. And often the supporting tree has long
ago decayed away and their climbers now enclose
a hollow. Perpetual moisture nourishes this
dripping forest, and pendulous mosses and lichens
are met with in profusion.

For this forest life, however, we cannot at
present spare the attention that is its due, for we
want above all things to see the mountains on the
far side of this outer ridge. Tropical forests may
be seen in many other parts of the world. But
only here on all the Earth can we see mountains on
so magnificent a scale. So we do not pause, but
cross the ridge and come to the slopes and spurs
which face northward, away from the plains and
towards the main range of the Himalaya.

Here is situated Darjiling, which ought to be
set apart as a sacred place of pilgrimage for all the
world. Directly facing the snowy range and set
in the midst of a vast forest of oaks and laurels,
rhododendrons, magnolias, and camellias, the

DARJILING 89

branches and trunks of which are festooned with
vines and smilax and covered with ferns and
orchids, and at the base of which grow violets,
lobelias, and geraniums, with berberries, brambles,
and hydrangeas — it is adapted as few other places
are for the contemplation of Nature's Beauty in its
most splendid aspects.

Its only disadvantage is that it is so continually
shrouded in mist. The range on which it stands
being the first range against which the moisture-
laden currents from the Bay of Bengal strike, the
rainfall is very heavy and amounts to 140 or 160
inches in the year. And even when rain is not
actually falling there is much cloud hanging
about the mountains. So the traveller cannot
count upon seeing the snows. There is no cer-
tainty that as he tops the ridge or turns the corner
he will see Kinchinjunga in the full blaze of its
glory. He cannot be as sure of seeing it as he is
of seeing a picture on entering a gallery. During
the month of November alone is there a reasonable
surety. All the rest of the year he must take his
chance and possess his soul in patience till the
mountain is graciously pleased to reveal herself.

Perhaps because of the uncertainty of seeing
Kinchinjunga the view when it is seen is all the
more impressive. The traveller waits for hours
and days, even for only a glimpse. One minute's
sight of the mountains would satisfy him. But
still the clouds eddy about in fleecy billows wholly
obscuring the mountains. Six thousand feet below
may now and then be seen the silver streak of the
Rangit River and forest-clad mountains beyond.

90 KINCHINJUNGA

Around him are dripping forests, each leaf glisten-
ing with freshest greenness, long mosses hanging
from the boughs, and the most delicate ferns and
noblest orchids growing on the stems and branches.
All is very beautiful, but it is the mountain he
wants to see ; and still the cloud-waves collect and
disperse, throw out tender streamers and feelers,
disappear and collect again, but always keep a veil
between him and the mountain.

Then of a sudden there is a rent in the veil.
Without an inkling of when it is to happen or what
is to be revealed, those mists of infinite softness
part asunder for a space. The traveller is told to
look. He raises his eyes but sees nothing. He
throws back his head to look higher. Then indeed
he sees, and as he sees he gasps. For a moment
the current of his being comes to a standstill.
Then it rushes back in one thrill of joy. Much he
will have heard about Kinchin junga beforehand.
Much he will remember of it if he has seen it before.
But neither the expectation nor the memory ever
comes up to the reality. From that time, hence-
forth and for ever, his whole life is lifted to a higher
plane.

Through the rent in the fleecy veil he sees clear
and clean against the intense blue sky the snowy
summit of Kinchinjunga, the culminating peak of
lesser heights converging upward to it and all
ethereal as spirit, white and pure in the sunshine,
yet suffused with the delicatest hues of blue and
mauve and pink. It is a vision of colour and
warmth and light — a heaven of beauty, love, and
tiuth.

A VISION 91

But what really thrills us is the thought that,
incredibly high though it is, yet that heaven is part
of earth, and may conceivably be attained by man.
It is nearly double the height of Mont Blanc and
more than six times the height of Ben Nevis, but
still it is rooted in earth and part of our own home.
This is what causes the stir within us.

Hardly less striking than its height is its purity
and serenity. The subtle tints of colour and the
brilliant sunlight dispel any coldness we might feel,
while the purity is still maintained. And the
serenity is accentuated by the ceaseless movements
of the eddying clouds through which the vision is
seen. There is about Kinchinjunga the calm and
repose of stupendous upward effort successfully
achieved.

A sense of solemn elevation comes upon us as
we view the mountain. We are uplifted. The
entire scale of being is raised. Our outlook on life
seems all at once to have been heightened. And
not only is there this sense of elevation : we seem
purified also. Meanness, pettiness, paltriness
seem to shrink away abashed at the sight of that
radiant purity.

The mountain has made appeal to, and called
forth from us all that is most pure and most noble
within us, and aroused our highest aspirations.
Our heart, therefore, goes out lovingly to it. We
long to see it again and again. We long to be
always in a mood worthy of it. And we long to
have that fineness of soul which would enable us
to appreciate it still more fully. Glowing in the
heart of the mountain is the pure flame of un-

92 KINCHINJUNGA

daunted aspiration, and it sets something aglow in
our hearts also which burns there unquenchably for
the rest of our days. We see attainment of the
highest in the physical domain, and it stirs us to
achieve the highest in the spiritual. Between our-
selves and the mountain is the kinship of common
effort towards high ends. And it is because of this
kinship that we are able to see such lofty Beauty in
the mountain.

For only a few minutes are we granted this
heavenly vision. Then the veil is drawn again.
But in those few minutes we have received an im-
pression which has gone right down into the depths
of our soul and will last there for a lifetime.

On other occasions the mountain is not so re-
served, but reveals itself for whole days in all its
glory. The central range of the Himalaya will be
arrayed before us in its full majesty from one
horizon to the other without a cloud to hide a single
detail. We see the lesser ranges rolling up, wave
after wave, in higher and higher effort towards the
culminating line of peaks. And along this central
line itself all the lesser heights we see converging
on the supreme peak of Kinchinjunga. The
scene, too, will be dazzling in the glorious sunshine
and suffused with that purply-blue translucent
atmosphere which gives to the whole a fairy-like,
ethereal aspect.

And on this occasion we have no hurried
glimpse of the mountain. We have ample time to
contemplate it, looking at it, turning away from it
to rest our souls from so deep an emotion, looking

FULL VIEW 93

at it again, time after time, till we have entered
into its spirit and its spirit has entered into us.
And always our eyes insensibly revert to the
culminating-point — the summit of Kinchinjunga
itself. We note all the rich forest foreground, the
deep valley beneath us, the verdure-covered sub-
sidiary ranges, and the strong buttresses of the
higher peaks. But our eyes do not linger there.
They unconsciously raise themselves beyond them
to the summit ridge. Nor do we look long on the
distant peaks on either hand. They are over
24,000 feet in height. But they are not the
highest. So our eyes pass over peaks of every
remarkable form — abrupt, rugged, and enticing,
and we seek the highest peak of all. And Kinchin-
junga is a worthy mountain-monarch. It is not a
needle-point — a sudden upstart which might easily
be upset. Kinchinjunga is grand and massive and
of ample gesture, broad and stable and yet also
culminating in a clear and definite point. There
is no mistaking her superiority both in massiveness
and height to every peak around her.

And thick-mantled in deep and everlasting
snow though the whole long range of mountains is,
the spectacle of all this snow brings no chill upon
us. For we are in latitudes more southern still
than Italy and Greece — farther south than Cairo.
The entire scene is bathed in warm and brilliant
sunshine. The snows are glittering white, but
with a white that does not strike cold upon us, for it
is tinted in the tenderest way with the most delicate
hues of blue and pink. They are, indeed, in the
strictest sense not white at all, but a mingling of

94 KINCHINJUNGA

the very faintest essence of the rose, the violet, and
the forget-me-not. And we view the distant
mountains through an atmospheric veil which has
the strange property of revealing instead of hiding
the real nature of the object before which it stands.
It does not conceal the mountains. It reveals
them in their real nature — the spiritual. Each
country has an atmosphere of its own. There is
a blue of the Alps, a blue of Italy, a blue of Greece,
and a blue of Kashmir. The blue of the Sikkim
Himalaya, perhaps on account of the excessive
amount of moisture in the air, has a special quality
of its own. It seems to me to have more colour in
it — a fuller colour, a bluer blue, a purpler purple
than the atmosphere of these other countries.
From this cause and from the greater brilliance of
the sun there is a more satisfying warmth even in
the snows.

So besides beauty in the form of the mountains
there is this exquisite loveliness of colour. In the
immediate foreground are greens, fresh and shin-
ing and of every tint. And these shade away into
deep purples and violets of the supporting ranges,
and these again into those most delicate hues of the
snows which vary according to the time of day,
from decided rose-pink in the early morning and
evening to, perhaps, faintest blue or violet in the
full day. And over all and as a background is a
sky of the intensest blue. What these colours are
it is impossible to describe in words, for even the
violet, the rose, and the forget-me-not have not
the delicacy which these colours in the atmosphere
possess. And assuredly no painter could do them

MOUNTAIN GRANDEUR 95

justice, simply because paints and canvas are
mediums far too coarse in which to reproduce the
impression which such brilliance of light acting on
a medium so fine as the thin air produces. The
great Russian painter Verestchagin once visited
Darjiling, and took his seat to paint the scene.
He looked and looked, but did not paint. His
wife kept handing him the brush and paints. But
time after time he said : " Not now, not now ; it
is all too splendid." Night came and the picture
never was painted. And it never could be painted,
though great artists most assuredly could at least
point out to us in their pictures the subtler glories
which are to be seen, and which we expect them to
indicate to us.

So the view of the snows from Darjiling, grand
and almost overpowering though it is, has warmth
in it too. The main impression is one of magni-
tude and amplitude, of vastness and immensity,
and withal of serene composure. The first view of
the mountain seen through a rent in the clouds was
perhaps more uplifting, though this view excites a
sense of elevation also, for the eye is continually
being drawn to the highest point. But in this full
view the impression of breadth and bigness of scale
is combined with the impression of height. The
dimensions of life in every direction seem to be
enlarged. We seem to be able to look at things
from a broader, bigger point of view, as well as a
higher. We ourselves and the world at large are
all on a larger scale than we had hitherto suspected.
And while on a broader scale, we feel that things

96 KINCHINJUNGA

are always working upward and converging towards
some lofty but distinct, defined summit. This also
do we feel, as we look upon the view, that with all
the bigness and massiveness and loftiness there is
the very finest tenderness as well — such delicacy as
we had never before imagined.

And to anyone who really knows them the
littleness of man in comparison writh these mighty
mountains is not the impression made upon him.
He is not overawed and overcome by them. His
soul goes out most lovingly to them because they
have aroused in him all the greatness in his soul,
and purified it — even if only for a time — of all its
dross and despicableness. And he loves them for
that. He does not go cringing along, feeling him-
self a worm in comparison with them. There is
warm kinship between him and them. He knows
what is in their soul. And they have aroused in
his soul exactly what he rejoices in having aroused
there, and which but for them might have re-
mained for ever unsurmised. So he revels in their
Beauty.

Another aspect in which we may see Kinchin-
junga is in its aspect at dawn. It will be still night
— a starlit night. The phantom snowy range and
the fairy forms of the mountains will be bathed in
that delicate yellow light the stars give forth. The
far valley depths will be hidden in the sombrest
purple. Overhead the sky will be glittering with
brilliant gems set in a field of limpid sapphire. The
hush of night will be over all — the hush which
heralds some great and splendid pageant.

DAWN ON THE MOUNTAIN 97

Then, almost before we have realised it, the
eastward-facing scarps of the highest peaks are
struck with rays of mingled rose and gold, and
gleam like heavenly realms set high above the still
night-enveloped world below. Farther and farther
along the line, deep and deeper down it, the flush
extends. The sapphire of the sky slowly lightens
in its hue. The pale yellow of the starlight be-
comes merged in the gold of dawn. White billowy
mists of most delicate softness imperceptibly form
themselves in the valley depths and float up the
mountain-sides. The deep hum of insect life, the
chirping of the birds, the sounds of men, begin to
break the Kush of night. The snows become a
delicate pink, the valleys are flooded with purple
light, the sky becomes intensest blue, and the sun
at last itself appears above the mountains, and the
ardent life of day vibrates once more.

In the full glare of day the mountains are not
seen at their very best. The best time of all to see
them is in the evening. If we go out a little from
Darjiling into the forest to some secluded spur we
can enjoy an evening of rare felicity. On the edge
of the spur the forest is more open. The ground is
covered with grass and flowers and plants with
many-coloured leaves. Rich orchids and tender
ferns and pendant mosses clothe the trees. Grace-
ful vines and creepers festoon themselves from
bough to bough. The air is fragrant with the
scent of flowers. Bright butterflies flutter noise-
lessly about. The soft purr of forest life drones
around. Rays from the setting sun slant across the
scene. The leaves in their freshest green and of

98 KINCHINJUNGA

every shade glitter like emeralds in the brilliant
light.

Through the trunks of the stately trees and
under their overarching boughs we look out towards
the snowy mountains. We look over the brink of
the spur, down into the deeps of the valleys richly
filled with tropical vegetation, their eastward-facing
sides now of purplest purple, their westward-facing
slopes radiant in the evening sunshine, with the full
richness of their foliage shown up by the dazzling
light. Far below we see the silver streak of some
foaming river, and then as we raise our eyes we
mark ridge rising behind ridge, higher and higher
and each of a deeper shade of purple than the one in
front. The lower are still clothed in forest, but the
green has been merged in the deep purple of the
atmosphere. The higher are bare rock till the
snow appears. But just across them floats a long
level wisp of fleecy cloud, and apparently the limits
of earth have been reached and sky has begun.
We would rest content with that. But our eyes
are drawn higher still. And high above the cloud,
and rendered inconceivably higher by its presence,
emerges the snowy summit of Kinchinjunga, serene
and calm and flushed with the rose of the setting
sun. As a background is a sky of the clearest,
bluest blue.

These are the chief elements of the scene, but
all is in process of incessant yet imperceptible
change. The sunshine slowly softens, the purples
deepen , the flush on the mountains reddens . The air
becomes as soft as velvet. Not a leaf now stirs. A
holy peace steals over the mountains and settles in

SUNSET 99

the valleys. The snow mountains no longer look
cold, hard, and austere. Their purity remains as
true as ever. And they still possess their uplifting
power. But they now speak of serenity and calm
— not, indeed, of the unsatisfying ease of the sloth-
ful, but of the earned repose of high attainment.
Great peace is about them — deep, strong, satisfying
peace.

The sun finally sets. Night has settled in the
valleys. The lights of Darjiling sparkle in the
darkness. But long afterwards a glow still remains
on Kinchinjunga. Lastly that also fades away.
And now night spreads her veil on every part. But
here night brings with it no sense of gloom and
darkness, much less death. Far otherwise, for now
it seems as if we were only beginning our intenser
and still wider life. The fret of ordinary life is
soothed away in the serene ending of the day. The
quietness, profound and meaningful, yet further
calms our spirit. Every condition is now favour-
able for the life of that inmost soul of us, which is
too sensitive often to emerge into the glare and rubs
of daylight life, but which in this holy peace, in the
presence of the heavenly mountains, and with the
stars above to guide it, can reach out to its fullest
extent and indulge its highest aspirations.

CHAPTER VII

HIGH SOLITUDES

FROM these scenes of tropical luxuriance and teem-
ing life I would transport the Artist to a region of
austerest beauty, far at the back of the Himalaya,
where only one white man as yet has penetrated :
where no life at all exists — no tree, no simplest
plant, no humblest animalcula ; where, save for
some rugged precipice too steep for snow to lie, and
save also for the intense azure of the sky, all is
radiant whiteness. A region far distant from any
haunt of man, where reigns a mountain which
acknowledges supremacy to Mount Everest alone.
A region of completest solitude, where the solemn
silence is unbroken by the twitter of a single bird
or the drone of the smallest insect, and is disturbed
only by the occasional thunder of an avalanche or
the grinding crunch of the glacier as a reminder of
the titanic forces which are perpetually though
invisibly at work.

Freezing this region is and full of danger. And
there is no short cut to it and no easy means of
transport. Only men in the prime of health can
reach there and return. And it is only men whose
faculties are at their finest who are fit to stand the
austerity of its cold, stern beauty. It lies at the
dividing line between India and Central Asia where
the waters which flow to India are parted from the
100

KASHMIR 101

waters which flow to Central Asia, and where the
Indian and Chinese Empires touch one another. It
may be approached from two directions — from
Turkistan or from Kashmir and the Karakoram Pass.
The Artist had better approach it by Kashmir,
for he will see there certain beauties which even
Sikkim does not possess, and this will make him
further realise the variety of beauty this earth
displays.

Kashmir is altogether different from Sikkim.
In Sikkim the valleys are deep, steep, and narrow,
and markedly inclined, so that the rivers run strong
and there is no room or level for lakes. In Kashmir
the main valley is from twenty to thirty miles broad
and ninety miles long. Over a large portion it is
nearly dead level. So the river is even and placid.
And there are tranquil lakes and duck-haunted
marshes.

The climate is different, too. It is the climate
of North Italy. Consequently there are no tropical
forests, and the mountain-sides are covered with
trees of the temperate zone — the stately deodar
cedars, spruce fir, maples, walnut, sycamore, and
birch ; while in the valley itself grow poplars, wil-
lows, mulberries, and most beautiful of all, and a
speciality of Kashmir, the magnificent chenar tree
—akin to the plane tree of Europe, but larger,
fuller, and richer in its foliage.

In Kashmir there is also far more variety of
colour than there is in Sikkim. And in the spring,
with the willows and poplars in freshest green ; the
almond, pear, apple, apricot, and peach trees in full
blossom, white and pink ; the fields emerald with

9

102 HIGH SOLITUDES

young wheat, blue with linseed, or yellow with
mustard ; and the village-borders purple with iris ;
or in the autumn when the chenars, the poplars,
and apricots are turning to every tint of red and
yellow and purple, Kashmir is in a glow of colour.
And the famous Valley is all the more beautiful
because it is ringed round with a circle of snowy
mountains of at least Alpine magnitude, with a
glimpse here and there, such as that of Nanga
Parbat, of much more stupendous peaks beyond;
and because the sky is so blue, the atmosphere so
delicate in its hues, and the sunshine so general
throughout the year.

In this favoured land there is many a variety of
beauty, but all is of the easy, pleasant kind. All
the colours are soft and soothing. It is a land to
dream of, a gentle and indulgent land of soft repose,
and calm content, and quiet relaxation ; a dreamy,
peaceful land where life glides smoothly forward,
and all makes for enjoyment and idleness and
holiday.

From the pleasant Vale of Kashmir the Artist
would have to make his way up the Sind Valley — a
valley typical of those beautiful tributaries which
add so much to the whole charm of Kashmir. These
are comparatively narrow, and the mountain-sides
are steep, but the valleys are not so narrow nor the
sides so steep as the valleys of Sikkim, nor are the
forests anything like so dense. The scenery is,
indeed, much more Swiss in appearance with open
pine forests, picturesque hamlets, grassy pasture-
lands, flowery meadows, and clear, rushing rivers ;
and with the rocky crests or snow-capped summits

BARREN MOUNTAINS 103

of the engirdling mountains always in the back-
ground.

But when we emerge from this delightful valley
of the Sind River and cross the Zoji-la Pass, we
come upon a very different style of country — bare,
dreary, desolate, monotonous, uninteresting. The
forest has all disappeared, for the rainfall is here
slight. The moisture-laden clouds have precipi-
tated themselves upon the seaward-facing slopes of
the mountains we have already passed through.
And because of this lack of rainfall the valleys are
not cut out deep, but are high and broad. It is
a delightful experience to pass from this brown,
depressing landscape to the rich beauties of the Sind
Valley and Kashmir. But to make the journey
the other way round, and to pass into the gloomy
region after being spoilt by the luxuries of Kashmir,
is sadly disheartening at first.

The experience has, however, its advantages,
for it makes us throw off all ideas of soft ease we
may have harboured in Kashmir, and reminds us
that we have to prepare ourselves to face beauties
of a far sterner kind. So we insensibly alter our
whole attitude of mind, and as we plod our way
through the mountains we summon up from within
ourselves all the austerer stuff of which we are
made.

We cross some easy passes of 13,000 feet or so
in height. We cross the River Indus. We reach
Leh. We cross a 17,000-feet pass and then a
glacier pass of 18,000 feet, and then the watershed
of India and Central Asia by the Karakoram Pass,
nearly 19,000 feet in height. We are six hundred

104 HIGH SOLITUDES

miles from the plains of India now, and in about
as desolate a region as the world contains. Then,
bearing westward, we make for the Aghil Pass.
We have now got right in behind the Himalaya,
and as we reach the top of the Aghil Pass we look
towards the Himalaya from the Central Asian side,
on what is known as the Karakoram Range, and
here at last is the remote, secluded glacier region
which has been the object of our search.

Its glory bursts upon us as we top the last rise
to the Aghil Pass. Across the deep valley is
arrayed in bold and jagged outline a series of pin-
nacles of ice glistening in the brilliant sunshine,
showing up in clearest definition against the intense
blue sky, and rising abruptly and incredibly high
above the rock-bound Oprang River. They are
the mighty peaks which group around K2 — the
noblest cluster in the whole Himalaya.

There are here no inviting grassy slopes and no
enticing forests. The mountain-sides are all hard
rock and rugged precipices. And the summits are
of ice or with edges sharp and keen direct from
Nature's workshop. But the sight, though it awes
us, does not depress us or deter us. We are keyed
up by high anticipation when we arrive on the
threshold of this secluded region, and a fierce joy
seizes us as we first set eyes on these mountains.
We know we have before us one of the great sights
of the world — something unique and apart, some-
thing the like of which we shall never see again.
And awed as we are by the mountains' unsurpassed
magnificence, we do not bow down in any abject
way before them. We are not impressed by our

DAZZLING PEAKS 105

littleness in comparison. They have, indeed,
shown us that the world is something greater than
we knew. But they have shown us also that we
too are something greater than we knew. The
peaks in their dazzling altitude have set an exacting
standard for us. They have incited us to rise to
that standard. Their call is great, but a thrill runs
through us as we feel ourselves responding to the
challenge, collecting ourselves together and gather-
ing up every stiffest bit of ourselves to rise to their
high standard. We feel nerved and steeled ; and
in high exhilaration we plunge down into the valley
to join issue with the mountains.

Arrived on the Oprang River we can turn
either to the left or the right. If we turn to the
left we get right in under a knot of stupendous
peaks. Towering high and solitary above the
rocky wall which bounds the valley on the south is
a peak which may be K2, 28,250 feet in height,
which must be somewhere in the neighbourhood.
But the investigations of the Duke of the Abruzzi
throw a doubt as to whether this can be K2 itself.
If it is not, it must be some unfixed and unnamed
peak. At any rate it is a magnificent, upstanding
peak rising proud and steep-sided high and clear
above its neighbours. Then beyond it, farther up
the Oprang Valley, we catch glimpses of that won-
drous company of Gusherbrum Peaks — four of
them over 26,000 feet in height, with rich glaciers
flowing from them.

But if we turn to the right on descending from
the Aghil Pass, and if we turn again in the direction
of the Mustagh Pass, we come to an icy realm which

106 HIGH SOLITUDES

has about it, above every other region, the impress of
both extreme remoteness and loftiest seclusion. As
we ascend right up the glacier — either the one coming
down from the Mustagh Pass or the one to the east
running parallel with the general line of the Kara-
koram Range — we feel not only far away from but
also high above the rest of the world. And we
seem to have risen to an altogether purer region.
Especially if we sleep in the open, without any tent,
with the mountains always before us, with the
stars twinkling brightly above us, do we have this
sense of having ascended to a loftier and serener
world.

At the heads of these glaciers there is little else
but snow and ice. The moraines have almost dis-
appeared— or, rather, have hardly yet come into
being. And the mountains are so deeply clothed
in ice and snow, it is only when they are extremely
steep that rock appears. The glacier-filled valley
below and the mountain above are therefore almost
purely white. The atmosphere, too, is marvellously
clear, so that by day the mountains and glaciers
glitter brightly in the sunshine, and at night the
stars shine out with diamond brilliance. The effect
on a moonlight night is that of fairyland. We see
the mountains as clearly as we would by the daylight
of many regions, but the light is now all silver, and
the mountains not solid and substantial but ethereal
as in a vision.

The pureness of the beauty is unspotted. It is
the direct opposite of the voluptuous beauty of
Kashmir. No one would come here for repose and
holiday. But we like to have been there once.

PURITY OF BEAUTY 107

We like to have attained even once in a lifetime to
a world so refined and pure.

Cold it may be — and dangerous. But we soon
forget the cold. And the dangers only string us
up to meet them, so that we are in a peculiarly alert,
observant mood. And we have a secret joy in
watching Nature in her most threatening aspects
and in measuring ourselves against her.

White it may be, but not colourless. For
the whiteness of the snow is most exquisitely
tinged with blue. The lakelets on the glacier
are of deepest blue. They are encircled by minia-
ture cliffs of ice of transparent green. The blue-
ness of the sky is of a depth only seen in the highest
regions. And the snowy summits of the mountains
are tinged at sunset and dawn with finest flush of
rose and primrose. So with all the whiteness there
is, too, the most delicate colouring.

Standing thus on the glacier and looking up to
the snowy peaks all round us, we think how, wholly
unobserved by men, they have reared themselves to
these high altitudes and there remain century by
century unseen by any human being. From deep
within the interior of the earth they have arisen.
And they are only touched by the whitest snow-
flakes. They are only touched by snowflakes
fashioned from the moisture which the sun's rays
have raised off the surface of the Indian Ocean, and
which the monsoon winds have transported in in-
visible currents, high above the plains of India, till
they are gently precipitated on these far-distant
heights.

108 HIGH SOLITUDES

"Blessed are the pure in heart," we are told,
"for they shall see God." And blessed are they
who are able to ascend to a region like this, for here
they cannot but be pure in heart, and cannot help
seeing God. For the time being at least, they have
to be pure. In the spotless purity of that region
they cannot harbour any thought that is sordid or
unclean. And they pray that ever after they may
maintain what they have reached. For they know
that if they could maintain it they would see
beauties which in the murky state of common life
it is impossible to perceive. In the white purity
which this high region exacts they are forced to
pierce through the superficial and unimportant and
they catch sight of the real.

They are in a remote and lofty solitude, and in
touch with the naked elementals of which the world
has built itself. But they do not feel alone. They
feel themselves in a great Presence, and in a
Presence with which they are most intimately in
touch. And it is no dread Presence, but one which
they delight to feel. Holiness is its essence, and
their souls are purged and purified. They are suf-
fused with it ; it enters deeply into them, and
translates them swiftly upward.

CHAPTER VIII

THE HEAVENS

THE remote glacier region gives us a sense of purity,
and gives us, too, a vision of colour in its finest
delicacy. But for depth, extent, and brilliancy of
colour we must look to sunsets — and sunsets in those
high desert regions where the outlook is widest and
the atmosphere clearest.

In deserts everywhere marvellous sunsets may
be seen, for the comparative absence of moisture in
the atmosphere and the presence of invisible
particles of dust gives these sunsets an especial
brilliancy. In the middle of the day a desert in its
uniform brownness is dreary and monotonous to a
degree. But at dawn and sunset when the sun's
rays slant across the scene the desert glows with
colour of every shade and hue and in ever-changing
combination. In the Gobi Desert of Central Asia,
in the Egyptian Desert, in the Arabian Desert, in
Arizona, I have seen sunsets that thrill one with
delight. But nowhere have I seen more glorious
sunsets than in the highlands of Tibet. And what
makes them there so remarkable is that the plains
themselves are 15,000 feet above sea-level, so that
the atmosphere is exceptionally clear. Great dis-
tances are therefore combined with unusual clear-
ness. The country is open enough and the air clear
109

110 THE HEAVENS

enough for us to see far distances. And extent is
a prime essential in the glory of a sunset.

It is difficult to make those who have never been
outside Europe understand what sunsets can be.
In England, as Turner has shown, there are sunsets
to be seen containing in abundance many such
elements of beauty as varied and varying and
great extent of colour. But the atmosphere here
is so thick that the colours appear as if thrown on to
a solid background. So the sunsets look opaque.
On the continent of Europe the atmosphere is
clearer and the opaqueness less pronounced. The
colouring is in consequence more vivid. But —
except in high Alpine regions — the clearness does
not approach the clearness of Tibet. And neither
in England nor on the Continent do we get the
great distances of desert sunsets. And great dis-
tances increase immeasurably that feeling of infinity
which is the chief glory in a sunset.

The clearness of the atmosphere is important in
this respect also, that it produces the effect upon
the colours of the sunset that they seem more like
the colours we see in precious stones than the colours
a painter throws on a canvas. There is no milki-
ness or murkiness in them. The sky is so clear that
we see a colour as we see the red in a ruby. We
see deep into the colour. The colour comes right
out of the sky and has not the appearance of being
merely plastered on the surface.

And the variety of the colours and the rapidity
with which they change and merge and mingle into
one another is another wonder of these desert sun-
sets. It would be wholly impossible to paint a

DESERT SUNSETS 111

picture of them which would adequately express the
impression they give, for the main impression is
derived from light, and the colours are therefore far
more glowing than they could ever be reproduced
on canvas. Nor can the changing effects be repro-
duced on a stationary medium. The nearest ap-
proach to the glory of a Tibet sunset which I have
seen is a picture in pastel by Simon de Bussy of
a sunset in the Alps. But all pictures — even
Turner's — can only draw attention to the glory
and show us what to look for. They cannot repro-
duce the impression in full. The medium through
which the artist has to work — the paints and the
canvas — are inadequate for his needs.

If we try to describe the impression in words
we are no better off. We can, indeed, compare the
sunset colours with the colours of flowers and
precious stones. But here also we miss the light
which is the very foundation of the sunset beauties.
And we have neither the changefulness nor the vast
extent of the sunset colouring.

To get the least idea of the variety of colours
mixing, merging, and intermingling with one an-
other we must go to the opal, though even there
there is not the intensity of colour, and of course
not the change nor extent. From an orange —
especially a blood orange — we get a notion of the
combined reds and yellows of the sunsets, though
the reds may range deeper than orange into the reds
of the ruby or the cardinal flower, and lighter into
the pinks of the rose or the carnation ; and the yel-
lows range from the gold of the escholtzia to the
delicate hue of the primrose. And for the trans-

112 THE HEAVENS

lucency of their yellower effects we must bring in
the amber. Often there is a green which can only
be matched by jade or emerald. And sometimes
there is an effect with which only the amethyst can
be compared. Then there are mauves and purples
for which the precious stones have no parallel, and of
which heliotrope, the harebell, and the violet give
us the best idea. And the blues range from the
deep blue of the sapphire and the gentian to the
light blue of the turquoise and the forget-me-not.

In these stones and flowers we get something
near the actual colour, but the depth, the clearness,
the luminosity, and the vast extent are all wanting,
and these are all essential features of the sunset's
glories. So we must imagine all these colours glow-
ing with light and never still — perpetually changing
from one to the other and shading off from one into
the other, one colour emerging, rising to the
dominant position, and then disappearing to give
place to another, and effecting these changes im-
perceptibly yet rapidly also, for if we take our eyes
away for even a few minutes .we find that the aspect
has altogether altered.

From my camp in Tibet for weeks together I
could be sure of witnessing every evening one of
these glorious sunsets. For while the mighty mon-
soon clouds used to roll up on to the line of Hima-
layan peaks and pile themselves up there, billow
upon billow, in magnificent array, dark and fearful
in the general mass, but clear-edged and silver-
tipped along the summits, yet beyond that line, in
Tibet, the sky was nearly always clear and blue of
the bluest. With nothing whatever to impede my

TIBETAN SUNSETS 113

view — no trees, nor houses, nor fences, nor obstacles
of any kind — I could look out far over these open
plains to distant hills; beyond them, again, to
Mount Everest a hundred miles away ; beyond it,
again, to still more distant mountains ; and, finally,
behind them into the setting sun. And these far
hills and snowy mountains, seen as they were across
an absolutely open plain, seemed not to impede the
view but only to heighten the impression of great
distance. The eye would be led on from feature
to feature , each receding farther into the distance
till it seemed only a step from the farthest snowy
mountain into the glowing sun itself.

Every evening, whenever I could, I used to walk
out alone into the open plain to feast my soul on
the splendid scene. In the stern glacier region
round K2 I had had to brace myself up and to sum-
mon up all that was toughest within me in order to
cope with the terribly exacting conditions in which
I found myself. In the presence of these calm but
fervent sunsets there was a different feeling. I had
a sense of expansion, a longing to let myself go.
And I would feel myself craving to let myself go
out all I could into these glowing depths of light
and colour, and trying to open myself out to their
beauty, that as much as possible of it should flow
into me and glorify my whole being. I had the
feeling that in those sunsets there was any
length for my soul to go out to — that there was
infinite room there for the soul's expansion. There
was inexhaustible glory for the soul to absorb, and
the soul was thirsting for it and could never have
enough.

114 THE HEAVENS

Evening after evening came to me, too — quite
unconsciously, and as it were inevitably — Shelley's
words (slightly altered) :

" Be thou, spirit bright,
My spirit ! Be thou me, most glorious one !
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy."

It was not that there was any particular message
that I had to give. But there was aroused in me
just this simple, insistent longing to let others know
what glory there was in the world, and to be able
to communicate to them something of the joy I
was then feeling in beholding it. I was highly
privileged in having this opportunity of witnessing
a Tibetan sunset's splendours. I was yearning for
others to share my enjoyment with me.

The white radiance of the glacier region instils
into us a sense of purity, and without the purity
of heart which that stern region exacts we cannot
see the sunset's glory in all its fulness. But now
in these Tibetan sunsets we have not purity alone,
but warmth and richness as well. They give an
impression of infinity of glory. We catch alight
from their consuming glory, and our hearts flame
up in correspondence with them. The fervent
glow in the Heart of Nature kindles a like glow in
our own hearts; and we are enraptured by the
Beauty.

On our misty island we are apt to connect sun-
sets with coming darkness and a black end of things.
And in gazing on them we are prone to have a sense
of sadness mingled with our joy. They seem to

THE STARS 115

mean for us a passage from light to darkness, and
from life to death.

But in the deserts we have no such feeling. As
day imperceptibly fades away it is not black dark-
ness that succeeds, but a light that enables us to see
farther, a mellower light that enables us to see
the Universe at large. From this earthly life we
are transported to a higher, intenser, ampler life
among the stars.

And it is in the desert that we best live among
the stars. In Europe we look up into the sky
between trees and houses ; and among the clouds
and through a murky atmosphere we see a few stars.
Even when we have a clear sky we seldom get a
chance of seeing the whole expanse of the heavens
all the way round. And even if we get this rare
chance of a clear sky and a wide horizon we do not
live with the stars in the open the night through and
night after night.

In the Gobi Desert I had this precious oppor-
tunity. And I had it when my whole being was
tuned up to highest pitch. I was not in the limp
state of one who steps out into his garden and looks
up casually to the stars. I was tense with high
enterprise. I was passing through unknown coun-
try on a journey across the Chinese Empire from
Peking to India. I was keen and alive in every
faculty, in a state of high exhilaration, and both
observant and receptive. It was a rare chance, and
much I wish now I had made more of it.

My party in crossing the Gobi Desert consisted
only of a Chinese guide, a Chinese servant, and a
Mongol camel-man. As I had no European com-

116 THE HEAVENS

panion I was driven in upon myself. I had to
explore a route never before traversed by Euro-
peans, and the distance to be covered across the
open steppes of Mongolia and over the Gobi Desert
to the first town in Turkestan was twelve hundred
miles. Beyond that was the whole length of
Turkestan and the six-hundred-mile breadth of the
Himalaya to be crossed before I should reach India.
So I had a big task before me, and was stirring with
the sense of high adventure and vast distances to
overcome.

To enable my eight camels to feed by daylight,
I used to start at five o'clock in the afternoon and
march till one or two in the morning. Sometimes
in order to reach water we had to march all through
the night and well into the following day. Fre-
quently there were terrific sandstorms, but there
were seldom any clouds. So the atmosphere was
clear. In the distance were sometimes hills. But
for the most part all round the desert was abso-
lutely open. I could see for what seemed an in-
definite distance in any direction. The conditions
were ideal for observing the stars.

Seated on my camel, or trudging along apart
from my little caravan, I would watch the sun set
in always varying splendour. No two sunsets
were anything like the same. Each through the
ascendancy of some one shade of colour, or through
an unusual combination of colour, had a special
beauty of its own. I would watch each ripening
to the climax and then shade away into the beauty
of the night. And when the day was over the night
would reveal that higher, wider life which daylight
only served to hide.

THE UNIVERSE OUR HOME 117

The sunset glow would fade away. Star after
star would spring into sight till the whole vault of
heaven was glistening with diamond points of light.
Above me and all round me stars were shining out
of the deep sapphire sky with a brilliance only sur-
passed by the stars in the high Himalayan solitudes
I have already described. And a great stillness
would be over all — a silence even completer than
the silence among the mountains, for there it was
often broken by creaking of the ice, whereas here
in the desert it was so profound that, when at the end
of many weeks I arrived at a patch of grass and
trees, the twittering of the birds and the whirr of
insects sounded like the roar of a London street.

In this unbroken stillness and with the eye free
to rove all round with nothing in any direction to
stay its vision, and being as I was many weeks'
distance from any settled human habitation, I often
had the feeling of being more connected with the
starry firmament than with this Earth. In a
curious way the bodily and the material seemed to
exist no longer, and I would be in spirit among the
stars. They served to guide us over the desert and
I gradually became familiar with them. And I
used to feel as much a part of the Stellar World as
of this Earth. I lost all sense of being confined to
Earth and took my place in the Universe at large.
My home was the whole great Cosmos before me.
The Cosmos, and not the Earth, was the whole to
which I belonged.

And in that unbroken quiet and amid this bright
company of heaven my spirit seemed to become
intenser and more daring. Right high up in the

10

118 THE HEAVENS

zenith, to infinite height, it would soar unfettered.
And right round to any distance in any direction it
would pierce its way. The height and distance of
the highest and farthest stars I knew had been
measured. I knew that the resulting number of
miles is something so immense as to be altogether
beyond human conception. I knew also that the
number of stars, besides those few thousands
which I saw, had to be numbered in hundreds
of millions. All this was astonishing, and the
knowledge of it filled me with wonder at the im-
mensity of the Starry Universe. But it was not
the mere magnitude of this world that impressed
me. What stirred me was the Presence, subtly
felt, of some mighty all-pervading Influence which
ordered the courses of the heavenly hosts and per-
meated every particle.

We cannot watch the sun go down day after
day, and after it has set see the stars appear, rise to
the meridian and disappear below the opposite
horizon in regular procession, without being im-
pressed by the order which prevails. We feel that
the whole is kept together in punctual fashion, and
is not mere chaos and chance. The presence of
some Power upholding, sustaining, and directing
the whole is deeply impressed upon us. And in
this Presence so steadfast, so calm, so constant,
we feel soothed and steadied. The frets and pains
of ordinary life are stilled. Deep peace and satis-
faction fill our souls.

Sandstorms so terrific that we cannot stand
before them or see a thing a foot or two distant
come whirling across the desert, and all for the time

A HEAVENLY PRESENCE 119

seems turmoil and confusion and nothing is visible.
But behind all we know the stars still pursue their
mighty way. At the back of everything we realise
there is a Power constant and dependable in whom
we can absolutely put our trust.

This is the impression — the impression of stead-
fastness, constancy, and reliability — which a nightly
contemplation of the stars makes upon us. At
the foundation of things is something dependable,
something in which we can repose our faith.
And so the sense of calm and confidence we feel.

And in the desert we have no feeling that the
stars pursue their course in cold indifference to us —
that the Power which sustains them works its soul-
less way unregardful of the frettings of us little
men. Not thus are we who watch the desert stars
impressed. Quite otherwise. For nowhere do we
feel the Influence nearer, more intimate or more
beneficent. We seem in the very midst of the great
Presence. We are immersed in it. It is pervad-
ing us on every side. We do not expect it to alter
the whole course of Nature for our private good.
But we feel confident that the course of Nature is
for good — that Nature is a beneficent and no callous
Power, and has good at heart. Because the founda-
tions are so sure and good we can each pursue our
way in confidence. This is the impression we get.

And the Power which guides the stars upon
their heavenly way, and which, in guiding them,
guides us across the desert, does not reside, we feel,
in lonely grandeur in the empty places of the
heavens, but in the stars themselves — in their very
constitution — in each individually and in all in their

I

120 THE HEAVENS

togetherness. It burns in each star and shines
forth from it, and yet holds the whole together as
we see it every night in that circling vault around
us. The Activity does not appear to us to
emanate from some Invisible Being dwelling
wholly apart and isolated from the stars and this
Earth, and sending forth invisible spiritual rays,
as the Sun stands apart from the Earth but sends
out rays of sunlight to it. It seems rather to dwell
in the very heart and centre of each star, and the
stars seem spiritual rather than material beings. So
this Power, as we experience it in the desert, does
not impress us as being awful and remote, gloomy
and inexorable, enforcing unbending law and exact-
ing terrible penalties. Our impression of it is that,
though it preserves order with unfailing regularity,
it is yet near and kindly, radiating with light and
warmth. We not only feel it to be something
steadfast, something on which we can rely and in
which we may have confidence ; we also feel warmed
and kindled by it.

So what we get from a nightly contemplation of
the stars is a sense of happy companionship with
Nature. The Heart of Nature as here revealed is
both dependable and kindly. Nature is our friend.
And in her certain friendship the balm of peace falls
softly on us. Our hearts blend tenderly with the
Heart of Nature ; and in their union we see Beauty
of the gentlest and most reassuring kind.

CHAPTER IX

HOME BEAUTY

THE Artist in his quest for Natural Beauty will have
pursued it in the remotest and wildest parts of the
Earth, where he can see Nature in her primeval and
most elemental simplicity. He will have seen her
in many and most varied aspects — the grandest, the
wildest, and the most luxuriant. And from these
numerous and so different manifestations of Nature
he will have been enabled more fully to understand
her meaning and comprehend her soul. Moreover,
this contemplation of Nature will have evoked from
within himself much that he had never suspected he
possessed, and thereby his own soul also he will have
learned to understand. And from this completer
comprehension of his own soul and hers will have
emerged a fuller community of heart between
him and Nature. He will have come to worship
her with a still more ardent devotion, and through
the intensity of his love discovered richer and richer
Beauty in her.

But even yet he has not seen Natural Beauty
where it can be found in its highest perfection.
Only when there can be the most intimate possible
relationship between him and the natural object he
is contemplating can Beauty at its finest be seen.
And this closest correspondence of all between him
121

122 HOME BEAUTY

and Nature will only be when he is in the natural
surroundings with which he has been familiar from
childhood, and which have affected him in his most
impressionable years.

The Artist will have seen Nature as she mani-
fests herself in the teeming life of a tropical forest
and the most varied races of men ; in the highest
mountains and the widest deserts ; in the glory of
sunsets and the calm of stars. But it is in none of
these that he will see deepest into the true Heart
of Nature and understand her best. It is amid
scenery which he has loved since boyhood, in the
hearts of his own countrymen in their own country,
that he will see deepest into Nature. And deepest
of all will he see when from among his country-
women he has united himself to the one of his own
deliberate choice, and in this union realised in its
fulness, strength, and intensity that Creative Love
which springs from Nature's very heart, and is the
ultimate fount and source of all Natural Beauty.

We like to go out over all the Earth and see the
wonders of it. And we learn to love the great
mountains and rich forests and unfenced steppes
and veldts and prairies. And we get to love also
the various peoples among whom we have to work
and travel. But in his heart of hearts each man
likes to get back to the scenes of his childhood.
The plainsman likes to get back again from the
mountains to his level plains where the scene is
closer and more intimate. The mountaineer likes
to retire again from the plains into the mountains.
The dweller on the veldt likes to get out of the
forest on to the great open spaces once more. The

ONE'S OWN COUNTRY 123

inhabitant of the forest likes to get back there again
from the plains. And the Englishman, though he
loves the Alps and the Himalaya, is touched by
nothing so deeply as by a Devonshire lane with
its banks of primroses and violets. And he may
have the greatest affection for peoples of other races
among whom he may have had to work, yet it is his
own countrymen that he will always really love.

So the Artist comes back to home surroundings
and his own people. And he will return with his
sense of beauty quickened and refined by this wide
and varied experience of Nature. His sensibility
to the beauties of Nature will now be of rarest
delicacy, and his capacity for fine discrimination and
his feeling for distinction and excellence sure and
keen.

He will have been toned and tuned up to the
highest pitch in his wrestling with Nature, and
will have been purged and purified in the white
region of the highest mountains. And in this high-
strung state he will now see that creation and mani-
festation of Nature which of all natural objects will
best declare her meaning, bring him into closer touch
with her very Heart, and stir in him the deepest
emotions. Between him and this object there will
be possible the closest community of soul. Here
then he will see Natural Beauty at its very finest.

The natural object in which he will see this
consummation of Beauty will be the woman who
will be to him a kindred spirit, and whom he will
first admire and then love.

It was through the love of man and woman for
each other in the far-off ages when love first came

124 HOME BEAUTY

into the hearts of men that Natural Beauty also first
dawned upon them. It is through that love that
Natural Beauty has been continually growing in
fulness and splendour. And it will be through that
same love of man and woman for each other that
the Artist will see Natural Beauty reach its highest
perfection. For in this love man first learned to
enter into the soul of another, to recognise same-
nesses between himself and another, and to live in
communion with another. And so in time he came
to recognise samenesses between what was in his
heart and what was in the Heart of Nature, to enter
into communion with Nature, and through the
wedding of himself with Nature see the Beauty in
her. He was able in some slight degree to be
towards Nature what we see the midge buzzing
round a man must be if that midge is to see the
beauty of man. Just as the midge, if it is to see the
beauty in man, must be able to recognise same-
nesses between its life and the life of man, so man
to see Beauty in Nature had to recognise identity
of life between him and Nature as he was first in-
spired to see it through the love of man and woman
for each other. And now the Artist with his wide
experience of Nature and united with his own
countrywoman in his own country will recognise a
still closer identity between himself and Nature,
and so see an even fuller Beauty in her.

Assuming the man and woman, both by their
upbringing and by outward circumstances, to have
been able to develop the best capacities within them
and to be meeting now under conditions most
favourable for their union, we shall see how perfect

WOMAN'S BEAUTY 125

is the Beauty which may be revealed. The man
will be in the prime of his manhood, and the
woman in the prime of her womanhood. The
man manly and radiating manhood, the woman
womanly and radiating womanhood : their man-
hood and womanhood welling up within them,
each eager to answer the call of the other.

Hers will be no light and shallow beauty insipid
as milk and water, but will be sweet as the violet,
delicate as the primrose, pure as the lily, yet with
all the sweetness, delicacy and purity, radiant as the
sunrise. And they will be no pale and puny lovers,
soft and mild as doves, and content to lead a dull
and trivial life. They will be high of spirit, grace-
ful, swift, and supple as the greyhound; and as
keenly intent on living a full and varied life with
every moment of it worth while as ever the grey-
hound is in pursuing its object. They will be cap-
able of intense and passionate emotion, yet with all
their eager impulsiveness they will have wills strong
to keep themselves in hand, and to maintain their
direction true through all the mazy intricacies of life
and love.

In the bringing together of such a pair Natural
Beauty will play a vitally important part. Of all
objects that Nature has produced — of all the off-
spring of the Earth — such a man and woman are the
most beautiful. And we may assume that as
they are drawn to each other they will put forth
the very best of themselves and give out the utmost
beauty that is in them. Moreover, they will be
more beautiful to each other than they are to any-
body else. Unconsciously they will reveal to each

126 HOME BEAUTY

other what they can reveal to none other but
themselves. Insensibly the windows of their souls
will be opened to each other. The lovelight in
their eyes — the lovelight which can only be shown
to each other — will discover to them hidden depths
of beauty they had never gathered they possessed.
And this beauty will be something more than
mere prettiness or handsomeness of face. The
man will see the beauty of the woman — and she
his — not only in the face and features, but in the
presence, bearing, and carriage, in the gestures,
movements, and behaviour. Behind the outward
aspect he will see the inward spirit, the real self,
the true nature, the radiant personality. And the
beauty that he sees will fill him with a passionate
yearning, both to give and to possess. He will want
both to give the utmost and best of himself, and also
to possess what so satisfies all the cravings of the
soul. And whether it be to give or to possess that
he most wants he will be unable to distinguish. But,
in the craving to give and possess, the highest stimu-
lus will be afforded him to exert every faculty to its
limit. The effort will give zest, and with zest will
come added powers of vision, so that he will be able
to see both her and his inmost and utmost capabili-
ties. And though the force of outward circum-
stances may prevent both her and him from ever
completely fulfilling those latent possibilities, what
they see of themselves and of each other in those
divine moments may nevertheless be a perfectly true
vision of their real and fundamental nature. Love
is not so blind as is supposed. Love is capable of
seeing clearer and deeper than any other faculty.

LOVE AND BEAUTY 127

What the Artist now sees with the eyes of
Love will be the ground upon which he will have
to form his judgment in the most critical decision
of his life. For the moment will now have
come when he will have to decide whether of all
others he will give himself to her, and whether
he can presume to ask of her that she will give
herself to him — and each to the other for all the
rest of their lives. It is a momentous decision to
have to make. With his highly developed power
of vision he will have divined her true nature. But
he will have now to exercise his judgment on it —
whether it will satisfy the needs of his whole being
and whether his whole being is sufficient to satisfy
her needs. Each has to be sure that his peculiar
nature satisfies — and satisfies fully — his or her own
peculiar needs, and that his peculiar nature satisfies
the other's needs. A wrong decision here is fatal.
The responsibility is fearful. All will depend upon
his keenness of vision, his capacity for discrimina-
tion, and his soundness of judgment. The decision
may be arrived at swiftly and consciously, or it may
be come to unconsciously, gradually, and imper-
ceptibly. But shorter or longer the time, con-
sciously or unconsciously the method, it will have
in the end to be made in a perfectly definite
fashion — yes or no — and from that decision there
can be no going back. And on that clear decision
will hang the future welfare not only of the one
who makes it, but of both. Each, therefore, has
to decide for the welfare of both.

This is the real Day of Judgment. And each
is his own judge. Now all his and her past life

128 HOME BEAUTY

and inborn nature is being put to the test in a
fierce ordeal — and the fiery ordeal of love is more
searching even than the ordeal of war. Every
smallest blot and blemish, every slightest impurity
is shown up in startling clearness. Every flaw at
once betrays itself. What will not bear a strain
immediately breaks down. There is not an imper-
fection which is not glaringly displayed. The
other may not see it, but he himself will — and
upon him is the responsibility.

No wonder that both the one and the other
hesitate to commit themselves finally and irre-
vocably ! Can he with all his blots and blemishes,
his failings and weaknesses, offer to give himself
to the other? Is he worthy to receive all that he
would expect to receive in return? Is he justified
in asking that the wrhole being and the most sacred
thing in life should be given over utterly to him?
It seems astounding that any man should ever have
the impudence to answer such questions in the
affirmative. Doubtless he would not have had
such effrontery but for two considerations.

In the first place he knows that, imperfect as
he may be — downright sinful as he may often have
been — he is not bad at bottom. At heart, he knows
for certain he has capacities for improvement which
would come at once into being if only they had
the opportunity for development. And he knows
that the other could make those opportunities —
could provide the stimulus which would awaken in
him and bring to fruit many a hidden capability
of good. Every faculty in him he now feels being
quickened to an activity never known before.

THE DIVINE SOURCE 129

Blemishes he feels being purged away in the
cleansing fires of pure love. He feels that with
the other he will be, as he has never been before,
his whole and his true self. And this is the first
consideration which gives him confidence.

The second is that he feels himself now to a
very special degree in direct and intimate touch
with the central Heart of Nature. Something
from what he feels by instinct is the Divine Source
of Life and Love comes springing up within him,
penetrating him through and through, supporting
and upholding him and urging him forward. He
feels that he directly springs from that Source, and
that it will ever sustain him as long as he is true
to his own real self, and works for those high ends
towards which he feels himself impelled.

With strong faith, then, he makes his decision —
with strong faith in himself, for he knows himself
to be inspired by the same great Spirit which
animates the whole world of which he is himself
a part. And having in this faith made his decision,
he girds himself for the poignant battle of love.

And as in war so in love men — and women —
rise to altogether unexpected heights of courage,
endurance, and devotion. War is a fine spur to
excellence. But love is an even finer. Every
faculty is quickened and refined. Every "high
quality brought into fullest exercise. Daring and
caution, utter disregard of self and selfishness in
the extreme, are alike required. For the two will
never achieve full wedded union until they have
fought their way through many an interposing
obstacle. Adroitness, and that rare quality, social

130 HOME BEAUTY

courage, will be needed in dealing with ever-
recurring, complicated, painful, and nerve-straining
situations. Even in their attitude towards one
another as they gradually come together the finest
address will be required. For each has necessarily
to be comparing himself and comparing the object
of his love with others ; and each feels that he is
being similarly compared. There can be no final
assurance till the union is completed. A single ill-
judged word or action may ruin all. At any
moment another may be preferred — or at least one
of the two may find the other inadequate or de-
ficient.

All this will afford the highest stimulus to
emulation. Each will strive to excel in what the
other approves and appreciates — or at any rate to
excel in what is his own particular line. He will
be incited to show himself at his best and to be
his best.

But before the bliss of completest union is
attained anguish and rapture in exquisite extremes
will be experienced. For the soul of each will be
exposed in all its quivering sensitiveness, and any
but the most delicate touch will be a torture to it.
Fortitude of the firmest will be required to bear
the wounds which must necessarily come from this
exposure. Each, too, will have to bear the pain
of the suffering they must inevitably be causing
to some few others — and those others among their
very dearest.

As the intimacy of union becomes closer and
closer the call for bodily union will become more and
more insistent. In the first instance — and this is

WEDDING 131

a point which is specially worth noting — the desire
was entirely for spiritual union, for union of the
spirits of each. What each admired and loved in
the other was his or her capacity for love. He
realised what a wonderful love the other could give.
And he yearned with all his heart to have that love
directed towards himself. It was a purely spiritual
union that his heart was set on. The thought of
bodily union did not enter his head. But the need
for bodily touch as a means of expressing human
feeling is inherent in human nature, and becomes
more and more urgent as the feeling becomes
warmer. Friends have to shake hands with each
other and pat each other on the back in order to
show the warmth of their feeling for one another.
Women affectionately embrace one another.
Parents and children, brothers and sisters, kiss
one another. It is impossible adequately to express
affection without bodily touch. And in the case of
lovers, as the love deepens so also deepens the com-
pelling need to express this love in bodily union of
the closest possible.

And so the supreme moment arrives when each
gives himself wholly, utterly, and for ever to the
other — body, soul, and spirit — and they twain are
one. And the remarkable result ensues that each
in giving himself to the other has become more
completely and truly himself than he has ever been
before. He strives to become more and more
closely wedded with the other. He yearns to give
himself more completely and longs that there was
more of himself to give. And he gives him-
self as completely as he can. Yet he has never

132 HOME BEAUTY

before been so fully himself. The closeness and
intimacy of the union, and all that he has received,
has enabled him to bring forth and give utterance
to what had lain deep and dormant within him —
all his fondest hopes, his dearest dreams, his highest
aspirations. Each is more himself in the other.
He is, indeed, not himself without the other. Each
has won possession of the other. Each has with joy
and gladness given himself to the other. Each be-
longs to the other. Each is all the world to the
other — a treasure without price. He is ever after
in her as her own being. And she is in him as
his own being. Apart from each other they are
never again themselves. They are absorbed in
mutual joy in one another.

The intensity of delight is more than they can
bear. It brims up and overflows and goes bursting
out to all the world. By being able to be their whole
selves they have become more closely in touch with
the deepest Heart of Nature and nearest the Divine.
In that hushed and sacred moment when the ecstasy
of life and love is at its highest they have never felt
stronger, purer, lighter, nearer the Divine. They
have reached deep down to the most elemental part
of their nature. And they have soared up highest
to the most Divine. But Divine and elemental,
spiritual and bodily, seem one. There seems to be
nothing bodily which is not spiritual. And nothing
elemental which is not Divine.

It is not often that they will attain these
culminating heights of spiritual exaltation. Nor
will they be able long to remain there. The lark,
the eagle, the airman, have all to come to earth

DIVINE UNION 133

again. And they spend most of their lives on the
earth. But the lovers will have known what it is
to soar. They will have found their wings. They
will have seen heaven once, and breathed its air.
And all nature, all human relationships, will be for
ever after transfigured in heaven's light.

The state of being to which these twain have
now arrived is the highest and best in life. This
spiritual union of man and woman — this union of
their souls which their bodily union has made
possible in completeness — is that which of all else
has most value. The friendship of men for men
and women for women is high up in the scale of
being. But it is not at the supreme summit. The
holy union of man and woman is higher still,
because it is a relation of the whole being of each
to the other, and because it brings both into direct
and closest contact with the Primal Source of
Things, and on the line which points them highest.
The relationship satisfies the whole needs of the
selves of each and satisfies the urgency of the Heart
of Nature.

So now our Artist will have experienced true
spirituality in its highest degree ; and having experi-
enced also the most elemental in his nature, he
will perforce have come in touch with Nature along
her whole range. And his soul being at the finest
pitch of sensitiveness, he will be able to appreciate
Natural Beauty as never before. And nothing less
than natural beauties, and nothing less than these
beauties at their best, will in his exalted mood be
satisfying to him. He will be driven irresistibly

11

134 HOME BEAUTY

into the open air and the warm sunshine, and to
the bosom of Mother-Earth. And there in the
blue of heaven and in dreamy clouds ; in the wide sea,
or in tranquil lakes; in ethereal mountains or in
verdant woodlands ; in the loveliness of flowers, and
in the music of the birds, he will find that which his
spirit seeks — that to which his spirit wants to give
response. Only there in the open, in the midst
of Nature, will he find horizons wide enough,
heights high enough, beauties rich enough, for his
soul's needs.

The flowers as he looks into them will disclose
glories of colour, texture, form, and fragrance he
never yet had seen. The comely forms of trees,
their varying greenery, and the dancing sunlight
on the leaves, will fill him with an intensity of
delight that heretofore he had never known. And
as once more he goes among his fellow-men he
will see them in a newer and a truer light. His
contact with them will be easier; his friendships
deeper; his certainty of affection surer; and his
capacity for entering into every joy and sorrow
immeasurably enlarged.

Through his love, our ideal Artist will have been
enabled to reach deeper into the Heart of Nature
than he had ever reached before, and to feel
more intimately at one with her. And being
thus in warmest touch with her, Natural Beauty,
strong, deep, and delicate as only finest love can
disclose, will be revealed to him. Enjoyment of
Natural Beauty in its perfection is the prize he will
have won.

CHAPTER X

THE NATURE OF NATURE

THE Artist is now in a position to take stock of
Nature as a whole, of her nature, methods, and
manner of working, of the motives which actuate
her — of what, in short, she really is at heart. And
having thus reviewed her, he will have to determine
whether his wider and deeper knowledge of Nature
confirms or detracts from the impression of her
which he had gained from a contemplation of the
forest's innumerable life. Upon this decision will
depend his final attitude towards her. And upon
his attitude towards her depends his capacity for
enjoying Natural Beauty. For if he has any doubt
in his mind as to the goodness of Nature or any
hesitation about giving himself out to her, there
is little prospect of his seeing Beauty in her. He
will remain cold and unresponsive to her calls and
enjoyment of Natural Beauty will not be for him.
And each of us — each for himself — just as much
as the Artist will have to make up his mind on this
fundamental question. If we are to get the full
enjoyment we should expect out of Natural Beauty
we must have a clear and firm conception in our
minds of what Nature really is, what is her essential
character, whether at heart she is cold and callous
or warm and loving. So far as we were justified in

135

136 THE NATURE OF NATURE

drawing conclusions regarding the character of
Nature as a whole from what we saw of her mani-
festations in the life of the forest, we came to the
conclusion that she was not so hard and repellent
as she assuredly would be to us if her guiding
principle of action were the survival of the fittest.
We inferred, rather, from our observations of her
in the forest that she was actuated by an aspiration to-
wards what we ourselves hold to be of most worth and
value. We were therefore not disillusioned by closer
familiarity with her, but more closely drawrn towards
her, and therefore prepared to see more Beauty in
her. Now we have to review Nature as a whole —
that is, in the Starry World as well as on this
Earth — and see if the same conclusions hold good,
and if we are therefore justified in loving Nature,
or if we should view her with suspicion and distrust,
hold ourselves aloof from her, and cultivate a stoic
courage in face of a Power whose character we
must cordially dislike.

There are men who hold that the appearance
of life and love on this Earth is a mere flash in
the pan. and comes about by pure chance. They
believe that life will be extinguished in a twinkling
as we collide with some other star, or will simply
flicker out again as the Sun's heat dies down and
the Earth becomes cold. If this view be correct,
then that impression of the reliability and
kindliness of Nature which we formed when con-
templating the stars in the desert would be a false
impression ; our feelings of friendship with Nature
would at once freeze up and our vision of Beauty
vanish like a wraith.

A SPIRITUAL BACKGROUND 137

Fortunately Truth and Knowledge do not deal
so cruel a blow at Beauty. Far from it : they take
her side. There are no grounds for supposing that
either chance or mechanism produces spirit, or that
from merely physical and chemical combinations
spirit can emerge. Spirit is no casual by-product
of mechanical or chemical processes. Spirit is the
governing factor regulating and controlling the
physical movements — controlling them, indeed, with
such orderliness that we may be apt from this very
orderliness to regard the whole as a machine and fail
to see that all is directed towards high spiritual ends.

If we are to appeal to reason, it is much more
reasonable to assume that spirit always existed, and
that the conditions for the emergence of life were
brought about on purpose, than to assume that
spirit is a mere excretion, like perspiration, of
chemical processes. Certainly the former assump-
tions more clearly fit the facts of the case. For
these facts are, firstly, that we spiritual selves exist,
next that we have ideas of goodness and a deter-
mination to achieve it, next that plant as well as
animal life on this Earth is purposive, then that the
stars, numbering anything from a hundred to a
thousand million, each of them a sun and many of
them presumably with planets, are made of the same
materials as this Earth, the plants, animals, and
ourselves are composed of; that these materials
have the same properties ; that the same fundamen-
tal laws of gravitation, heat, motion, chemical and
electrical action prevail there as here; and lastly
that they are all connected with the Earth by some
medium or continuum of energies, which enables

138 THE NATURE OF NATURE

vibrations, of which the most obvious are the vibra-
tions of light, to reach the Earth from them. These
facts point towards the conclusion that the whole
Universe, as well as ourselves and the animals and
plants on this Earth, is actuated by spirit. Good-
ness we have seen to be working itself out on the
Earth ; and there is nothing we see in the world of
stars that prevents us from concluding that in the
Universe as well as on the Earth what should be is
the ground of what is.

Something higher than life, or life in some
higher form than we know, may indeed have
been brought into being among the stars. Life
has appeared in an extraordinary variety of forms
on this Earth, and it would necessarily appear in
other forms elsewhere. And it is not difficult to
imagine more perfect forms in which it might have
developed. We men are the most highly developed
beings on this planet. But our eyes and ears and
other organs of sense take cognisance of only a few
of the vibrations raining in upon our bodies from
the outside world. There is a vast range of vibra-
tions of the medium in which we are immersed of
which our bodily organs take no cognisance what-
ever. If we had better developed organs we would
be in much more intimate touch with the world
about us, and be aware of influences and existences
we are blind to now. Beings with these superior
faculties may very possibly have come into existence
among the stars.

Nor is there anything unreasonable in the
assumption that from the inhabitants of these stars
in their ensemble issue influences which directly

PURPOSE IN NATURE 139

affect conditions on this Earth ; that in the all in
its togetherness is Purpose ; and that it was due to
the working of this Purpose that conditions were
produced on the Earth which made the emergence
of life possible. To some it may seem that it was
only by chance that the atoms and molecules hap-
pened to come together in such a particular way that
from the combination the emergence of life was pos-
sible. To men of such restricted vision it would
seem equally a matter of chance that a heavenly song
resulted when a dozen choirboys came together,
opened their mouths and made a noise. But men of
wider vision would have seen that this song was no
matter of chance, but was the result of the working
out of a purpose ; that the choirboys were brought
together for a purpose ; and that that purpose was
resident in each of a large number of people
scattered about a parish, but who, though scattered,
were all animated by the same purpose of maintain-
ing a choir to sing hymns. So it is not unreasonable
to suppose that when the particles came together
under conditions that life resulted, they had been
brought together in those conditions to fulfil a
purpose resident in each of a number of beings
and groups of beings scattered about the Universe,
but who, though scattered, were nevertheless
animated by the same purpose. Anyhow, this
seems a more reasonable assumption than the
assumption that the particles came together by pure
chance.

Beings with these superior faculties may very
possibly have emerged among the stars. It would
seem not at all improbable, therefore, that in some

140 THE NATURE OF NATURE

unrecognised ,way conditions on this Earth may
be influenced in their general outlines by what is
taking place in the Universe at large, in the same
way as conditions in a village in India are affected
by public opinion in England as epitomised in the
decisions of the Cabinet. The remote Indian village
is unaware that men in England have decided to
grant responsible government to India in due
course. And even if the villagers were told of this
they would not realise the significance of the decision
and how it would affect the fortunes of their village
for good or ill during the next century or two.
Conditions on this Earth may be similarly being
affected by decisions made in other parts of the
Universe — decisions the significance of which we
would be as totally unable to recognise as the
Indian villagers are to recognise the significance of
the steps towards self-government which have just
been made.

The Universe is so interconnected, and there
is so much interaction between the parts and the
whole, that the Earth may be more affected
than we think by what goes on in the Universe at
large. If there are higher levels of being among
the stars, it may well be that the successive rises
to higher levels on this Earth — from inorganic to
organic, from organic to mental, and from the
mental to the spiritual — have come about through
this interaction between the parts and the whole.
Conditions on this Earth may be more affected than
we are aware of by the Universe in its ensemble, and
by the actions of higher beings in other Earths.

In this very matter of Beauty, for example, it

HIGHER BEINGS 141

may quite possibly be the case that our intimation
of Beauty has been received through the influence
upon the most sensitive among us of beings in
other parts of the Universe. We may be as un-
aware of the existence of those beings or of their
having feelings towards us as the Indian villager
is of the existence of the Cabinet in London or of
the Cabinet's feelings towards him. But these
stellar beings may be exerting their influence all
the same. And it may be because of this influence
that we men are able to see Beauty which escapes
the eye of the eagle. Because of our higher recep-
tiveness and responsiveness we may be able to
receive and respond to spiritual calls from the Heart
of Nature. And thus it may have been that we
men learned to see Beauty, and now learn to see
it more and more. There may be parts of the
Universe where people live their lives in a blaze of
Beauty, and are as anxious to impart to us their
enjoyment of it as certain Freedom-loving English-
men are to instil ideas of Freedom into the villagers
of India.

These, at any rate, are among the possibilities
of existence. It would be the veriest chance if on
this little speck of an Earth the highest beings of
all had come to birth. It may be so, of course.
But the probabilities seem to be enormously great
against it. It seems far more probable that among
the myriads of stars some higher beings than our-
selves have come into existence, and that conditions
on this Earth are affected by the influence which
they exert. We are under no compulsion whatever
to believe that we men are completely at the mercy

142 THE NATURE OF NATURE

of blind forces or that chance rules supreme in
Nature. We have firm ground for holding that
it is spirit which is supreme, and that every smallest
part and the whole together are animated by
Purpose.

So when we view Nature in the tropical forests
and in barren deserts, in mountains and in plains,
in meadows and in woodlands, in seas and in stars,
in animals and in men, we do not see Nature as a
confused jumble with all her innumerable parts
come together in haphazard fashion as the grains
of sand shovelled into a heap — a chance aggregate
of unrelated particles in which it is a mere toss-up
which is next to which and how they are arranged.
Nature is evidently not a chance collection of un-
related particles. We came to that conclusion
when studying the forest, and a study of the stars
shows nothing to weaken that conclusion. Nature
is animated by Purpose.

Yet because Nature is animated by Purpose,
we need not regard her as a machine, a piece of
mechanism which has been designed and put
together, wound up and set going by some outside
mechanician, and regard ourselves as cogs on the
wheels, watching all the other wheels go round and
through the maze of machinery catching sight of
the mechanician standing by and watching his
handiwork. A cog on the wheel as it revolved
would be rigidly confined in its operations : it
would have no choice as to what means it should
employ to carry out its end. Yet even plants have
the power of choice, as we have seen, and use
different means to achieve the same end. They

NO CONFINING PLAN 143

also spend their entire lives in selecting and reject-
ing— in selecting and assimilating what will nourish
their growth and enable them to propagate their
kind, and in rejecting what would be useless or
harmful. These are something more than
mechanical operations ; and if Nature were a
machine, not even plants, much less animals and
men, could have been produced. The operations
of Nature, though orderly, are not mechanical only,
and we cannot regard Nature as a machine.

And if Nature is purposive, she is at work at
something more than the completion of a pre-
arranged plan. We do not picture Nature as a
structure, as a Cathedral, for example, designed
by some super-architect, in process of construction.
In a Cathedral each stone is perfectly and finally
shaped and placed in a position in which it must
ever after remain, and the whole shows signs of
gradual completion as it is being built, and when
it is built remains as it is. The architect has made
and carried out his plan, and there is an end of the
matter. It is not thus that we view Nature, for
everywhere we see signs of perfectibility in the
component parts and in the whole together. Only
if the Cathedral had in it the power to be continually
making its foundations deeper, to be ever towering
higher, and to be perpetually shaping itself into
sublimer form, should we look on Nature as a
Cathedral. But in that case the mind of the
architect would have to dwell in each stone and in
all together, and the Cathedral would be something
more than a structure in the ordinary use of the
word.

144 THE NATURE OF NATURE

Nature is not a chance collection of particles,
nor is she a mere machine, nor some kind of
structure like a Cathedral in course of construction.
But she is a Power of some kind, and what we have
to determine is the kind of Power she is. Now we
have seen that running through the life of the
forest, controlling and directing the whole, is an
Organising Activity. And our observation of the
stars leads us to think that this same Organising
Activity runs through them also. There is quite
evidently an Activity at work keeping the whole
together — the particles which go to form great
suns, the particles which go to form a flower, and
the particles which go to form a man; and all in
their togetherness. Only we would not look upon
this Activity as working anywhere outside Nature :
we would look for it within her. We would not
regard it as emanating from some kind of spiritual t
central sun situated among the stars midway
between us and the farthest star we see — as irradiat-
ing from some sort of centrally-situated spiritual
power-house. As we look up into the starry
heavens we cannot imagine the Activity as residing
in the empty space between the stars or between
the stars and the Earth on which we stand. It
seems absurd to picture its dwelling-place there.
Equally absurd does it seem to regard the Activity
as emanating from some spiritual sun situated far
beyond the confines of the stars, and from there
emitting spiritual rays upon Nature, including us
men. As we look out upon Nature we see that
the Activity which animates her does not issue
from any outside source, but is actually in her.

IMMANENT SPIRIT 145

We do not need to look for the seat of that
animating Activity in the empty spaces of the
starry heavens or anywhere beyond them. We
look for it in the stars themselves, in our own star,
in the Earth, in every particle of which the stars
and Sun and Earth are composed, in every
plant and animal, and in every human heart,
and in the whole together. There it is — and
especially in the human heart — that the soul of
Nature resides. There is its dwelling-place. To
each of us it is nearer than father is to son. It is
as near as "I" am to each one of the myriad
particles which in their togetherness go to make
up the body and soul which is "me." The spirit
of Nature is resident in no remoteness of cold and
empty space. It is deep within us and all around
us. It permeates everything and everybody, every-
where and always. And if we wish to be unmis-
takably aware of its presence, we have only to look
within ourselves, and whenever we are conscious
of a higher perfection which something within,
responding to the influences impinging insistently
on us, is urging us to achieve ; whenever we have
a vision of something more perfect, more lovely,
more lovable, and feel ourselves urged on to reach
after that greater perfection — we are in those
moments directly and unmistakably experiencing
the Divine Spirit of Nature. Whenever we feel
the Spirit within us showing us greater perfectibility
and prompting us to make ourselves and others
more perfect than we have been we are, in that
moment, being directly influenced by the Spirit
of Nature itself. We are receiving inspiration

146 THE NATURE OF NATURE

direct from the genius of Nature, the driving Spirit
which is continually urging her on, and the directing
Spirit which guides her to an end. We are in
touch with the true Heart of Nature.

So as we take a comprehensive view of Nature
both in her outward bodily form and her inner
spiritual reality, and find her to be an intercon-
nected whole in which all the parts are interrelated
with one another, one body and one mind, self-
contained and self-conscious, and driven by a self-
organising, self-governing, self -directing Activity—
we should regard her as nothing less than a Personal
Being. In ordinary language we speak of Nature
as a Person, and when we so speak we should not
regard ourselves as speaking figuratively : we should
mean quite literally and as a fact that she is a Person.
And we should look upon that Personal Being, in
which we are ourselves included, as in process of
realising an ideal hidden within her — an ideal which
in its turn is ever perfecting itself.

What is meant by Nature being a Person, and
a Person actuated by a hidden ideal, and being in
process of realising that ideal, and what is meant
by an ideal perfecting itself, may be best explained
with the help of an illustration.

First it will be necessary to explain how we
can regard Nature as a Person, or at least as nothing
less than a Person — though possibly more. It is
contended by many authorities that we cannot
regard any collective being, such as a college or a
regiment — and Nature is a collective being — as a
true person. But their arguments are unconvinc-

COLLECTIVE PERSONALITY 147

ing. They allow that "I" am a person because
"I" possess rationality and self -consciousness.
But " I " am a system or organisation of innumer-
able beings — electrons, groupings of electrons,
groups of groupings in rising complexity. " I " —
the body and soul which makes up ' ' me ' ' — am
nothing but a collective being myself. And if we
take the case of "England" as an example of a
collective being, we shall see that England has as
much right to be considered a personal being as any
single Englishman, composed as he is of innumer-
able separate beings.

Perhaps to one who is representing England
among strange peoples the personality of England
is more apparent than to those who are constantly
living in England itself. To the foreign people among
whom this representative is living England is a very
real person. What she thinks about them, what
she does, what her intentions are, what is her
character and disposition, are matters of high
interest ; for upon England's good or ill will towards
them may perhaps depend to a large extent their
own future. Viewed from a distance like that,
England quite obviously does possess a character
of her own. She appears to some people large-
hearted and generous ; to others aggressive and
domineering; to most solid, sensible, reasonable,
steadfast, and steady. And to all she has a character
quite distinctive and her own — quite different from
the character of France or of Russia. And England
with equal obviousness thinks. She forms her own
opinions of other nations, of their character, inten-
tions, activities, and feelings. She thinks over her

148 THE NATURE OF NATURE

own line of action in regard to them. She takes
decisions. And she acts. She is for a long time
suspicious of Russia, and takes measures to defend
herself against any possible hostile Russian action.
She later comes to the conclusion that there is no
fundamental difference between her and Russia, so
she takes steps to compose the superficial differences.
Later still, when both she and Russia are being
attacked by a common enemy, she deliberately
places herself on terms of closest friendship with
Russia, and both gives her help and receives help
from her. At the same time, having come to the
conclusion that Germany is threatening her very
life, she makes war on Germany, and prosecutes
that war with courage, endurance, steadfastness
and intelligence, and with a determination to win
at any cost. England has deep feeling, too.
She had a feeling of high exaltation on the day
she determined to fight for her life and freedom.
She had a feeling of sadness and anxiety as things
went against her at Mons, Ypres, Gallipoli, Kut.
She was wild with joy when the war was victoriously
concluded. And she was proud of herself as she
thought how among the sister nations of the Empire
of which she was the centre, and among the allied
nations, she had played a great and noble part.

Now when a body, like England, can thus think
for itself, form its own decisions, take action,
establish friendships, fight enemies, and feel deeply,
surely that body must possess personality. In
ordinary language England is always spoken of as
a person. And ordinary language speaks with
perfect accuracy in this respect.

ENGLAND A PERSON 149

In her relations with individual Englishmen
England also shows her personality. The repre-
sentative abroad feels very vividly how she expects
him to act in certain ways — ways in accordance
with her character and her settled line of action.
And she conveys these expectations to him not only
in formal official instructions from her Government :
the most important of those expectations are con-
veyed iii a far more subtle and intimate but most
unmistakable wray. The English Government did
not write officially to Nelson at Trafalgar that
England expected every man to do his duty. But
Nelson, standing there for England, knew very
well that this was what England was expecting of
him and of those serving under him. A representa-
tive would find it very hard to locate the exact
dwelling-place of the heart and soul and mind of
England, whether in Parliament, or in the Press,
or in the Universities, or in factories, or in the
villages. But that there is an England expecting
him to behave himself in accordance with her
traditions and character, and to act on certain
general but quite definite lines, and who will admire
and reward him if he acts faithfully to her expec-
tations, and condemn and in extreme cases punish
him if he is unfaithful, he has not the shadow of a
doubt. Nor does he doubt that this England,
besides expecting a certain general line of conduct,
will and can constrain him to act in accordance with
her settled determination — that she has authority
and has power to give effect to her will.

And the official governmental representatives
are not the only representatives of England. Every

12

150 THE NATURE OF NATURE

Englishman is a representative of England. How
representative he is he will experience as he finds
himself among strange peoples outside his own
country. He will find then that he has certain
traits and traditions and characteristics which
clearly distinguish him from the people among
whom he is travelling. And unofficial though he
may be, he will yet feel England expecting him
to behave as an Englishman. And though he may
not be so vividly aware of it when he is at home,
he is still a representative of England when he is
in -England itself. In everyday life he is being
expected and constrained by England to act in
certain ways.

Nor is it all a one-sided affair — England
expecting so much of him and he having no say
or control over what England does. On the
contrary, the relationship is mutual. He goes to
the making and shaping of England just as much
as she goes to the making and shaping of him. He
expects certain behaviour of her as she expects such
of him. And if he has gained the confidence of
his fellow-countrymen and has energy and deter-
mination, he may do much to affect her destiny.

England is therefore, so it seems, a person just
as much as a single Englishman is a person.
Englishmen, in fact, only attain their full person-
ality in an England which has personality.

Now Nature, I suggest, in spite of what has
been said against the view, is a Person in exactly
the same wray as England is a person. Nature is
a collective being made up of component beings —

NATURE A PERSON 151

self -active electrons, self -active atoms, self -active
suns and planets, self -active cells, plants, animals,
men, and groups and nations of men — as England
is made up of the land of England and all that
springs therefrom, including the Englishmen them-
selves. Nature thinks and feels and strives as
England thinks and feels and strives. And Nature
cares for her children as England looks after her
sons. It is often said, indeed, that Nature is hard
and cruel. But it is only through the unfailing
regularity and reliability of her fundamental laws —
of her "constitution" — that freedom and progress
are possible. If we could not depend upon perfect
law we could make no advance whatever. We
should all be abroad and uncertain. Yet in spite
of her unbending rigidity over fundamentals, she
does also show mercy and pity. A child toddling
along downhill unregardful of the force of gravitation
falls on its face and screams with pain. But Nature,
represented by the mother, rushes up, seizes the
little thing in her arms, presses it lovingly to her
bosom, rocks it and coaxes it and covers it with
kisses.

So if Nature can think and feel and strive and
show mercy and loving-kindness, she is entitled to
the dignity of personality. And when we stand
back and regard Nature as a whole, we shall look
upon her as a Person and nothing less.

We have now to understand what is meant by
saying that Nature is a Person actuated by a hidden
ideal and being in process of realising that ideal.
When travelling across the Gobi Desert I found a

152 THE NATURE OF NATURE

yellow rose — a dwarf, simple, single rose. It is
known to botanists as Rosa persica, and is believed
to be the original of all roses. I found it on the
extreme outlying spurs of the Altai Mountains.
Now, a seed of the rose, partly under the influence
of its surroundings (soil, moisture, air, sunshine)
but chiefly by virtue of something which it contains
within itself, something inherent in its very nature,
will grow up into a rose-bush and give forth roses.
The seed develops into a rose, not because some
outside super-gardener takes hold of each one of
the million million ultra-microscopic particles of
which it is made up and puts it carefully into its
appointed place, as a builder might put the stones
of a building into their exact places according to
the plans of an architect ; but because each of those
minutest ultimate particles has that within it which
prompts it to act of its own accord in response to
the call of the whole. Each of these electrons is
in incessant and terrific motion, moving at the rate
of something like 180,000 miles a second, so placing
it in position would be a difficult matter. Besides
which, each electron is not a tiny bit of matter as
we ordinarily conceive matter — something which
we can touch and handle. It is a mere centre or
nucleus of energy. Any placing of it in position
by a super-gardener is therefore out of the question.
Each of those little particles moves and acts of
itself in accordance with its own inner promptings,
and in response to the influence of those other
myriads of particles and groups of particles about
it. And that system of these groups of particles
which is enclosed within the rondure of the seed

MOVED BY AN IDEAL 153

must have .within it the ideal of the rose to be.
Each particle will act on its own initiative, but all
will act under the mutual influence of one another,
and in their togetherness .will make up the rose-
spirit, being informed by the ideal of the rose which
in its turn will suffuse the whole. And this rose-
spirit — this rose-disposition — as it gives itself play,
so controls and directs their movements that
eventually the full-blown rose comes into being.

What happens is, we may imagine, much the
same as what happened in the case of Australia.
A handful of settlers from the mother-country
formed the germ-seed from which the Australia of
to-day has grown up. There was no external despot
ordering each individual Australian to do this, that,
and the other — to come this way and go that, and
to stop in one place this year and in another place
the next. Each Australian acting on his own
initiative, and all in their togetherness, created the
Australian spirit, which again reacting upon each
Australian induced him to act in accordance with
that spirit. And so in time Australia, assimilating
individuals from outside and absorbing them into
its texture, and imbuing them with the Australian
spirit, grew up into manhood in the Great War
and astonished the world by its strong individuality,
its character, intelligence, determination, and good
comradeship.

In the same way these particles of the rose-seed,
each acting of itself, in their collectivity formed the
rose-spirit. And each was in turn imbued by the
rose-spirit. They had in them unconsciously the
ideal of the rose-bush with its roots, stem, branches,

154 THE NATURE OF NATURE

leaves, flowers, fruit, seed. In all their activities
they were actuated by this ideal. It was always
constraining them in the given direction. By
reason of the working of it in the particles they
could by no possibility arrange themselves into a
may tree or a lilac bush. There was an inner core
of activity which persisted through all the countless
changes of the process, which permeated the whole
and which kept it directed to the particular end it
had all the time in view. That activity had, in fact,
a well-defined disposition, and that disposition was
defined by the ideal of the rose, and was to form a
rose-bush bearing roses.

That the rose-seed developed into the rose was
due, therefore, not to the operation of any outside
agent, but was due to the operation of the rose-
spirit that it had within it, and which was per-
sistently driving it to bring into actual being that
ideal of the rose which was the essence of its spirit.
The ideal of the rose was the motive-power of the
whole process.

Where the rose-spirit derived from we shall later
on enquire. Here we must note a point of the
utmost importance. The seed of this Rosa persica
is imbued with the spirit of Rosa persica. It has
this ideal working within it. But it is not confined
within the rigid limits of that ideal. It has that
ideal, but something beyond also — something in the
direction of that ideal, but stretching on ahead to
an illimitable distance. The rose-seed developed
not only into the rose-flower, but through the
flowers into numerous rose-seeds. And from the
original .Rosa persica seeds have sprung roses of

THE IDEAL IN PLANTS 155

scores of varieties. Roses of every variety of form,
colour, habit, texture are constantly appearing.
By purposeful mating, and supplying favourable
conditions of soil, temperature, etc., almost any
kind of variety can be produced. So we have not
only yellow roses of every shade from gold and
cream to lemon, but also white and red and pink
roses of every hue. We have single roses and roses
as full as small cabbages. And we have dwarf roses
and roses climbing 50 or 60 feet in height.

From all this it is evident that within the original
seed of Rosa persica was a rose-spirit which refused
to be confined within the limits of Rosa persica
only, but stretched out far beyond as well. The
rose-spirit had latent in it, and was unconsciously
stretching out to, all the beauties \vhich roses have
since attained to, and beyond that again to all the
beauties that are yet to come. The horizon of the
rose-spirit was never confined by a single plan — the
plan of the Rosa persica — as the builder is confined
by the plan of the architect, beyond which he can-
not go. The rose-spirit could reach out along the
line of roses to an unlimited extent . It could produce
nothing but roses ; it could not produce laburnums.
But it could produce roses of unlimited variety,
provided favourable conditions were available.

But the Rosa persica was itself the outcome of
a long line of development from a far-away primor-
dial plant-germ. From that original plant-germ
have sprung all the ferns and grasses, the shrubs
and trees and flowers, of the present day. So in
that plant-germ must have resided the plant-spirit
with an ideal of all this variety of plant-life

156 THE NATURE OF NATURE

actuating it — unconsciously, of course, but most
effectively for all that. The particles of that
original germ in their individual activities and in
their mutual influence upon one another were in
their togetherness actuated by a plant-spirit which
had in mind — so to speak — not only the reproduc-
tion of a plant precisely similar to the original
plant, but one with the possibilities of develop-
ment and of reproducing others with possibilities of
still further development. All that plant life has
so far attained and all that it will attain to in future
— perhaps also all that it might have attained to —
must have been present in the plant-spirit of that
original plant-germ. And it is through the work-
ing out — the realising — of this ideal which actuated
that plant-spirit, and through the response which
this spirit made to the stimulus of its surroundings
that all the wonderful development of plant life has
taken place. The plant-spirit had to keep within
the lines of plant life ; it could not stray beyond it
to develop lions and tigers. But within the lines
of plant life it could stretch out to illimitable dis-
tances. All that was wanted was the stimulus of
favourable conditions, and from its surroundings it
could select, reject, assimilate, all that would
further its end.

In the Gobi Desert I also saw the wild horse —
Equus Prjevalskyi — supposed to be the original
horse. And as the rose springs from the seed, so
the horse develops from the ovum. And by virtue
of the horse-spirit, the horse-ideal, by which all the
innumerable particles of that ovum is actuated, it

THE IDEAL IN ANIMALS 157

develops into a horse, and not into a donkey or a
cow. But the ovum of the original Equus Prje-
valskyi must have had in it the ideal of something
more than the Equus Prjevalskyi, for from the
original stock has sprung the great variety of horses
we see to-day — race-horses, cart-horses, hunters,
polo ponies, Shetland ponies, etc. And these are
still varying. And the Equus Prjevalskyi was itself
the outcome of a long line of development. Like
all other animals, including man, it must have
sprung from an original animal-germ. And the
particles of that original animal-germ must have
had in them the animal-spirit actuated by the ideal
of all the animals of the present day, including man,
and ready to develop as soon as favourable condi-
tions provided the necessary stimulus to which the
germ was ready to respond.

And both the original plant-germ and the
original animal-germ sprang from an original plant-
animal germ. And this, again, from the Earth
itself. So that the Earth must always have had
hidden in it the ideal of all plant and animal and
human life — and not only the ideal of what it has
reached at present, but of all it will become, and, it
is important to note, of all it might become in
future. It is the working of this ideal in the Earth,
from the time five hundred million years or so ago
when it budded off from the Sun as a fiery mist,
that it has, under the influence of the light and heat
of the Sun, and possibly also under the influences
from the Stellar Universe as well, produced what
we see to-day. The Earth-Spirit was inspired by
this ideal, and in the ideal was this capacity for

158 THE NATURE OF NATURE

improving itself. And through the working of this
ideal, and under the influence of the rest of the
world, the Earth has developed from a flaming
sphere into a molten ball, into a globe of barren
land and sea, and so on into the verdure-covered and
animal- and man-inhabited Earth of the present
age. The Earth, like the rose-seed, contained
within it a core of Activity which permeated every
particle and constrained it with its fellow-particles
to direct itself towards the ideal — a core of Activity
which was animated by the ideal, while the ideal
on its part had an innate faculty of perfecting
itself.

But the Earth is itself only a minute mite
even of the Solar System. And the Sun is
only one of perhaps a thousand million other
stars, some so distant that light travelling at the
rate of 186,000 miles a second must have started
from them before the birth of Christ to reach us
to-day. Nevertheless the Earth is composed of the
same ultimate particles of matter that even the
most distant stars are made of. The Earth, the
Sun and stars, are composed of electrons which are
all alike. Doubtless there are individual differences
between electrons as there are between men, but in
a general way they are as much alike as all men
appear alike to an eagle. And of these electrons
the whole Universe is made as well as the Earth.
The same laws of motion, of gravitation, and of
electro-magnetic and chemical attraction, obtain
there as here. The scale of the Stellar World is
immensely larger than the scale we are accustomed
to on this Earth. But the same fundamental laws

THE IDEAL IN THE WORLD 159

everywhere prevail, and the Earth and stars are
composed of the same material.

So it must have been from the Heart of Nature
as a whole that the Earth-Spirit must have derived
the ideal which actuated it. Deep in the Heart of
Nature must have resided the ideal of the state of
the Earth as it is to-day. In the great world as a
whole, as in the rose-seed, must have been operat-
ing an ideal at least of what is on the Earth to-day,
and of what this Earth will become and of what it
might become ; and possibly also of greater things
which have already been realised, or will be realised
and might be realised in the planets of other suns
than our Sun. There must ever have been work-
ing throughout the Universe an Activity constrain-
ing the ultimate particles in a given direction.
There must have been an Organising Activity,
collecting the diffused particles together, grouping
them into concentrated organisms and achieving
loftier and loftier modes of being. Each of those
inconceivably numerous and incredibly minute
particles which make up the stars and the Earth
and all on it — each one acted of itself. But each
acted of itself under the influence of its fellows —
that is, of every other particle ; that is, of the whole.
Each acted in response to its surroundings, but its
surroundings were nothing short of the whole of
Nature outside itself. Together they formed the
Spirit of Nature with the ideal as its essence. And
Nature in her turn acted on the particles — as
Englishmen form the spirit of England and the
spirit of England acts back upon individual
Englishmen.

160 THE NATURE OF NATURE

It was the working of this Spirit, with its self-
improving ideal, that has produced Nature as we
see her to-day. The distant ideal furnished the
motive-power by which the whole is driven forward.
And this ideal was itself built up by the unceasing
interaction of the whole upon the parts and the
parts upon the whole. What was in the parts
responded to the stimulus of what was in the whole,
and the whole was affected by the activity of the
parts. What was immanent responded to what
was transcendent. And the transcendence was
affected by the immanence.

CHAPTER XI

NATURE'S IDEAL

IF we have been right so far, we have arrived at the
position that Nature is a Personal Being in process
of realising an ideal operating within herself. We
have now to satisfy ourselves as to the character of
that ideal. What is the full ideal working in the
whole of Nature we cannot possibly know. We
can only know so much of it as can be detected with
our imperfect faculties on this minute atom of the
Universe on which we dwell. We cannot be sure
we have even discerned the highest levels of the
ideal. For there may be higher beings than our-
selves on the planets of the stars, and among those
higher beings higher qualities than any we know of,
or can conceive, may have emerged. Love is the
highest quality we know. But love in any true
sense of the word — love as a self-conscious activity
— has only emerged with man, and man has only
appeared within the last half-million of the Earth's
four or five hundred million years of existence as
the Earth. We cannot, therefore, presume to say
what is the ideal in its highest development for the
whole of Nature.

But from our experience here we can see what
that ideal is up to (what for us is) a very high level,
and we can make out what is apparently its funda-
161

162 NATURE'S IDEAL

mental characteristic. I obtained my best con-
ception of it on the evening I left Lhasa at the con-
clusion of my Mission to Tibet in 1904, when I
had an experience of such value for determining
Nature's ideal, and, for me at any rate, so convinc-
ingly corroborative of the conclusions which others
who have had similar experiences have drawn from
them as to Nature's ideal, that I hope I may be
excused for relating in some detail the circum-
stances in which it came to me.

These circumstances, though not the experience
itself, were somewhat exceptional. I was at that par-
ticular moment at the highest pitch of existence —
that is to say, of my own existence. I had had
an unusually wide experience of the wild countries
of that most interesting and varied of the continents
— Asia, and for that reason had been specially
selected for the charge of a Mission to Tibet.
However ill-qualified I might be for other tasks, for
this particular business of establishing neighbourly
relations with a very secluded and seclusive Asiatic
people, difficult of approach both on account of their
natural disposition and of the mighty mountain
barrier which stood between them and the rest of
the world, I was esteemed to have peculiar qualifi-
cations. My comrades were also men selected for
their special qualifications — one for his knowledge
of the Tibetans, another for his knowledge of the
Chinese, another for his knowledge of geology, and
so on. The troops engaged were selected for their
experience in frontier warfare, and each man had
had to pass a medical test. We were at the top of
our physical fitness and ripe in experience.

BATTLING WITH NATURE 163

Besides British officers and a few British troops,
there were among the soldiers Sikhs, Pathans,
Gurkhas, a few Bengalis, a few Rajputs and
Dogras ; and among the followers were Bhutias and
Lepchas from Sikkim, Baltis from Kashmir,
Bhutanese from Bhutan. There were thus Chris-
tians, Mohammedans, Hindus, and Buddhists :
men from an island in the Atlantic, and men from
the remotest valleys of the Himalaya. And our
destination had been a sacred city hidden two hun-
dred miles behind the loftiest range of mountains
in the world.

On our way we had had to battle with the
elements of Nature in very nearly their extremest
forms and in every variety. We started in the
sweltering heat of the plains of India in the hottest
season. We passed the lower outer ranges of the
Himalaya in the midst of torrential rain, like the
heaviest thunder-shower in England, continuing all
day long and day after day with scarcely a break,
and penetrating through a waterproof coat as if it
were paper. Following this we had to cross the
main axis of the Himalaya in January, to pass the
winter at an altitude of 15,000 feet above sea-level,
and face blizzards which cut through heavy fur
coats and left us as if we were standing before it in
our bare bones.

We had also had to battle with the Tibetans —
not only in actual fighting, but in diplomacy as well.
I had deliberately risked my life in order to effect
a settlement by persuasion and without resort to
arms. Officers and men at my request had done
the same. Subsequently we had both attacked and

164 NATURE'S IDEAL

been attacked. Five hundred of us had for two
months to face the attacks of eight thousand
Tibetans. Later, again, we had had a long, tough,
diplomatic contest with the Tibetans.

Besides battling with the elements and with the
Tibetans, I had also had to battle with my own
people — as is always and inevitably the case on such
occasions. Military and political considerations
had to contend against each other. This local
question between India and Tibet was part of the
general international question of the relations of
European nations, Russia, France, Germany,
Italy, America, with China, for Tibet was under
the suzerainty of China. Local considerations had
therefore to contend with international considera-
tions. Then from the local point of view the
permanent settlement of this particular question
was desirable, whereas those responsible for the
international situation would not object to a tem-
porary arrangement of this single question as long
as the whole general situation could be favourably
secured. The Tibetan question was part of the
whole question of our relations with Russia. Our
relations with Russia were connected with our
relations with France. We were coming to an
arrangement with France as regards Egypt and
Morocco. If we did anything in Tibet which
vexed Russia she might be troublesome as regards
Egypt, and make it difficult to come to an arrange-
ment with France and to bring off the Anglo-
French Entente. Of all these international con-
siderations I was kept aware by Government even
in the heart of Tibet. But my position required

BATTLING WITH MEN 165

that I should stand up for the political as against
the military, the local as against the international,
and the permanent settlement as against the tem-
porary arrangement. It was my duty vigorously
to battle for this — as it was equally the duty of the
military and those responsible for international
affairs to battle for their own point of view. And
of course I had to submit, after contesting my
standpoint, to the decision of those in authority ;
though I had to contend for the particular, it was
the general which had to prevail.

In the end a settlement was reached, and in this
remote city we had received congratulations from
many different people in many different lands. The
troops, my staff, and all about me were filled
with delight at the success of our enterprise.
Even the Tibetans themselves seemed pleased
at the settlement; at any rate, they asked to
be taken under our protection. On the morn-
ing we left Lhasa the Lama Regent, who in the
absence of the Dalai Lama had conducted negotia-
tions with us, paid us a farewell visit and gave us
the impression of genuine goodwill towards us.
We and the Tibetans had contended strongly against
one another. But it seemed that a way had been
found by which good relations between us could be
maintained. We had discovered that funda-
mentally we were perfectly well-disposed towards
each other, and means had been found for compos-
ing our differences. Throughout the Mission we
had kept before us the supreme importance of
securing this goodwill eventually. The Tibetan
frontier runs with the Indian frontier for a thousand

13

166 NATURE'S IDEAL

miles, and it would have been the height of folly to
have stirred up in the Tibetans a lasting animosity.
Far more important, then, than securing the actual
treaty we regarded securing the permanent good-
will ; and when I felt that through the exertion of
my Staff and the good behaviour of the troops as
well as through my own efforts the goodwill of the
Tibetans really had been secured, my satisfaction
was profound.

It was after enduring all these hardships, after
running all these risks, and after battling in all these
controversies, that this deep satisfaction came upon
me. For though at times I felt, as every leader
feels in like circumstances, that success must
have been due to everyone else besides myself — to
the backing and firm direction I had received from
Government, to the sound advice and help of my
Staff, to the bravery and endurance of the troops,
without all or any one of which aids success would
have been unattainable — yet I could not help also
feeling that I had often on my own responsibility to
make decisions and run risks, and to give advice to
Government ; and that if I had erred in my decisions
or in the advice I gave or in taking the risks, success
most assuredly would not have been achieved, how-
ever much support I received from elsewhere. I
had, therefore, that satisfaction a man naturally
feels when his special qualifications and training and
the experience he has gained during the best part of
his life have proved of acknowledged good to his
country. And this was the frame of mind in which I
rode out of Lhasa on our march homeward.

These were the circumstances in which I had the

IN TUNE WITH NATURE 167

experience I now venture to describe. After
arrival in camp I went off into the mountains alone.
It was a heavenly evening. The sun was flooding
the mountain slopes with slanting light. Calm and
deep peace lay over the valley below me — the valley
in which Lhasa lay. I seemed in tune with all the
world and all the world seemed in tune with me.
My experiences in many lands — in dear distant
England ; in India and China ; in the forests of
Manchuria, Kashmir, and Sikkim ; in the desert of
Gobi and the South African veldt ; in the Hima-
laya mountains ; and on many an ocean voyage ; and
experiences with such varied peoples as the Chinese
and Boers, Tibetans and Mahrattas, Rajputs and
Kirghiz — seemed all summed up in that moment.
And yet here on the quiet mountain-side, filled as
I was with the memories of many experiences that
I had had in the high mountain solitudes and in the
deserts of the world away from men, I seemed in
touch with the wide Universe beyond this Earth
as well.

A fter the high tension of the last fifteen months,
I was free to let my soul relax. So I let it open
itself out without restraint. And in its sensitive
state it was receptive of the finest impressions and
quickly responsive to every call. I seemed to be
truly in harmony with the Heart of Nature. My
vision seemed absolutely clear. I felt I was seeing
deep into the true heart of things. With my soul's
eye I seemed to see what was really in men's hearts,
in the heart of mankind as a whole and in the Heart
of Nature as a whole.

And my experience was this — and I try to

168 NATURE'S IDEAL

describe it as accurately as I can. I had a curious
sense of being literally in love with the world.
There is no other way in which I can express what I
then felt. I felt as if I could hardly contain myself
for the love which was bursting within me. It
seemed to me as if the world itself were nothing but
love. We have all felt on some great occasion an
ardent glow of patriotism. This was patriotism ex-
tended to the whole Universe. The country for
which I was feeling this overwhelming intensity of
love was the entire Universe. At the back and
foundation of things I was certain was love — and
not merely placid benevolence, but active, fervent,
devoted love and nothing less. The whole world
seemed in a blaze of love, and men's hearts were
burning to be in touch with one another.

It was a remarkable experience I had on that
evening. And it was not merely a passing roseate
flush due to my being in high spirits, such as a
man feels who has had a good breakfast or has
heard that his investments have paid a big dividend.
I am not sure that I was at the moment in what are
usually called high spirits. What I felt was more of
the nature of a deep inner soul-satisfaction. And
what I saw amounted to this — that evil is the super-
ficial, goodness the fundamental characteristic of the
world; affection and not animosity the root dis-
position of men towards one another. Men are in-
herently good not inherently wicked, though they
have an uphill fight of it to find scope and room for
their goodness to* declare itself, and though they are
placed in hard conditions and want every help they
can to bring their goodness out. Fundamentally

LOVE AT THE HEART 169

men are consuming with affection for one another
and only longing for opportunity to exert that affec-
tion. They want to behave straightly, honourably,
and in a neighbourly fashion towards one another,
and are only too thankful when means and condi-
tions can be found which will let them indulge this
inborn feeling of fellowship. Wickedness, of
course, exists. But wickedness is not the essential
characteristic of men. It is due to ignorance,
immaturity, and neglect, like the naughtinesses of
children. It springs from the conditions in which
men find themselves, and not from any radical in-
clination within themselves. With maturity and
reasonable conditions the innate goodness which is
the essential characteristic will assert itself. This
is what came to me with burning conviction. And
it arose from no ephemeral sense of exhilaration,
nor has it since evaporated away. It has remained
with me for fifteen years, and so I suppose will
last for the rest of my life. Of course in a sense
there has been disillusionment, both as to myself
and as to the world. As one comes into the dull
round of everyday life the glow fades away and all
seems grey and colourless. Nevertheless, the con-
viction remains that the glow was the real, and that
the grey is the superficial. The glow was at the
heart and is what some day will be — or, anyhow,
might be.

An additional ground I have for believing it to
be true is that on that mountain-side near Lhasa I
had a specially favourable opportunity of looking at
the world from, as it were, a proper focal distance.
And it is only from a proper focal distance that we

170 NATURE'S IDEAL

can see what things really are. If we put ourselves
right up against a picture in the National Gallery
we cannot possibly see its beauty — see what the
picture really is. No man is a hero to his own valet.
And that is not because a man is not a hero, but
because the valet is too close to see the real man.
Cecil Rhodes at close quarters was peevish, irritable,
and like a big spoilt child. Now at a distance we
know him, with all his faults, to have been a great-
souled man. Social reformers near at hand are
often intolerable bores and religious fanatics
frequently a pestilential nuisance. We have to get
well away from a man to see him as he really is.
And so it is with mankind as a whole.

So I become more and more certain that my
vision was true. And the experience of the Great
War strengthens my conviction. As we recede from
it, what will stand out, we may be sure, are not the
crimes and cruelties that have been committed and
the suffering that has been caused, but the astound-
ing heroism which was displayed, the self-sacrifice,
the devotion and love of country that were shown —
heroism and devotion such as have never before in
the world's history been approached, and which was
manifested by common everyday men and women
in every branch of life and in every country.

The conclusion I reach from this experience is
that I was, at the moment I had it, intimately m
touch with the true Heart of Nature. In my ex-
ceptionally receptive mood I was directly experienc-
ing the genius of Nature in the very act of inspiring
and vitalising the whole. I was seeing the Divinity

DIVINE FELLOWSHIP 171

in the Heart streaming like light and heat through
every part of Nature, and with the dominating force-
fulness of love lifting each to its own high level.

And my experience was no unique experience.
It was an experience the like of which has come to
many men and many women in every land in all
ages. It may not be common ; but it is not un-
usual. And in all cases it gives the same certainty
of conviction that the Heart of Nature is good, that
men are not the sport of chance, but that Divine
Love is a real, an effectively determining and the
dominant factor in the processes of Nature, and
Divine fellowship the essence of the ideal which is
working throughout Nature and compelling all
things unto itself.

CHAPTER XII

THE HEART OF NATURE

THAT Nature is a Personal Being — or at least
nothing less than a Personal Being — that she is
actuated by an ideal, and that her ideal, so far as we
are able to judge, is an ideal of Divine Fellowship,
is the conclusion at which we have now arrived.
But we shall understand Nature better, and so see
her Beauty more fully, if we can understand how
she works out this ideal in detail. And we shall best
understand how she works it out if we examine what
goes on within our own selves and see how we work
out the ideal with which we believe Nature herself
has inspired us. For it is in ourselves that the
dominating spirit of Nature is most clearly mani-
fested to us. And being ourselves the instruments
and agents of Nature, and informed through and
through with her spirit, we ought to be able to
understand how she works if only we look carefully
enough into the working of our own inner selves.

What we find is that under the inspiration of the
genius of Nature we are perpetually projecting in
front of us a pattern or standard of what we think
we ought to be, or should like to be, and of what we
think our country and the world ought to be. We
set up an ideal. It is generally very vague. But
there is always at the back of our minds an idea of
172

PICTURING THE IDEAL 173

something more perfect. And this idea we bring
out from time to time from its seclusion and set up
before us as an end to aim at.

Sometimes we deliberately try to draw the out-
lines of this ideal more definitely. Each of us will
picture a slightly different ideal to the rest. The
ideal men will differ just as much as actual men,
and the ideal countries as much as actual countries.
No two will be exactly alike. And each of us will
probably make his ideal man very different from
himself — perhaps the exact opposite, for each will
be peculiarly conscious of his own imperfections and
shortcomings.

But if the ideal man which each sets up differs
in small particulars from what others set up, the
general outline of all will probably be very much the
same, as men in general are much the same when
compared with other animals. All will be based on
the idea of fellowship. So aided by examples chosen
from among our friends, we may here attempt to
build up an ideal type of man. For the effort will
help us to realise better both what Nature is aiming
at and how she works.

Formerly we might have drawn this ideal man
upright, straight, rigid, unbending. More recently
we might have drawn him as a super-man, the
fittest-to-survive kind of man, all muscular will,
intent only on bending every other will to his and
crashing relentlessly on through life like a bison in
the forest. But nowadays we want a man with the
same reliability as the upright type, but with grace
and suppleness in place of rigidity; and with the
same strength as the super-man, but with gentle-

174 THE HEART OF NATURE

ness and consideration in proportion to the strength.
We do not want a man of wood ; and what we do
want is not so much a super-man as a gentle-man —
a man of courtesy and grace as well as strength.

The stiff and stilted type of a bygone age will
have melted under the warmth of deepening fellow-
ship and become flowing and fluid. The man of this
type will not only be full of consideration for others,
but will naturally, out of a full and overflowing heart
and of his own generous prompting, eagerly enter
into the lives and pursuits, the hopes and fears, the
joys and sorrows of those with whom he is con-
nected. And with all this wide general kindliness
he will be something more than merely amiable and
good-natured, and will have capacity for intense
devotion for particular men and women. He will
necessarily have fine tact and address, adroitness and
skill in handling difficult and delicate situations, and
the sensitiveness to appreciate the most hidden feel-
ings of others. Wit and distinction he will have,
too, with ability to discern the real nature of people
and events, and to distinguish the best from the good,
and the good from the indifferent and bad. He
will also possess that peculiar sweetness of disposi-
tion which is only found when behind it is the surest
strength. And with all his gentleness, tenderness,
and capacity for sympathy he will have the grit and
spirit to hold his own, to battle for his rights, and to
fight for those conditions which are absolutely
necessary for his full development. He will, in
addition, have the initiative to think out and strike
out his own line and to make his own mark.

He will be a man of the world in the sense of

THE IDEAL MAN 175

being accustomed to meet and mix with men in
many different walks of life and of many different
nationalities. And he will be a man of the home in
the sense of being devoted to his own family circle.
He will be at home in the town and at home in the
country ; adapted to the varied society, interests,
and pursuits which town life can afford, but devoted
also to the country, to the open air and elemental
nature and animals and plants.

A fixed principle and firm determination with
him will be to do his duty — to do his social duty, to
do the right thing at whatever temporary cost to
himself. The right thing for him will be that which
produces most good. And he will deem that the
most good which best promotes human fellowship,
warms it with love, colours it with beauty, en-
lightens it with truth, and sweetens it with grace.
Finally, and culminatingly, he wrill have that spiritu-
ality and fine sensitiveness of soul which will put
him in touch with the true Heart of Nature and
make him eagerly responsive to the subtlest
promptings which spring therefrom ; so he will be
possessed of a profound conviction, rooted in the
very depths of his being, that in doing the right
thing, or in other words pursuing righteousness, he
is carrying out the will and intention of that Divine
Being whom we here call Nature but whom we
might also call God.

This, or something like it, is the ideal of a man
which most of us would form under the impress and
impetus of the indwelling genius of Nature. But
this ideal can only be reached by an individual when
his country also has reached it. He will be driven,

176 THE HEART OF NATURE

therefore, to make his country behave and act up to
this ideal. And his country cannot so act till the
general society of nations conducts itself on the same
general lines. His country, therefore, will be
driven to make the general society of nations behave
in accordance with the principles of high fellowship.

We have made for ourselves the ideal of a man.
It remains to show that the finest pitch of all is only
reached in the union of man and woman. The man
is not complete without the woman, nor the woman
without the man. It is in their union, therefore,
that the ideal in its greatest perfection will be seen.
The flower which results from the working of the
ideal in the Heart of Nature, as the flower of the
rose results from the working of the rose-ideal in the
heart of the rose-seed, we see in the love of man and
woman at the supreme moment of their union.
This is the very holiest thing in Nature. It is then
that both the man and the woman are to the fullest
extent themselves, both to be and to express all that
is in them to be. They love then to their extreme
capacity to love. They are gentle then to the
utmost limit of tenderness. And they are strong
then to the farthest stretch of their strength.

And while they thus reach the very acme of
Nature's ideal so far as we men can discern it, they,
at the same time and in so doing, touch the very
foundations of Nature as well. Mathematicians
have discovered that there is no such thing as a per-
fectly straight line, and that curvature is a funda-
mental property of the physical world. So also is
it in the spiritual world. As we reach the topmost

MAN AND WOMAN 177

height of the ideal we find that it has curved round,
and that we are at that moment at the very base and
foundation. What is attracting us forward in the
farthest distance in front is the very thing that is
urging us forward from behind. Pinnacle and
foundation, source and end, meet.

The love which attracted the man and woman
together and which they keep striving to attain in
higher and higher degree, is the same as the creative
impulse which comes surging up from the very
Heart of Nature. Direct and without ever a break
it has come out of the remotest past and deepest
deeps. Few seem aware of this, and yet it is an
obvious fact — and a fact which vastly increases our
sense of intimacy with Nature. It was due to the
same impulse which has brought the man and
woman together that they themselves were brought
into being. Their parents had b^en attracted by
the same vision of love and impelled by the same
impulse. Their parents' parents had been similarly
attracted and impelled, and so on back and back
through the whole long line of ancestry, through
half a million years to primitive men, back beyond
them again through the long animal ancestry for
scores of millions of years to the beginning of life.
Even then there is no break. Direct from the very
Fountain Source of Things this creative impulse has
come bursting up into their hearts. At the moment
of union they are straight along the direct line of
the whole world-development, so far as this planet
is concerned. The elemental in the natural im-
pulse is the most ultimately elemental, for it derives
itself straight from the pure Origin of Things. As

178 THE HEART OF NATURE

they reach after the most Divine they are impelled
by the most elemental. What, in fact, happens is
that the elemental is inspired through and through
with the Divine.

The union of man and woman is the flower of
Nature. But, like the rose, it bears within it the
seed from which some still more beautiful flower
may result. No pair, however sublime their union,
suppose that it is the best that could by any pos-
sibility at any time exist. An absolutely perfect
union depends upon an absolutely perfect pair in
absolutely perfect surroundings. And no one sup-
poses that he himself is perfect or that the world
around him is perfect. So there is in the pair a con-
sciousness of imperfection, a vision of perfection,
and a desperate yearning to be more perfect and to
make the world more perfect. Deep and strong as
the creative impulse itself is the impulse to improve-
ment. It is due to this impulse that the mother
reaches over her child with such loving care, strives
to shield it from all harm, social as well as physical,
and to give it a better chance than she herself en-
joyed. It is due to this same impulse that the man
works to leave his profession, his business, his
science, his art, his country, better than he found it.
It is due to this impulse also that men as a whole are
driven to improve the whole Earth, to improve
plants, flowers, trees, animals, men, and make the
world a better place for their successors than it has
ever been for them.

The pair — even the most splendid pair that has
ever wedded — have deep within them this perhaps
unrecognised impulse to improvement. They

PERFECTING THE IDEAL 179

know that the rose can only bring forth roses, and
that they can only bring forth men : they know that
they cannot bring forth angels. But they know
also that the rose, when wisely mated and its off-
spring provided with favourable surroundings of
soil and air and sunshine, can give rise to blooms in-
comparably more perfect than itself. And they
know that they themselves, if they have wisely
mated, if they carefully tend their offspring and
provide them with healthy, sunny, physical and
social surroundings, can give rise, in generations to
come, to unions of men and women incomparably
more perfect than their own — as much more perfect
as their union is than the unions of primitive men —
richer in colour, more graceful in form, sweeter in
fragrance, and of an altogether finer texture.

This, then, is the ideal in its completeness which
we set up before us. But we have no sooner set it
up than we find that the presence of this ideal within
us makes us restless, unsatisfied, discontented; till
we have set to work to bring things up to it ; and
that when we do start improving them we are
forthwith involved in endless strife. Improvement
means effort. It does not come by itself. It is
only effected by strong, persistent, determined
effort. It was no easy matter for the particles in
the rose-seed to battle their way through the hard
seed-case, strike down into the soil, send up shoots
into the air, stand steadfastly to their ideal of the
rose, and produce a seed capable of bringing forth a
still more perfect flower. And it is no easy matter
for us to burst through our own shells, strike our

180 THE HEART OF NATURE

roots far down into the soil of common humanity
and common animality, and there firmly rooted
strike up skyward, stand faithfully to our ideal, and
produce something which will have capacity for still
further improvement. Immense and sustained
effort is required of us for this to be accomplished.

Each man finds he has to battle with himself to
make way for all the best in himself to come to the
front. Each has to battle with the circumstances in
which he is placed in order to find scope for the exer-
cise of the best in himself. Each has to break his
way through, as that wonder of Nature, poor primi-
tive man, had to battle his way through the impedi-
ments of the tropical forests and the brute beasts by
which he was surrounded . And just as primitive man
was not the animal provided with the thickest hide
like the rhinoceros, nor with sharpest claws like the
lion, nor with the fiercest temper like the tiger, but
was of all his fellows the one with the most sensitive
nature, so are those nearest the ideal the most
delicately sensitive of mankind.

The ideal is never approached, much less at-
tained, except by men and women of the most
highly-strung natures — natures peculiarly sus-
ceptible to pain. And with this extra susceptibility
to pain they have to expose to the risk of wounds
and bruises the most sensitive parts of their natures.
Suffering is therefore inevitably their lot. It is the
invariable attendant of progress however beneficent.
Excruciating pain each expects to have to endure —
as every expectant mother and every soldier antici-
pates on the physical plane.

We find, too, that in working out our ideal we

DISCIPLINE 181

are not only required to endure pain, but to submit
to the sternest discipline. First, we need self -dis-
cipline. Each individual finds that he is required
to exercise his faculties to the full, make the utmost
of himself, attain to the highest of which he is cap-
able, and be ready for any sacrifice. So he must
train his faculties to the highest. He is required
also to work in concert with his fellows. The stern
obligation is therefore upon him to forgo his own
private advantage in order that the common end
may be achieved. This obligation he has readily to
acknowledge and submit to. He has also to acknow-
ledge what he owes to Nature, what is his duty to
Nature. And that duty he has to perform and her
authority he has to admit. He can retain his free-
dom and initiative and enterprise. But he has to
obey the laws of Nature, acknowledge her authority,
submit to her discipline. No soldiers were more
full of independence and initiative than the Aus-
tralians, but no troops at the end of the War realised
better than they did that success can only be
achieved through strictest discipline as well as free-
dom and initiative. The lover also knows that only
through the sternest discipline and constraint upon
himself is his object attained. Thus there is an im-
perative necessity upon a man to be orderly in his
behaviour, loyal, faithful, dutiful, and obedient to
the ideal within him. Any failure in loyalty and
obedience is a sin against Nature and a sin against
himself. The call of honour and of humanity is upon
him, and that call he has to obey without hesitation.
Equally are men expected to be ready to
exercise authority, to maintain discipline and pre-
14

182 THE HEART OF NATURE

serve order. The exercise of authority is no less an
obligation and duty upon men than obedience to it.
And the one has to be practised just as much as the
other. Or, rather, the exercise of authority has to
be practised more, for it is more difficult and more
valuable. And the proper exercise of authority,
maintenance of discipline, and preservation of
order, is a duty men owe ultimately to Nature her-
self. For it is from Nature that they finally
derive their authority and to Nature that they are
ultimately responsible.

Whether as captain of the eleven or as head of
the house at school, as manager of an office or a
business, as policeman or foreman, as corporal or
Commander-in-Chief, as administrator or Prime
Minister, whether as nurse, parent, or school-
mistress, a man or woman is in his position of
authority directly or indirectly on the appointment
or choice of those over whom he has to exercise
authority. He is there to exercise authority for
their benefit. They have placed him — as the public
place the policeman — in authority for that purpose.
And they have a right to expect that he will exercise
his authority with decision, maintain discipline with
firmness, and preserve order \vith even-handed
justice. For only then can they themselves know
where they are, get on with their own duties amd
affairs, and fulfil the law of their being. Ultimately
those in authority are chosen by, and are responsible
to, those over whom they exercise authority. And
those who choose them expect and require them
to exercise authority authoritatively.

Each in his own particular sphere, in that par-

LEADERSHIP 183

ticular place and for the time being, has to exercise
his authority with strictness. Otherwise the rest
cannot fulfil their own duties. The policeman has
to exercise his authority even over a Prince, as
otherwise there might be chaos in the streets and
no one would be able to get about his business with
surety. The whole people have chosen each for his
particular position of authority, and for their benefit
expect him to exercise it strictly.

The people, again, spring from Nature as a
whole. They are the representatives of Nature.
Those in authority are therefore, in their particular
province, for that particular purpose, and for the
time being the representatives of Nature. They
are accountable to Nature, and Nature expects
them as her representatives to exercise authority
with wisdom and discretion, but on the same basic
principles of absolute fairness and perfect orderli-
ness that she herself in her elemental aspects exer-
cises her authority.

Besides obeying authority and exercising
authority, men have also to practise leadership.
Merely to give and obey orders is nothing like
sufficient. In most things a man follows some
leader, but in each man there is one thing — his own
particular line — in which he can lead. In that line
he is expected to qualify himself for leadership, and
be prepared to take the risks of high adventure.
For it is only through leadership, through someone
venturing out beyond the ruck and getting his
fellows to follow him, that any progress is made.
Mere obedience to authority and exercise of
authority never initiate any new departure. These

184 THE HEART OF NATURE

only provide the conditions for progress. In addi-
tion to these the divine gift of leadership is required.
Leadership is therefore the supremely important
quality which men require.

But men cannot intelligently act in concert and
alertly; cannot willingly submit themselves to a
rigid discipline; cannot exercise authority with
confidence and weight ; and cannot lead so that
others may follow, unless all are animated by the
same idea. And they are not likely to sacrifice their
lives for that idea unless they are convinced of its
value. Only for the most precious things in life do
men willingly give up their lives. And before they
submit to unquestioning discipline and sacrifice
themselves for an ideal they need a clear under-
standing of that ideal and a just appreciation of its
value. So they think out the ideal with greater
precision and make sure that what they are aiming
at is nothing short of the highest. Now the ideal
of fellowship enriched with beauty and elevated to
the Divine is one which all can understand and of
which all can see the value. Because it is the high-
est it is satisfying to the deepest needs and cravings
of their nature, and is therefore of a value beyond all
reckoning. Assured of that, they summon up all the
courage and fortitude that is theirs, all their spirit
and mettle, to endure unflinchingly the pain that
must be theirs. And in spite of the effort, the long,
strict training, the rigid discipline, the hardship and
suffering they have to undergo, they joyfully play
their part because they are assured in their hearts
that what they are living for and would readily die
for is supremely worth while . Deep in their hearts is

NATURE'S METHOD 185

that divine joy of battle that fighters for the highest
always feel. And they fight with power and con-
viction because they know that their ideal has come
into their hearts straight from Nature herself, and
experience has shown that what Nature has in mind
she does in the end achieve : she not only has the will
and intention but the power to carry into effect what
she determines.

This is how we formulate the ideal to ourselves
in ever-developing completeness; and this is how
with pain and effort but with over-compensating joy
we carry it into effect. And these experiences of
ours in the formulation and working out of our ideal
give us the clue to the manner in which Nature on
her part works out her ideal. We are the representa-
tions and representatives of the whole, and we may
assume that the whole works in much the same way
as we ourselves work. If this be so we may expect
to find that Nature will work as an artist works,
that is, out of his own inner consciousness, spon-
taneously generating and continually creating new
and original forms approaching (through a process
of trial and error experimentation) more and more
closely to that ideal of perfection which he has al-
ways, though often unconsciously, before him. And
this is how we actually do find Nature working.
We find her reaching after perfection of form,
now in one direction, now in another ; first
in plants, next in animals, then in insects,
then in birds, then in apes, then in men, here
in one type and there in another, never reach-
ing complete perfection anywhere, any more than

186 THE HEART OF NATURE

the greatest artist ever does in any particular, but
still reaching perfection in a higher and higher
degree, and making the state of the whole of a richer
and intenser perfection.

We have, therefore, ample evidence that Nature
is actuated by an intention to enrich perfection and
is continually working towards it. So we have
confidence that Nature, hard and exacting though
she be, is only exacting in order that the Highest
may be attained. We know that Nature is aiming
at the Highest and nothing short of the Highest.
And all the spirit of daring and adventure in us
leaps to the call she makes.

And we respond to the call with all the greater
alacrity because we feel that the attainment of that
Highest is dependent to a large degree upon our-
selves. We have a sense of real responsibility in
the matter. And for this reason — that though
Nature lays down the great constitutional laws
within which man, her completest representative,
must work ; and though Nature as a whole formu-
lates the main outlines of her ideal ; yet man within
that constitution can make his own laws, and within
its main outlines may refine and perfect the ideal.

Nature may be working out her ideal on other
stars through the agency of other kinds of beings
more perfect than ourselves ; and while the ideal in
its main outlines may be the same there as the ideal
which is working itself out on this planet, it may
there have assumed a higher form and be more
nearly attained. But on this planet the more definite
formulation of the ideal and the measures for its
attainment are in the hands of men. We can perfect

OUR OWN RESPONSIBILITY 187

the ideal for ourselves, and make laws and establish
customs to ensure its attainment. We are not the
slaves of a despotic ruler, or pawns in the hand of
an external player. Within the limits of Nature's
constitution, the laws \ve obey are laws of our own
making; the authority we obey is the authority
which we ourselves have set up ; and both authority
and laws we can change in accordance with the
growing requirements of the ideal which we our-
selves are perfecting.

WTe go forward, therefore, with inextinguishable
faith in the value of what we are battling for,
and in the worthwhileness of all our efforts and
endurances. And though the ideal with which
Nature has inspired us makes us restless and discon-
tented, provokes us to increasing effort, causes us
endless pain and suffering, and exacts from us the
sacrifice even of our lives, we nevertheless love to
have the ideal, and love Nature for implanting it
in us.

And now that we have seen what is the nature
of Nature, what is the end she has before her, and
how she works to accomplish her end, we feel that
we have gone a long way towards knowing and
understanding her. We have had a vision of the
hidden Divinity by which she is inspired. And
this mysterious Power we have not found reigning
remote in the empty spaces of the heavens. We
have found it dwelling in every minutest particle of
which this Earth and all the world is built, and
of which we ourselves also are made — dwelling in
the earth, and in the air, and in the stars; and in

188 THE HEART OF NATURE

every living thing, in beast and bird and insect,
in flower, plant, and man — and dwelling in them
all in their togetherness. We have found it to be
both immanent and transcendent. It only exists —
and can only exist — in these its single self -active re-
presentations. But in relation to each of them it is
transcendent. Each star and flower, each beast and
man, is its partial representation. But the whole
together is that Power which while it transcends is
yet resident in, and inspires, each single part which
goes to its making. In the inmost heart of Nature,
as the ground and source of Nature, yet permeating
Nature to the uttermost confines, and reigning
supreme over the whole, we find God; actuating
the heart of God we find an ideal ; and actuating the
heart of the ideal we find an imperative urge towards
perfection, an inborn necessity to perfect itself for
ever — just as inside the rough exterior of Abraham
Lincoln was the real Abraham Lincoln, at his heart
was an ideal, and at the heart of the ideal an inner
impulse towards perfection ; or as within the ex-
terior France is the real France, in the heart of
France an ideal, and in the heart of the ideal the
determination to perfect itself.

This view of Nature is very different from that
view of her which would regard the world as having
been originally created by, and now being governed
by, an always and already perfect Being, living as
apart from it as the Sun is from the Earth, and
being as distinct and separate from it as a father is
from his son. And the difference in view must
make a profound difference in our attitude to
Nature, and therefore in our capacity for seeing

THE LOVABILITY OF NATURE 189

and enjoying Natural Beauty. We may admire
and worship but we can scarcely love, in any true
sense of the word, a Being dwelling distant and
aloof from us, and with whom, from the mere fact
of his being perfect, it is most difficult for us to be
on terms of homely intimacy and affection. But
for a Being who, like our country, is one of whom
we ourselves form part, we can have not only
admiration and reverence but deep affection. We
can and do love our country, for we form part of
her, and have a voice and share in making and
shaping her. We know that she cares for us, will
look after us in misfortune, and will honour and love
us if we serve her well and show her loyalty and
devotion. And we can and do love Nature for
precisely the same reasons. We feel ourselves part
of her, and in intimate touch with her all round and
always. And we have that which is so satisfying
to us — the feeling that there is reciprocity of love
between us and her. So our love is active, and it
vehemently impels us to get to know her better and
better, to get ourselves in ever closer touch with her,
to discover the utmost fulness of her Beauty, and to
communicate to others all that we have come to
know and all the Beauty we have seen, so that others
may share in our enjoyment and come to love
Nature more even than we love her ourselves —
love Nature in all her aspects, love physical Nature
in the mountains, seas and deserts, the clouds,
sunsets and stars, love plant Nature and animal
Nature and human Nature; and, above all, love
Divine Nature as best revealed in supreme men in
their supreme moments.

190 THE HEART OF NATURE

In some of her aspects Nature may be stern and
exacting. But she is never sheerly hard. She is
compounded of mercy and compassion as well as of
rigid orderliness. And her essential character is
Love — and Love of no impassive and insipid kind,
but of a power and activity beyond all human
conception.

The importance and significance of this con-
clusion, if we accept it, is that we definitely abandon
the repellent conception of Nature as governed by
chance, or as cold and mechanical, or as guided
solely by the principle of the survival of the fittest,
and we accept instead the humaner and diviner view
that Nature is actuated by Love ; and, accepting
that more winning conception, we can enter un-
reservedly into the Spirit of Nature and see her
Beauty. Unless we had been assured in our minds,
without any possibility of doubt whatever, that \ve
could love Nature, we could never really have en-
joyed her Beauty.

So Nature is not something static, fixed, and
immovable, determined once and for all like a rock
is, at least to outward appearance. Nature is a
Person, and a Person is a process. Nature flows.
Nature is always moving on. As our thoughts
are all connected with one another and passing
into one another ; as all events are connected
with one another and are continually passing
from one into another, and form one great all-
inclusive event which is in continual process of
happening ; so is Nature always in process of passing
from one state into another state, while the whole

GOD AT THE HEART 191

forms one great event for ever happening. And
actuating the whole process, determining the whole
great event, is an inner core of Activity which
endures through all the changes. It is the ** I " of
Nature, which informs, directs, controls the whole
from centre to utmost extremity through all space
and all time. It is the Soul and Spirit, the Genius
of Nature. It is what we should mean when we
speak of God.

Actuated by this spirit, whose essential character
is Love, the process glides smoothly, unbrokenly,
and wellnigh imperceptibly forward. As we lift
our eyes and look out upon Nature in its present
actually existing state, what we see in that instant
is the whole achievement of the past, and it contains
within it here and now the promise of all the future.
All the past is in the present, and in it also is the
potency of the future. The achievement fills us
with admiration. The promise thrills us with hope.
To that Spirit which has achieved this result, which
actuates the process and ourselves with it, which
determines the great event, which ensures the uni-
formity and law and order which are the founda-
tions of our freedom, and the essential condition of
all progress, our hearts are drawn out and yearningly
stretch themselves out in a love boundless as the
process itself.

The more we find ourselves drawn to Nature
and in harmony and love with her, the more Beauty
do we see. In closest reciprocity Love of Nature
inspires Natural Beauty and Natural Beauty pro-
motes Love of Nature. And it is from the Heart
of Nature that both Love and Beauty spring. Both

192 THE HEART OF NATURE

also remain permanent and everlasting through all
the changing processes of Nature — permanent but
ever increasing in depth and height and volume.
The promise of all the Love and Beauty of to-day
was hidden in the womb of the past. In the womb
of to-day is contained the promise of a Love and
Beauty still more glorious. And ours it is to bring
them into being.

PART II

NATURAL BEAUTY AND GEOGRAPHY

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE
ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY,
DELIVERED AT THE ANNIVER-
SARY MEETING, MAY 31, 1920

NATURAL BEAUTY AND GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE

I HAVE something to say which to old-fashioned
geographers may appear very revolutionary, and
which you may hesitate to accept straight away.
But it has come to me as the result of much and
varied geographical work in the field ; of listening
to many lectures before this Society ; and of com-
posing this Address and five lectures for you, firstly,
as far back as 1888, on my journey across Central
Asia from Peking to India; secondly, on my
journey to Hunza and the Pamirs ; thirdly, on
Chitral ; fourthly, on my mission to Tibet ; and
fifthly, on the Himalaya. And I expect when you
come to think over what I have now to say you will
find that, after all, my conclusions are not anything
desperately revolutionary but something quite
obvious and natural.

What I want to lay before you for your very
earnest consideration is this — that we should take a
profounder and broader view of Geography, of its
fundamental conception, and of its scope and aim,
than we have hitherto taken ; and should regard the
195

196 NATURAL BEAUTY

Earth as Mo^er-Earth, and the Beauty of her
features as within the purview of Geography.

I will state my case as clearly and briefly as
I can. Geography is a science. Science is
learning, knowing, understanding. The object of
geographical learning, knowing, understanding is
the Earth. We must first, then, have a true con-
ception of what the Earth really is. And next we
must be certain in our minds as to what is most
worth knowing about it.

To begin with our conception of the Earth. At
the dawn of Geography it was believed to be a flat
disc. Later it was discovered to be a sphere. Then
it was found to be not a hard solid sphere like a
billiard-ball, but to be hard only on the surface, and
within to be quick with fervent heat. Now it is
coming to be regarded as spirit as well as body — as
in its essential nature spiritual rather than material.

When we get as far back as science is able to take
us we find that the ultimate particles of which the
Earth is made up are not minute specks of some
substance or material, but are simply centres of
radiant energy. Even with a microscope of infinite
power we should never be able to see one, like we
see a grain of pollen or a grain of sand. And if we
had fingers of infinite delicacy, we should never be
able to take one up between the forefinger and
thumb and feel it. These ultimate particles are
invisible and intangible. Nothing could be less
substantial. And we find further that, inconceiv-
ably minute as they are, they act of themselves
under the mutual influence of one another. The
electrons are not like shot which have been heaped

THE EARTH SELF-ACTIVE 197

together by some outside agency, and which roll
about the floor if someone outside gives them a push,
but which will otherwise remain immobile. They
congregate together of their own inner prompting.
They are like a swarm of midges or bees in which
each individual acts on its own impulsion, and, in
the case of bees, all together form themselves into
a definite organisation with a collective spirit of its
own. The Earth is indeed influenced by its parent
the Sun, and acts in accordance with the same laws
and is swayed by the same impulses as govern the
whole Universe, of which it is a minute though
highly important mite. But the point is that the
Earth is not something like a lump of clay which a
potter takes in his hands and moulds into a ball.
The Earth moulds itself from activities that it
contains within itself.

Running through the whole mighty swarm of
electrons we call the Earth is a tendency to order,
organisation, and system. The myriad millions of
ultimate particles in their all-togetherness and from
their interaction upon one another become possessed
of an imperative urge towards excellence. The
electrons group themselves into atoms ; the atoms
clump themselves together into molecules ; the mole-
cules combine into chemical compounds, and these
into organisms of ever-increasing size and com-
plexity. So in the process of the ages there came
into being, from out of the very Earth itself, first,
lowly forms of plants and animals, then higher and
higher forms exhibiting higher and higher qualities,
till the flowers of the field, the animals, and man
himself came into existence.

15

198 NATURAL BEAUTY

And now we reach the point I wish to make.
If this account of the Earth which physicists and
biologists give us be true, then we geographers
should take a less material and a more spiritual view
of the Earth than we have done, and should, like
primitive people all the world over, regard her as
Mother-Earth, and recognise our intimate connec-
tion with her. Primitive peoples everywhere regard
the Earth as alive and as their Mother. And so
intensely do they feel this liveness that many will
not run the plough through the soil from dislike of
lacerating the bosom of Mother-Earth. They see
plants and trees spring up out of her, and these
plants and trees providing them with fruits and
seeds, leaves and roots, upon which to live. And
they quite naturally look upon her as their Mother.
And we men of the more advanced races have still
more cause to consider her as our Mother, for we
now know that not only the plants and trees but
we ourselves sprang from her — as indeed we are
nourished by her daily, eating her plants or the
animals which feed on her plants. And as we judge
of a lily, not by its origin, the ugly bulb, but by the
climax, the exquisite flower ; so we should not judge
of the Earth by its origin, the fiery mist, but by its
issue — ardent human fellowship. And if we thus
judge her we shall find her a mother worthy of our
affection.

So the first point I have to put before you is
that we geographers should regard the object of our
science not as a magnified billiard-ball, but as a
living being — as Mother-Earth. Not as hard, un-
impressionable, dull, and inert, but as live, supple,

MOTHER EARTH 199

sensitive, and active — active with an intensity of
activity past all conceivability. Yet with no chaotic
activity, but with activity having coherence and
direction, and that direction towards excellence.

Now as to what we ought to know about the
Earth. While Geology concerns itself with its
anatomy, Geography, by long convention, restricts
its concern to the Earth's outward aspect. Accord-
ingly, it is in the face and features of Mother-Earth
that we geographers are mainly interested. We
must know something of the general principles of
geology, as painters have to know something of
the anatomy of the human or animal body. But
our special business as geographers is with the out-
ward expression. And my second point is that the
characteristic of the face and features of the Earth
most worth learning about, knowing, and under-
standing is their Beauty ; and that knowledge of
their Beauty may be legitimately included .within
the scope of geographical science.

It may be argued, indeed, that science is con-
cerned with quantity — with what can be measured —
and that Natural Beauty is quality which is some-
thing that eludes measurement. But geographical
science, at least, should refuse to be confined within
any such arbitrary limits and should take cognisance
of quality as well as quantity. This is my conten-
tion. I am not maintaining that the actual enjoy-
ment of the Natural Beauty of the Earth should be
regarded as within the scope of geographical science,
though this Society as a social body might well
participate in such enjoyment. Enjoyment is

200 NATURAL BEAUTY

feeling, whereas science is knowing; and feeling
and knowing are distinct faculties. We can easily
see the distinction. We may be travelling to
Plymouth to embark for South Africa on some
absorbing enterprise, and be so engrossed with
thoughts of the adventure before us as to be unable
to enjoy the famed West Country through which
the train is passing, though all the time we were
quite aware in our minds of its beauty. We are not
actually enjoying the beauty, though we know quite
well that it is there. On another occasion we may
be returning after long absence in countries of far
different character ; our minds may be free from any
disturbing thoughts ; and we may be in a mood to
enjoy to the full every beauty we see. England will
then seem to us a veritable garden, the greenness of
everything, the trimness of the hedges, the sheets
of purple hyacinths, and some still remaining prim-
roses, will startle us with joy, though we have long
been aware of their beauty. This time we both
know and enjoy the Natural Beauty. We see from
this instance the distinction between knowing
Natural Beauty and enjoying it. I am not claiming
more than that knowing Natural Beauty — being
aware of it — is part of Geography. But I am
claiming liberty to extend our knowing up to the
extreme limit when it merges into feeling.

What we have now to consider is the value of
this Natural Beauty. A region may be flat or
mountainous, dry or wet, barren or fertile, useful
or useless for either political or commercial purposes.
But it is not its flatness or ruggedness, or its utility
or inutility for political or commercial purposes,

THE VALUE OF BEAUTY 201

that we may find in the end is the most noteworthy
characteristic, but its beauty — its own particular
beauty. The conventional gold or oil prospector,
or railway engineer, or seeker for sites for rubber
or coffee plantation, or pasture-lands for sheep and
cattle, may not bother his head about the beauty of
the forests, the rivers, the prairies, and the moun-
tains he is exploring. He is much too absorbed in
the practical business of life to be distracted by
anything so fanciful — as he thinks. Yet even he
does see the beauty, and long afterwards he finds it
is that which has stuck most firmly in his mind.
And when he has unthinkingly destroyed it, future
generations lament his action and take measures to
preserve what remains. Advertisements, also, show
us daily that nearly all countries — and it seems more
especially new countries like Canada and New
Zealand — regard Natural Beauty as one of their
most valuable assets. And the reason why the
Natural Beauty of the Earth is deemed so valuable
a characteristic of its features is not hard to under-
stand when we come to reflect. It is because Beauty
is a quality which appeals to the universal in man —
appeals to all men for all time, and appeals to them
in an increasing degree. It is something which all
men can admire and enjoy. And the more they
enjoy it the more they want to get others to share
in their enjoyment. Also the more Natural Beauty
they see, the more, apparently, there is to see.
Poets in their poems, and painters in their pictures,
are continually pointing out to us less keen-sighted
individuals new beauties in the features of the Earth.
The mineral wealth of the Earth has its limits ; even

202 NATURAL BEAUTY

the productivity, though perennially renewed, is not
unbounded. But the Natural Beauty is inex-
haustible. And it is not only inexhaustible : it
positively increases and multiplies the more we see
of it and the more of us see it. So it has good claim
to be considered the most valuable characteristic of
the Earth.

And if Beauty should prove to be its most
valuable characteristic, it follows that knowledge of
it is the knowledge about the Earth which is most
worth having. It will certainly be the case that
knowledge of other characteristics may be of more
value to particular men for a special purpose for the
time being. If an engineer has to build a railway,
knowledge of the exact height above sea-level of
various points and of the general configuration of
the ground is of more value than knowledge of its
beauty. But for the engineer himself, when he is
not thinking of his railway, and for mankind in
general, knowledge of the beauty may be the more
valuable kind of knowledge.

For years I was employed in exploring the region
where three Empires meet, where the Himalaya,
the Hindu Kush, and mountains which form the
Roof of the World converge. I had to report on the
extent to which it afforded a barrier against the ad-
vance of Russia towards India, and wherein it would
lie the most appropriate boundary between India
and Russia, between India and China, and between
Russia and China. What I learned of that region
as a barrier against invasion was of more value to
the Viceroy and Commander-in-Chief in India and
the political and military authorities in England

VALUE OF BEAUTY 203

in the discharge of their official duties than what I
learned of its beauties. But this utility of the
region as a military barrier is not the characteristic
which has most value to men in general. What to
them has most value is its beauty — the awful beauty
of its terrific gorges and stupendous heights. And
it is knowledge of this beauty which is most worth
having, and which has most geographical value.

Besides exploring the far region beyond Kashmir
I was also employed for years in exercising a general
supervision over the entire administration of Kash-
mir itself. Reports from experts used to come to
me containing every description of geographical
knowledge. Surveyors would send in maps for
general purposes, for the construction of roads and
railways, for the delimitation of village boundaries,
and for registering the ownership of individual
fields. Geologists would report on the crustal
relief (as the features of Mother-Earth are in-
elegantly termed). Forestry, agricultural, and
botanical experts would report on the productivity
of the soil, on the plants and trees which are or
might be grown, and on their present and possible
distribution. Mineralogists would report on the
minerals, their distribution and the possibility of
commercially exploiting them. Every aspect of
geographical science was presented to me. And
each particular kind of knowledge for its own par-
ticular purpose was highly valuable. But the point
I would wish to make is that my geographical
knowledge of Kashmir would have been incom-
plete— and I would have been wanting in knowledge
of its most valuable characteristic — if I had had no

204 NATURAL BEAUTY

knowledge of its beauty. I might have had the most
precise knowledge about the form and structure of
the crustal relief of this portion of the Earth, of the
productivity of the soil, of the distribution of its
population, and of animals and plants, and about the
effect of the crustal forms on the animals and plants,
and of the animals and plants upon the crustal forms
and of all upon man, and of man upon them all ; but
if I had had no knowledge of the beauty of these
crustal forms and of the influence which their beauty
has upon man, I should not have known what was
most worth knowing about Kashmir. My geo-
graphical knowledge of that country would have
been wanting in its most important particular.

These illustrations will, I hope, make clear what
I mean when I urge that Beauty may be the most
valuable characteristic of the Earth's features, and
that the scope of Geography should certainly be
extended to include a knowledge of it.

And there should be less hesitation in accepting
the latter half of this conclusion when we note that
Natural Beauty affects the movements of man, and
that man is having an increasing effect upon Natural
Beauty — spoiling it in too many cases, improving it
in many others, but certainly having an effect upon
it. There is thus a quite definite relation between
man and Natural Beauty, and it should therefore
be within the scope of Geography to take note of
this relationship. To an increasing degree man now
moves about in search of new Natural Beauty or to
enjoy it where it has been already found. From all
over the world men flock to Switzerland, drawn
there by its beauty. Here at home they go to the

IMPROVING NATURE 205

Thames Valley, or Dartmoor, or the coast of Corn-
wall, or North Wales, or the Highlands, simply to
enjoy the Natural Beauty. And railway companies
and the Governments of Canada, Australia, and
New Zealand think it worth while to spend large
sums of money in publishing pictures of the beauty
of the countries in which they are interested in order
to attract holiday-makers or home-seekers to them.
And here, as in other cases, man now is not
content to be an impassive spectator and to be
entirely controlled by his surroundings. He does
not allow the " crustal relief" to have the upper
hand in the matter. He will not admit that all he
has to do is to adapt himself to his surroundings.
That servile view of our position in the Universe is
fast departing. We are determined to have the
ascendancy. And much as we admire the Beauty
of the Earth we set about improving it. We fail
disastrously at times, I allow. But sometimes un-
consciously, and sometimes deliberately, we succeed.
We have in places made the Earth more beautiful
than it was before we came, and we have certainly
shown the possibility of this being done. From
what I have seen in uninhabited countries I can
realise what the river-valleys of England must have
been like before the arrival of man — beautiful,
certainly ; but not so beautiful as now. They must
have been an unrelieved mass of forest and marsh.
Now the marshes are drained and turned into golden
meadows. The woods are cleared in part and well-
kept parks take their place, with trees specially
selected, pruned, and trim, and made to stand out
well by themselves so that their umbrageous forms

206 NATURAL BEAUTY

may be properly seen. Gardens are laid out, the
famous lawns of England are created, and flowering
and variegated shrubs from many lands are planted
round them. And homes are built — the simple
homes of the poor and the stately homes of the
rich — which in the setting of trees and lawns and
gardens add unquestionably to the natural beauty
of the land. St. James's Park, with its lake, its
well-tended trees,- its daisy-covered lawns, its flower-
beds, its may and lilac, laburnum and horse-chest-
nut, and with the towers of Westminster Abbey
and the Houses of Parliament rising behind it, is
certainly more beautiful than the same piece of land
was two thousand years ago in its natural condition.

What has been done in this respect in England
is only typical of what is done in every country and
of what has been done for ages past. The Moghul
emperors, by the planting of gardens on the borders
of the Dal Lake in Kashmir, added greatly to its
beauty. And the Japanese are famous for the choice
of beautiful surroundings for their temples and for
the addition which they themselves, by the erection
of graceful temples and by properly cared-for trees
and gardens, make to the natural beauty of the
place.

So man is both affected by the Beauty of the
Earth's features and himself affects that Beauty.
And this relationship between man and the Natural
Beauty of the Earth is one of which Geography
should take as much cognisance as it does of the
relationship between man and the productivity of
the Earth.

But Natural Beauty is manifested in an

COMPARING BEAUTIES 207

innumerable variety of forms. The whole Beauty
is never manifested in any one particular feature or
region, but each has its unique aspect. Each feature
has its own peculiar beauty different from the beauty
of any other feature. And what men naturally do,
and what I would suggest geographers should
deliberately do, is to compare the beauty of one
region with the beauty of another, so that we may
realise the beauty of each with a greater intensity
and clearness. We can compare the beauty of
Kashmir with the beauty of Switzerland and Cali-
fornia. And the comparison will enable us to see
more clearly and to appreciate the distinctive
elements which make up the peculiar beauty of each
of those countries. It has been frequently noticed
that people who have always lived in the same place
are unable to see its full beauty. The inhabitants of
the Gilgit frontier, when I first went among them,
had never left their mountains, and were altogether
ignorant of the special grandeur of their beauty.
They thought all the world was just the same. But
men who have seen many varieties of Natural Beauty
and have taken pains to compare the varieties with
one another become trained to see more Beauty in
each feature. Fresh discoveries of Beauty are thus
made, and our knowledge of the Beauty of the Earth
is thereby increased.

What I hope, then, is that this Society should
definitely recognise that learning to see the Beauty
in natural features and comparing the peculiar
beauties of the different features with one another
is within the scope of Geography, and will indeed

208 NATURAL BEAUTY

become its chief function. I should like to see the
tradition established and well known and recognised
that we encourage the search for Natural Beauty,
and look upon the discovery of a new region which
possesses special beauty, and the discovery of a new
beauty in a region already well known, as among
the most important geographical discoveries to be
made. In this matter I trust our Society will take
the lead. Englishmen are born lovers of Natural
Beauty and born travellers. The search for
Natural Beauty ought, therefore, to be a congenial
task for this Society. As I have tried to make clear,
we cannot really know and understand the Earth —
which is the aim of Geography — until we have seen
its beauties and compared the varying beauties of
the different features with one another and seen how
they affect man and man affects them. We are
constituted as a Society for the purpose of diffusing
geographical knowledge, and I trust that in future
we shall regard knowledge of the Beauty of the
Earth as the most important form of geographical
knowledge that we can diffuse.

When I was writing out the lecture which I
was invited to give before the Society on "The
Geographical Results of the Tibet Mission " I could
not resist devoting special attention to the natural
beauty of Tibet. But as I read the manuscript
through I feared that this attention to Beauty would
be regarded by our Society as a lapse from the
narrow path of pure Geography, and that I should
be frowned upon in consequence and not regarded
as a serious geographer. I ought, I feared, to have
devoted more attention to survey matters, to the

OBSERVING BEAUTY 209

exact trend of the mountains, and the source and
course of the rivers. But looking back now I see
that my natural instinct was a right one — that a
knowledge of the beauties of Tibet was not only one
geographical result of the Mission, but the chief
geographical result; and that, in fact, I ought to
have paid not less but more attention, both in Tibet
to noting its beauties in all their multitudinous
variety, and in writing my lecture to expressing
with point and precision what I had seen, so that
you might share it with me, and learn what is the
most valuable characteristic of Tibet.

When the new tradition is established, and
travellers become aware that we regard knowledge
of Natural Beauty as within the scope of our
activities, the error into which I fell will be avoided.
We shall think travellers barbaric if they continue
to concern themselves with all else about the face of
the Earth except its Beauty. We shall no longer
tolerate a geographer who will learn everything
about the utility of a region for military, political,
and commercial purposes, but who will take no
trouble to see the beauty it contains. We shall
expect a much higher standard of him. We
shall expect him to cultivate the power of the eye
till he has a true eye for country — a seeing eye ; an
eye that can see into the very heart and, through all
the thronging details, single out the one essential
quality ; an eye which can not only observe but can
make discoveries. We shall require him to have the
capacity for discriminating the essential from the
unessential, for bringing that essential into proper
relief and placing upon it the due emphasis. When

210 NATURAL BEAUTY

he thus has true vision and can really see a country,
and when he has acquired the capacity for expressing
either in words or in painting what he has seen, so
that he can communicate it to us, then he will have
reached the standard which this Society should
demand. And this is nothing less than saying that
we expect of him that he should have in him some-
thing of the poet and the painter.

Careless snap-shotting in the field and idle
turning on of lantern slides at our meetings will no
longer satisfy us. A traveller if he is going to photo-
graph must spend the hours which a real artist would
devote to discovering the essential beauty of a scene,
and to composing his picture before he dreams of
exposing his plate. But we want more than photo-
graphs : we want pictures to give that important
element in Natural Beauty — the colour. And we
want pictures painted in words as well as on canvas.
Not shallow rhapsodising of the journalese and
guide-book type, but true expression in which each
noun exactly fits the object, each epithet is truly
applicable, and each phrase is rightly turned, and in
which the emphasis is placed on the precisely right
point, and the whole composed so as distinctly to
bring out that point.

Then in time we shall gather together the most
valuable knowledge about the Earth. And when a
stranger from a far land comes to us to know about
any particular country, we shall be able to provide
him with something worth having. When an
Australian comes to England and wishes to know
its essential characteristics, we shall do something
more than hand him over maps and treatises on the

DESCRIBING BEAUTY 211

orography and hydrography, the distribution of
rainfall, of plants and animals, and the population.
We shall regard ourselves as having omitted to point
out to him the essential characteristic of the land
from which Englishmen have sprung and in which
they dwell if we have not shown him the beauty of
its natural features. We shall give him the maps as
aids to finding his way about, and we shall give him
the treatises. But we shall tell him that these are
only aids for special purposes, and that if he is really
to understand England he must know its beauty in
its many aspects. He will then have the geographical
knowledge of chief value about England.

A project in which the Society is now interested
affords an excellent opportunity of applying the
principles I have been trying to persuade you to
adopt. The most prominent feature of this Earth,
and the feature of most geographical interest, is the
great range of the Himalaya Mountains. In this
range the supreme summit is Mount Everest, the
highest point on the Earth, 29,002 feet above sea-
level. Attempts have been made to ascend the
second highest mountain, K2, 28,278 feet, notably
by the Duke of the Abruzzi. Colonel Hon. Charles
Bruce, Major Rawling, and others have had in mind
the idea of ascending Mount Everest itself. And
for more than a year past both the Alpine Club and
this Society have been definitely entertaining the
idea of helping forward the achievement of this
object. We hope within the next few years to hear
of a human being standing on the pinnacle of the
Earth.

212 NATURAL BEAUTY

If I am asked, What is the use of climbing this
highest mountain? I reply, No use at all : no more
use than kicking a football about, or dancing, or
playing on the piano, or writing a poem, or painting
a picture. The geologist predicts to a certainty that
no gold will be found on the summit, and if gold did
exist there no one would be able to work it. Climb-
ing Mount Everest will not put a pound into any-
one's pocket. It will take a good many pounds out
of people's pockets. It will also entail the expen-
diture of much time and necessitate the most careful
forethought and planning on the part of those who
are organising the expedition. And it will mean
that those who carry it out will have to keep them-
selves at the very highest pitch of physical fitness,
mental alertness, and moral courage and endurance.
They will have to be prepared to undergo the
severest hardships and run considerable risks. And
all this, I say, without the prospect of making a
single penny. So there will be no use in climbing
Mount Everest. If the ascent is made at all it will
be made for the sheer love of the thing, from pure
enjoyment — the enjoyment a man gets from pitting
himself against a big obstacle.

But if there is no use, there is unquestionably
good in climbing Mount Everest. The accomplish-
ment of such a feat will elevate the human spirit.
It will give men — and especially us geographers — a
feeling that we really are getting the upper hand on
the Earth, that we are acquiring a true mastery of
our surroundings. As long as we impotently creep
about at the foot of these mighty mountains and
gaze on their summits without attempting to ascend

ol

MOUNT EVEREST 213

them, we entertain towards them a too excessive
feeling of awe. We are almost afraid of them. We
have a secret fear that they, the material, are
dominating us, the spiritual. But as soon as we
have stood on their summit we feel that we dominate
them — that we, the spiritual, have ascendancy over
them, the material. And if man stands on Earth's
highest summit he will have an increased pride and
confidence in himself in his struggle for ascendancy
over matter. This is the incalculable good which
the ascent of Mount Everest will confer.

We who have lived among the peoples of the
Himalaya are better able than most to appreciate
how great this good is. We have seen how tame
and meagre is their spirit in comparison with the
spirit of, for example, the Swiss, or French, or
Italian inhabitants of the Alps ; and in comparison
with what men's spirit ought to be. They have
many admirable qualities, but they are fearful and
unenterprising. Contact with them brings home to
us what a spirit of daring and high adventure means
to a people. And we are impressed with the
necessity of taking every step possible to create,
sustain, and strengthen this spirit in a people and in
the human race generally. The ascent of Mount
Everest, we believe, will be a big step in that
direction.

The actual climbing of this mountain this
Society will leave in the hands of the Alpine Club,
who have special experience in mountain climbing.
But the reconnaissance and mapping of the moun-
tain and its neighbourhood will fitly remain with us.
And here we reach the point where the principles

16

214 NATURAL BEAUTY

I have been offering for your consideration might
be applied. Were it not that the size of the first
party will have to be limited on account of transport
and supply difficulties, I should greatly like to have
a poet or a painter, or anyhow a climber like Mr.
Freshfield with a poetic soul, a member of it. For
I say quite deliberately and mean quite literally that
the geography of Mount Everest and its vicinity
will not be complete until it has been painted by
some great painter and described by some great
poet. Making the most accurate map of it will not
be completing our knowledge of it. The map-maker
only prepares the way — in some cases for the soldier
or the politician or the engineer — in this case for
the geologist, the naturalist, and above all for the
painter and poet. Until we have a picture and a
poem — in prose or verse — of Mount Everest we
shall not really know it; our Geography will be
incomplete, and, indeed, will lack its chief essential.
The Duke of the Abruzzi, in his expedition to
the second highest mountain in the world, took with
him the finest mountain photographer there is —
Signor Vittorio Sella — and he brought back superb
photographs, for he is a true artist with a natural
feeling for high mountains. But I have seen the
very mountains that he photographed, and when I
look at these photographs — the best that man can
produce — I almost weep to think how little of the
real character of great mountains they communicate
to us. The sight of the photographs wrings me with
disappointment that it was a photographer and not
a painter who went there. Here in Europe are
artists by the score painting year after year the same

MOUNTAIN PICTURES 215

old European scenes. And there in the Himalaya
is the grandest scenery in the world, and not a
painter from Europe ever goes there — except just
one, the great Russian Verestchagin, whose pictures,
alas! are now buried somewhere in Russia. The
Indian Services might do something, and they have
indeed produced one great painter of Himalayan
scenery, Colonel Tanner. But the Services are
limited, and it is to Europe that we must mainly
look.

On the first expedition to Mount Everest it
may be only possible to send a photographer. But
this will be a pioneering expedition to open the way,
at least, for the painter. And then we may have
Mount Everest pictured in all her varied and ever-
varying moods, as I have, from a distance, seen her
for three most treasured months. Now serene and
majestic ; now in a tumult of fury. Now rooted
solid on earth ; now hung high in the azure. Now
hard and material ; now ethereal as spirit. Now
stern and austere — cold, and white, and grey ;
now warm and radiant and of every most delicate
hue. Now in one aspect, now in its precisely
opposite, but always sublime and compelling;
always pure and unspotted; and always pointing
us starward.

These are the pictures — either by painter or by
poet — that we want. And they can only be painted
by one who has himself gone in among the moun-
tains, confronted them squarely, braced himself
against them, faced and overcome them — realised
their greatness, realised also that great as they are
he is greater still.

216 NATURAL BEAUTY

And this that we want of the greatest natural
feature of the Earth is only typical of what this
Society should require in regard to all Earth's other
features in order to make our Geography complete.
As men have pictured the loveliness of England,
the fairness of France, the brilliance of Greece, so
we want them to picture the spaciousness of Arabia,
the luxuriance of Brazil, and the sublimity of the
Himalaya. For not till that has been done will our
Geography be complete. But when that has been
accomplished and the quest for Beauty is being
pushed to the remotest lands and Earth's farthest
corners, even the British schoolboy will love his
Geography, and our science will have won its final
triumph. At nothing less, then, than the heart of
the boy should our Society deign to aim .

AN ADDRESS TO THE UNION SOCIETY
OF THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE,
LONDON, DELIVERED ON MARCH 17,

1921.

You have been good enough to leave to me the
choice of subject on which to address you this even-
ing, and I have chosen the subject " Natural Beauty
and Geography " because I have the honour to hold
at present the position of President of the Royal
Geographical Society, and am therefore supposed
to know something about Geography, and because
a love of Natural Beauty is one of the great passions
of my life.

I believe the two are inseparably connected with
one another, and, briefly, the view I want to put
before you is this — that a description of the Natural
Beauty of the Earth should be included in
Geography. By Geography we mean a descrip-
tion of the Earth. And we cannot adequately
describe the Earth until we have observed it in all
its aspects and really know and understand it. And
we cannot really understand the Earth until we have
entered into her spirit and feel ourselves in harmony
with it. But when our spirit is in harmony with
the spirit of the Earth we, in that instant, see the
Beauty of the Earth. When we are seeing Beauty
in the Earth we are understanding the Earth. In
217

218 NATURAL BEAUTY

describing the Beauty of the Earth we shall be
describing something that we really know about it
— something of the real nature of the Earth.

For this reason I maintain that Geography
should be taken to include a description of the
Natural Beauty of the Earth's features. The de-
scription of the Earth is not full and complete, and
is lacking in its most important particular, when it
excludes a description of Natural Beauty, and only
includes scientific details about the size and shape
of the earth ; its configuration ; the composition of
the crust ; the depth, area, and volume of the ocean ;
the temperature, degree of moisture and pressure
of the atmosphere ; the height of the mountains ;
the length, breadth, volume, course, and catchment
area of its rivers ; the mineral and vegetable products
of various regions ; the political areas into which it
is divided ; the relation of the political and commer-
cial activities of the population to the physical
character of the features and to the climate. I, of
course, acknowledge the importance of all this
geographical knowledge. To the historian and the
statesman it is essential that he should know the part
which a certain mountain range or river or desert
has played in human history. A soldier must know
with extreme accuracy the configuration of the
country over which his army is operating. An
engineer must know the exact level and contour of
a region over which he has to lay a railway or con-
struct a canal. A merchant must know whether a
country produces cotton, tea, and sugar ; or wheat,
wool, and meat. For all these and others, each for
his own particular purpose, we \vant the kind of

THE FLOWER OF GEOGRAPHY 219

information I have described above — that is, what
usually goes under the name of Geography. But
the point I wish now to urge is that we shall not
have plucked the very flower of geographical know-
ledge until in addition to all this we have a know-
ledge of the Beauty of the Earth.

Perhaps you will understand me better if I
illustrate my point. When a dressmaker has to
make a dress for a lady she has to measure her with
the minutest accuracy. She must gain a know-
ledge, by careful measurement, of the exact shape
and size of the lady's body, its true contour, and
the length and breadth of the limbs — just as an
engineer must have accurate knowledge of the
Earth's surface. And to the dressmaker as a dress-
maker knowledge of the lady's beauty has no value
whatever. The lady may have the beauty of form
of a Venus, but if the dressmaker has only know-
ledge of that beauty and has not exact measure-
ments she will never be able to make the dress.
But for humanity at large — and, as far as that goes,
for the dressmaker herself when she is free of her
dressmaking — knowledge of the lady's beauty is the
knowledge that really matters. Whether she is
twenty-six inches round the waist or only twenty-
five matters comparatively little.

Now the Earth I regard as a lady — as dear
Mother-Earth. A real living being — live enough,
at any rate, to give birth to mankind, to micro-
scopic animalculse first and through them to man.
And no one can look at the features of Mother-
Earth without recognising her Beauty. It is there
staring us in the face. So I cannot conceive why

220 NATURAL BEAUTY

we geographers should confine ourselves to the dress-
maker attitude of mind and describe every other
characteristic of the Earth except her Beauty. I
should have thought that it was the very first thing
with which we should have concerned ourselves —
that the first duty of those who profess and call
themselves geographers should have been to
describe the beauty of their Mother-Earth.

Say a visitor from Mars arrived upon the Earth,
he would no doubt report on his return that the
mountains here were so many thousands of feet
high and the seas so many thousands of feet deep,
and the area of the land and sea so many thousand
square miles ; that the productivity of the land in
one quarter had had the effect of attracting a large
part of the population to that quarter, and the
aridity or cold of another portion had had the effect
of preventing human settlement there ; and that
mountains, seas, or deserts confining certain groups
of human beings tightly within given areas had had
the effect of compacting them into highly organised
political bodies. All this and much more geogra-
phical knowledge the Martian would bring back to
Mars. But his fellow-Martians would tell him that
this was all very interesting, but that what they
really wanted to know was what the Earth was like.
They would ask him if he had not some lantern
slides of the Earth, some photographs, something
which would convey to them an impression of the
real character of the Earth. And then at last he
would be driven to describe her Beauty.

In the best words he could find he would express
the impression which the Earth had made upon him.

A VISIT FROM MARS 221

If he were a painter and if the Martians possess paint,
he would paint pictures to express the feelings which
a contemplation of the Earth had aroused in him.
That is, he would show them the Beauty of the
Earth in her various aspects. Perhaps he might
not be able to see as much Beauty in her as we her
children see. We may be too partial and see
beauties that a stranger may not perceive. On the
other hand, he might see beauties that we through
being so accustomed to them have never recognised
— as men living always within sight of some superb
mountain scarcely appreciate its grandeur. Any-
how, he would describe to the Martians whatever
he had seen of the Beauty of the Earth, and then
at last they would feel that they were really able
to know and understand her.

To descend from these celestial spheres and to
examine what actually happens among ourselves
when we venture into an unknown portion of this
globe and seek to know what is there, a chief in-
gredient in the lure which draws men on to fill up
the blank spaces in the map is undoubtedly a love of
Natural Beauty ; and its Natural Beauty is certainly
what above everything else regarding that region
remains in their memories after it has been ex-
plored. It is not only love of Natural Beauty that
draws men on. Love of adventure has much to
do with it also. Men feel a fearful joy in pitting
themselves against stern natural obstacles and
being compelled to exert all their physical energy
and endurance, and all their wit and nerve and
courage, in order to overcome them. The stiffer
the obstacle, the more insistent do they feel the call

222 NATURAL BEAUTY

to measure themselves against it. They thrill to
the expectation of having their full capacities and
faculties drawn out. By some curious natural in-
stinct they seem driven to put themselves into posi-
tions where they are forced to exert themselves to
the full stretch of their capabilities. This same
instinct tells them that they will be never so happy
as when they are making the very utmost of them-
selves and exercising their whole being at its highest
pitch. Anticipation of their joy in adventure is
therefore no small part of the lure which draws men
into the unknown. And with it also is ambition to
make a name and achieve fame. Some, too, are
drawn on by the hope of wealth through finding
gold, diamonds, and so on. But from what I have
seen of gold and diamond prospectors on the spot in
the act of prospecting, I should say it was quite as
much love of adventure as covetousness of wealth
that drew them into unknown parts. For experi-
ence shows them only too often that it is not the
prospector but the company promoter and financier
who make the money even when the prospector
finds the gold or diamonds. Yet prospectors go
forward as cheerfully as ever. They are fascinated
by the life of adventure.

All this is true. Men delight in sheer adventure
and in testing and sharpening themselves against
formidable natural obstacles. Yet we shall find
that love of Natural Beauty has an even greater
share than love of adventure in enticing them to the
unknown. Men picture to themselves beauties of
the most wonderful kind which they expect to see —
enchanting islands, mysterious forests, majestic

THE INCENTIVE OF BEAUTY 223

rivers, heavenly mountains, delightful lakes. In-
stinct tells them that they will have the joy which
comes from exerting their capacities to the full.
But somewhere in the back of their being is also this
expectation of seeing wonders of Natural Beauty,
and of seeing more of this Beauty from the very fact
that they will be seeing it as a prize truly won and
when their faculties are all tuned up to a fine pitch
of appreciation.

And when they return from the unknown, when
the adventure is over, when they are again relaxed,
it will be the Natural Beauty which they have seen
that will remain in their memories long after they
have forgotten their exertion, long after they have
expended any \vealth they may have found, long
after they have recorded the exact measurements
of the various features of the region.

Curiosity to see the Natural Beauty of an un-
known region is a principal ingredient in the lure
that draws men to it. And Natural Beauty is what,
above everything else in regard to the unknown re-
gion, stands out in men's memories on their return.

This at any rate is my own experience, and we
are perhaps on safer ground when we speak of what
we have ourselves experienced than when we speak
of what we imagine must be the experiences of
others. Though in this case I have good reason to
believe that my own experiences are very similar to
the experiences of others, and may therefore be
taken as typical.

Almost my earliest recollections are of a Somer-
setshire village set in a lovely valley, fringed with
woods and surrounded by hills. Up the hills on the

224 NATURAL BEAUTY

side of the valley on which I lived I used constantly
to go. But over the hills on the far side of the river
I was never taken. So I used to picture to myself
wonderful woods and rivers, and castles and great
cities, and I longed to go there. The lure of
Natural Beauty was beginning to make itself felt.
As I grew to boyhood I was fortunate enough to
be taken to North Wales, Devonshire and Corn-
wall, and later on to Switzerland and the South
of France, and everywhere I saw much Natural
Beauty. But, still, that only made me want to see
more.

In all these cases, however, I only went where I
was taken. I did not go where I chose or with an
object of my own. It was not till I was in India
and had the first leave from my regiment that I
could go where I liked. Now, where I liked was to
the Himalaya. And if I look back now and enquire
of myself what made me choose the Himalaya, I can
say most clearly that it was because I had in my
mind a vision of long snowy ranges, and dazzling
peaks, and frowning precipices, and rushing tor-
rents, and endless forests. I thought how glorious
it would be to be able to wander about at will and
see all the magnificent scenery, to feast on the
Natural Beauty, and when I came back to be able
to tell others of the wonders I had seen.

So I made my first short trip in the Himalaya.
But this only served to arouse my curiosity still
more. I had seen some great mountains. But
they were none of them more than 20,000 feet in
height. I wanted to see still higher mountains. I
heard, too, that up the valley of the Sutlej were

PERSONAL EXPERIENCES 225

some fearful gorges through which the river forced
its way. I wanted to see them too, and see a great
river in the very act of forcing its way through the
mighty Himalaya. Above all, I wanted to see
what lay on the other side of the Himalaya. I
wanted to get into Tibet.

That for the time being proved impossible, and
my thoughts wandered off to the far eastern part of
Asia. I had read a book called " On the Amur,"
by Atkinson. Not altogether a very veracious
book, but a fascinating book for all that. In it
were alluring pictures of the broad, placid river.
Rich forests came down to the water's edge. And
on its surface were depicted delightful rafts and
canoes. To glide down such a river, to camp on
its banks and plunge into the forests which clothed
them, seemed a joy second only to the joy of
scrambling about the Himalaya. So with Mr.
H. E. M. James — now Sir Evan James — I went to
Manchuria, not, indeed, to reach the Amur itself,
but to discover the source of its great tributary the
Sungari, and to follow it down through the forests
and over the plains for several hundred miles.

Now, what I want to impress upon you is that
in all these cases it was the Natural Beauty which was
the attraction — it was the picture I made to myself
of what these countries would be like that drew me
on. And I am sure it is with others as it was with
me. Natural Beauty is at bottom what incites the
traveller.

And, whether I had to go where I was taken or
could go where I chose, it was the Natural Beauty
that stuck in my memory. And when I returned

226 NATURAL BEAUTY

it was of the Natural Beauty that I wished to tell
my friends. And this, again, is the experience of
others also. To this day, though I have never since
seen them, I remember the beauties of Cader Idris
and Dolgelly, Snowdon and Carnarvon, in North
Wales, and of the rugged cliffs and long Atlantic
waves on the Cornish coast. The Dart, here
rippling over boulders and between rocky banks,
here in deep, clear salmon pools, here merging into
a long inlet of the sea and everywhere framed in
wooded hill-sides, I have often again seen. But
even if I had not, its beauty would never have de-
parted from my memory. And it is the same with
the first view of the Alps from the Jura, the view
of Lake Geneva, of the Jungfrau, of the Pyrenees
from Pau, and of the valley of the Loire. I have
never seen those parts of Switzerland and of France
since then, but their beauty remains with me to this
day. And it is of their beauty that I have ever after-
wards been naturally inclined to speak. When I
talk about the Loire I do not tell my friends that it
rises in a certain place, is so many miles long, at
certain parts has a certain width, depth, and
volume, and eventually flows into a certain sea.
What I naturally speak about is its beauty, the rich
valley through which it flows, the graceful bridges
by which it is spanned, the picturesque old towns
and romantic castles on the banks. And this is the
common habit, of mankind. Our friends may bore
us — and we may bore our friends — with intermin-
able accounts of the discomfort and inconveniences
and the petty little incidents of travel. But when
they and we have got through that and settle down

BEAUTY AND GEOGRAPHY 227

to describe the country itself, it is of its beauty that
we speak.

Natural Beauty is what attracts us to a country.
Its Natural Beauty is the fact about it which re-
mains most persistently in our memory. And it is
about its Natural Beauty that we are most inclined
to speak. Lastly, when we are in distant countries
it is of the Natural Beauty that we chiefly think.
When our thoughts go back to the home country it
is not on its exact measurements and configuration
that they dwell, but on its beauty.

From all of which considerations I conclude that
any description of the Earth which excludes a
description of its Natural Beauty is incomplete.
Geography must include a description of Natural
Beauty. And personally I would go so far as to
say that the description of Natural Beauty is the
most important part of Geography.

Here I must answer an objection which may be
raised — namely, that Natural Beauty is the concern
of ^Esthetics, not of Geography. An objector
may freely acknowledge the value and importance
of recognising and describing the Natural Beauty
of a country, but may contend that this is beyond
the province of Geography. It should be left to
poets and painters, he might say, and geographers
should confine themselves to the more prosaic busi-
ness of exact measurement, of accurate delineation,
of reasoning regarding the relation of the facts to
one another, and of explaining the facts.

To such an objector I would reply that Geography
is an art as well as a science. And in parenthesis
I may say that I doubt whether any science can be

228 NATURAL BEAUTY

complete which has not art behind it. We shall
never be able fully to know and understand the
Earth or to describe what we see if we use our in-
tellectual and reasoning powers alone. If we are
to attain to a complete knowledge of the Earth, and
if we are to describe what wre learn about it in an
adequate manner so that others may participate in
our knowledge, then we must use our hearts as well
as our heads. We must be artists as well as
meticulous classifiers, cataloguers, and reasoners.
The Earth is a living being, a throbbing, palpitat-
ing, living being — "live" enough to have given
birth to the remote ancestors of mankind, and live
enough, so some biologists consider, to be con-
tinually to this day generating the lowliest forms of
organisms. To know and understand a living
being, particularly when that living being happens
to be his own Mother, man must use his heart as
well as his head.

With his head alone the geographer may do a
vast amount of most useful and necessary work
which will help us to understand the Earth. He
may collect and classify facts about her and record
measurements, and reason about these facts and
measurements, but if he is to get the deepest vision
of the Earth and learn the profoundest truth about
her he must exercise his finest spiritual senses as
well. And when he brings those faculties of the
soul into play, it will be the Beauty on the face of
Mother-Earth that he will see and that will disclose
to him her real nature.

And therefore I hold that if it be the function of
Geography to know the Earth and to describe the

WORDSWORTH A GEOGRAPHER 229

Earth, then the objection that the description of
its Natural Beauty is outside the scope of Geography
is not a valid objection. The picture and the poem
are as legitimate a part of Geography as the map.

Some years ago in lecturing to the Royal
Geographical Society I said that the Society ought
to have given Wordsworth the Gold Medal. I
meant that the poet by his vision had taught us
more about the Lake District than any ordinary
geographer had been able to see. With his finer
sensibility he had been able to see deeper. He had
been able to reveal to us truths about the district
which no mere ordnance surveyor was able to dis-
close. He was a true discoverer — a geographical
discoverer — a geographer of the highest type. He
had helped us really to know and understand the
district.

Be it noted, too, that he did not, as some would
think, put into the lakes and hills and valleys some-
thing from within himself which was not really in
those natural features. The particular beauty that
he saw there was there waiting to be revealed. The
natural features aroused emotions in his sensitive
soul, and his soul being aroused saw the beauty in
them. If the district had been of billiard-table
flatness, with no lakes, no hills, no valleys, then
even he, with all his poetic feeling and imagination,
could not have put into the district what it did not
possess. The beauty that he saw was really there,
only it required a poetic soul to discover and reveal
it. The spirit of the poet put itself in touch with
the spirit of the district and elicited from the district
what was already in it. The spirit of Wordsworth

17

230 NATURAL BEAUTY

and the spirit of the district acted and reacted upon
one another and came into harmony with one
another. And as he had the capacity for com-
municating to others what he himself had seen, we
are now able to see in the Lakeland beauties which
our forefathers had scarcely known.

This is why I suggest to you that Natural
Beauty should be considered as a legitimate part of
Geography. And if you will look about you, you
will note that Natural Beauty is having an increasing
effect upon the movements of men. There is a
very definite relationship between the Beauty of
the Earth and her human inhabitants. The Poet
Laureate builds his house on the top of Boar's Hill
not because the soil is specially productive up there
so that he may be able to grow food, for the soil is
rather poor; not because water is easily available,
for it is very difficult to get, as he found when his
house took fire ; not because of the climate, for the
climate is just as good a hundred feet lower down ;
not because it is easily accessible to Oxford, for a
big climb up the hill is entailed every time he returns
from that city — not for any of these reasons did he
build his house there, but because of the view which
he obtains from that spot. It was Natural Beauty
which drew, the Poet Laureate to Boar's Hill, as it
was Natural Beauty which drew Tennyson to Black-
down to build Aldworth with a view all over the
Surrey hills and the Sussex Downs.

It is this same spell of Natural Beauty, too,
which is drawing people all over England to build
their houses on the most beautiful spots. Our great
country-seats— the pride of England — are usually

BEAUTY AND MANKIND 231

placed where the natural scenery is finest. Humbler
dwellings whenever the owner has the opportunity
of making a choice are for a similar reason built
wherever a beautiful view, however limited, may
be obtained. Whole towns even are built on spots
where the surroundings are most beautiful, or, at
any rate, if for some other reason they were located
where they are they tend to spread in the direction
of most beauty. Dartmouth was originally built
where it is because that site made an excellent port.
But the new town has spread all over the cliffs at
the entrance of the harbour wherever a beautiful
view may be found. It is the same with Torquay.
People originally went there on account of the
warm, soft air. But though they can get much
the same air in any part of the Torquay area, where
they like to build their houses is where they can get
the finest views.

On the Continent a similar tendency may be
observed. Nice, Cannes, Monte Carlo, Biarritz,
Montreux, Vevey, were no doubt originally located
where they are for other reasons than only the
facilities they afford for observing Natural Beauty,
but that they have grown to what they are is un-
doubtedly due to Natural Beauty, and Natural
Beauty has given the direction in which they have
expanded. It is not by chance that villas and
terraces and hotels have been built just on those
particular points from which the most beautiful
views may be seen.

And how great is the influence of Natural
Beauty upon the movements of men may be
gathered from the amount of money railway

NATURAL BEAUTY

companies and hotels spend in advertising the
charms of the particular localities which they serve.
Railway-carriages are full of photographs and tourist
agencies of pictures of different points in the neigh-
bourhood of the railway or hotel. And we may be
certain that business companies would not go to the
expense of setting up these photographs and pictures
if they did not think that people were influenced by
them and would be tempted to travel to the scenes
they depict.

The development of char-a-banc tours is an-
other indication of the attraction — and the increas-
ing attraction — of Natural Beauty. Since the
War, especially, there has been a remarkable
tendency of people of every rank in life to rush off
whenever they can get a holiday to the most beauti-
ful parts of these islands — to the moors of Yorkshire
and Devonshire, to the Wye, the Dart, and the
Severn, to the mountains of Wales, Westmoreland,
and Scotland — to wherever Natural Beauty may be
found. It is a noteworthy and most refreshing
feature in our national life.

Every summer, too, both here and on the Con-
tinent, people make their way to the most beautiful
parts of Europe — to Switzerland or the Pyrenees,
the Vosges or the Rhine. And in the Dominions
and America whenever they get their holidays they
likewise trek away to mountain, lake, or river,
wherever Nature may be enjoyed at her best. Men
may, to carry on the ordinary business of life, be
compelled to live in cities and places which are
chosen for other reasons than their facilities for
observing Natural Beauty. But whenever they can

PRESERVING BEAUTY 233

get away from their ordinary duties the tendency of
men — and a tendency increasing in strength — is to
fly away to the moors and sea-coast and river-sides
and wherever else they can see the beauties of the
Earth.

Then, again, men are increasingly sensitive
about preserving Natural Beauty wherever it is
best. It is quite true that men by the building of
industrial towns and the erection of hideous fac-
tories, mining plant, gasometers, and so on terribly
destroy Natural Beauty. But they are at least
becoming conscious of their sins in this respect and
of what they have lost thereby. They are therefore
the more anxious to preserve what remains. And
whenever there is an attempt to build on Box Hill,
or erect an electric power-station on Dartmoor, a
howl of execration is raised. And this howl means
that men do value Natural Beauty and mean to
preserve it.

Young countries also realise its value. In Cali-
fornia the Yosemite Valley is preserved for ever for
human enjoyment. And in Canada, Australia,
and South Africa national parks are protected
against the encroachments of industrial enterprises.

Men not only preserve spots of Natural Beauty ;
they also seek to improve them. The nobleman of
ancient lineage and the new millionaire alike strive
to add to the beauty of their estates. The hours
they love best are the hours they can devote to open-
ing up vistas, planting beautiful trees or flowering
shrubs from distant lands, building up rockeries,
forming artificial lakes, laying out lawns, and stock-
ing their gardens with the choicest flowers.

234 NATURAL BEAUTY

The effect of Natural Beauty upon man and of
man upon Natural Beauty is immense. Geographers
take note of the effect which the Alps by reason of
their height and ruggedness, or the Rhine by reason
of its length, breadth, and depth, have upon the
activities of men — upon their history, politics, and
economic life. My contention is that equally
should geographers note the effect which these same
natural features of the Earth by reason of their
beauty have upon men's activities and movements.

And when Natural Beauty is fully recognised as
within the province of Geography, we shall be
taught to pay to it the attention it deserves — taught
to look for it, taught how to observe it, taught how
to describe it, taught where are the regions of
special beauty and wherein their beauty lies, and lastly
taught where in an ordinary district Beauty may
be found, for even in the flattest, dreariest region
some beauty at some time of day or at some season
may be discovered. We shall, in short, be taught
to cultivate the sense for Natural Beauty, and how
to put in fitting words a description of the beauty
we see. Our geography textbooks, besides all the
mathematical, physical, political, and commercial
geography they contain, will tell us something of
the Natural Beauty of the countries they set them-
selves to describe. And geographers when they
set themselves to describe a new region will not
think it necessary to confine themselves within the
old limits, but will do what the ordinary man in-
stinctively does — describe its beauties.

Our methods of describing countries will thus
radically change. A few years ago Colonel Tanner

IMPORTANCE OF BEAUTY 235

of the Survey of India read to the Royal Geogra-
phical Society a paper entitled " Our Present
Knowledge of the Himalaya." In that paper he
gave an account of the height of the peaks, the
trend of the mountain ranges, the course of the
rivers, and a deal of other very valuable geographical
information. But in only one single line did he
make any remark about the natural beauty of that
wonderful region. Yet this omission was not due
to any lack of appreciation by Colonel Tanner of
Himalayan beauty, for he himself had painted the
finest pictures of the Himalaya which have yet been
produced. He made no mention of it because he
thought that to describe the natural beauty of the
Himalaya was to stray beyond the bounds of
Geography.

Such a grievous misconception of the true scope
of Geography will, I trust, be removed in future.
And when it no longer exists Geography will re-
quire for its pursuit the exercise of the finest facul-
ties of the soul as well as the strictest qualities of the
intellect. It will call forth capacity for the closest
and most accurate observation and the highest
powers of description. To us adventure-loving and
Nature-loving Englishmen it should of all subjects
be the most popular.

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