IT is generally affirmed that a love of Nature is one of the first of the human instincts to be awakened, and one of the last to fade away from the memory of man. It usually precedes the desire for human relationship and the coming into being of a reverence for the Master-Mind behind it all. But the human and religious elements are far from being totally eliminated. They exist, and are, indeed, part of man's love of Nature; but at that early stage they are fantastic, primitive, and fail to stand out separately from the awakening of love for colour and form, for the music and movement of seas and forests, and all the wonders of the world spread before him. It is only in the final development we find a great unification taking place, the realization that man is at one with Nature.

Whether we go to the folklore of Japan, India, or Greece, we find precisely the same personification of Nature, the nomenclature alone being the only difference. In old Japan the willow was often synonymous with that of a ghostly woman. In the Ramayana there is mention of a forest suddenly turning into a company of beautiful Apsara-s.

Then in Greece, the process in this instance being reversed, we have Pan giving chase to the terrified Syrinx, who, praying to Gaia for protection, is suddenly transformed into a clump of reeds. Still following the same theme we trace in Gothic architecture a stone imitation of the trunks and tapering foliage of trees. Here we are called upon to forget Pan and his music; to forget also the wild dances he had with nymphs and dryads in the sunny glades of Arcadia. Only when we sing certain psalms steeped in a splendid love of Nature do we almost unconsciously go back to a time when the world was young, before the Cross stood out high in the East, lengthening its great arms till it shadowed the whole world, and we were taught to realize the beauty of sorrow rather than the beauty of primitive and innocent joy — taught to realize that a tree might make music on a summer's day as well as fulfil the sacred task of bearing the Crucified One.

There are, in my opinion, only two types of the Nature lover. There is the man who loves Nature as Wordsworth loved it, more or less from an objective point of view, and certainly in no way linked up with a human touch. Then there is the man whose love of Nature is half mystical, half pagan — pagan in secretly holding the belief that Pan is not dead, and mystical in being aware that his love of Nature is in reality a case of subtle affinity, the knowledge that he is one with the laughing stream, with the nodding flowers, and with the inrush of the sea upon the shore. This is the man who can go into the deeps of Nature, and come forth refreshed and full of a great peace. There is a type that violates the sanctuaries of Nature. He is a heated little man who runs round with a butterfly-net, or plunges a fat hand into a nest and takes therefrom the eggs, potential songs for years to come. He may be well versed in blowing exquisitely coloured shells, or in the vile pinning down of bright-winged insects; but he is quite incapable of looking upon Nature other than as a storehouse from which he can make a specialized collection.

Some will ask if it is possible to get back to the old Greek Pantheism again and, if so, how? Others will gravely shake their heads and repeat with parrot alacrity the half-dozen names of our leading English Nature writers, and assert that these men, not even Richard Jefferies, ever taught such a theory. Not a few regard the whole affair as unspeakably wicked, a pitiful retrogression in direct opposition to the dull but respectable ideas of the man in the street. Some day, perhaps, when people get utterly sick of the very mention of the man in the street, we shall be able to

refer to the man in the lane, the man who is wise enough to run down that lane as soon as he leaves his office, and to come in touch with Nature. Will he find Pan laughing and singing and dancing? Or will he find him quietly weeping under a tree bearing the sign: 'Trespassers will be prosecuted. By order.' In the days of the Greek gods there were no trespassers and very little order, so that Pan could dance without catching his hoof in barbed wire, or have the vexation of seeing a fair nymph suddenly caught in a rabbit trap!

Pan is no more dead than Barrie's Peter Pan. Neither of them quite grew up, and that is the secret of not quite dying. Barrie's creation remained a boy because children could only love him so, and the Greek god never grew up because he was half beast, half divine. The beast in him gave rise to our word 'panic', the divine in the wistful playing upon a reed that was once Pan's love. Who can explain the mystery of this dual form? Only the man who has learnt, after long search, that Nature can be cruel as well as gentle, send a fierce, wild shriek through the treetops as well as make a bed of the brown earth for the weary wayfarer.

This year we have been favoured with a perfect spring. The old miracle of blossom and perfume has been ours again. The May trees have been touched with pink or white clouds. The chestnuts have fashioned their great candles, and on clear nights, the stars have lit them. In the morning the fan-shaped leaves have been a-quiver. Quick is the eye that can see those lamps blown out. Months ago Flora's fair hands have been gathering the gold together under the green fields. Beneath the hedgerows she has been silently at work. Now we see her gold — not for the mad markets of the world, not for mere trafficking, but for her buttercups and kingcups, her cowslips and modest celandines. The blue of the sky and the sea seem to have crept over the land and fashioned the forget-me-not and wild hyacinth growing in the woods. We have seen her magic over and over again. We cannot see it too often for all the unvarying constancy of her workings. We know not why the dog violet is scentless, or why the lilac should be rich in perfume.

We are well content with the coming of blossom, with the red glow in the hedges when Nature leads her pageantry, so splendid at the last, into winter's sleep. Nature is still in tune with Arcady. She has never forgotten to smile into fruit and grain, never lost for one moment the wind songs and the haunting perfumes of long ago. It is we who forget, we who have grown old with hoary science, old with the ways of a restless world. Izaak Walton's maxim was: 'Study to be quiet.' If we would learn to be quiet for a long, long time we should hear the gods sing, and by and by, maybe, join hands with Pan and dance a joyous Arcadian measure.

Cbuang Tzu 17