第 3 节
作者:
精灵王 更新:2021-04-30 17:22 字数:9317
facts just enough to make them fit the fancied meaning of the Bible; and
the Bible just enough to make it fit the fancied meaning of the facts。
But there were a few who would have no compromise; who laboured on
with a noble recklessness; determined to speak the thing which they had
seen; and neither more nor less; sure that God could take better care than
they of His own everlasting truth。 And now they have conquered: the
facts which were twenty years ago denounced as contrary to Revelation;
are at last accepted not merely as consonant with; but as corroborative
thereof; and sound practical geologists … like Hugh Miller; in his
〃Footprints of the Creator;〃 and Professor Sedgwick; in the invaluable
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notes to his 〃Discourse on the Studies of Cambridge〃 … have wielded in
defence of Christianity the very science which was faithlessly and
cowardly expected to subvert it。
But if you seek; reader; rather for pleasure than for wisdom; you can
find it in such studies; pure and undefiled。
Happy; truly; is the naturalist。 He has no time for melancholy
dreams。 The earth becomes to him transparent; everywhere he sees
significancies; harmonies; laws; chains of cause and effect endlessly
interlinked; which draw him out of the narrow sphere of self…interest and
self…pleasing; into a pure and wholesome region of solemn joy and
wonder。 He goes up some Snowdon valley; to him it is a solemn spot
(though unnoticed by his companions); where the stag's…horn clubmoss
ceases to straggle across the turf; and the tufted alpine clubmoss takes its
place: for he is now in a new world; a region whose climate is
eternally influenced by some fresh law (after which he vainly guesses
with a sigh at his own ignorance); which renders life impossible to one
species; possible to another。 And it is a still more solemn thought to
him; that it was not always so; that aeons and ages back; that rock which
he passed a thousand feet below was fringed; not as now with fern and
blue bugle; and white bramble…flowers; but perhaps with the alp… rose and
the 〃gemsen…kraut〃 of Mont Blanc; at least with Alpine Saxifrages which
have now retreated a thousand feet up the mountain side; and with the
blue Snow…Gentian; and the Canadian Sedum; which have all but
vanished out of the British Isles。 And what is it which tells him that
strange story? Yon smooth and rounded surface of rock; polished;
remark; across the strata and against the grain; and furrowed here and
there; as if by iron talons; with long parallel scratches。 It was the
crawling of a glacier which polished that rock…face; the stones fallen
from Snowdon peak into the half…liquid lake of ice above; which
ploughed those furrows。 AEons and aeons ago; before the time when
Adam first
〃Embraced his Eve in happy hour; And every bird in Eden burst In
carol; every bud in flower;〃
those marks were there; the records of the 〃Age of ice;〃 slight; truly;
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to be effaced by the next farmer who needs to build a wall; but
unmistakeable; boundless in significance; like Crusoe's one savage
footprint on the sea…shore; and the naturalist acknowledges the finger…
mark of God; and wonders; and worships。
Happy; especially; is the sportsman who is also a naturalist: for as
he roves in pursuit of his game; over hills or up the beds of streams
where no one but a sportsman ever thinks of going; he will be certain to
see things noteworthy; which the mere naturalist would never find;
simply because he could never guess that they were there to be found。
I do not speak merely of the rare birds which may be shot; the curious
facts as to the habits of fish which may be observed; great as these
pleasures are。 I speak of the scenery; the weather; the geological
formation of the country; its vegetation; and the living habits of its
denizens。 A sportsman; out in all weathers; and often dependent for
success on his knowledge of 〃what the sky is going to do;〃 has
opportunities for becoming a meteorologist which no one beside but a
sailor possesses; and one has often longed for a scientific gamekeeper or
huntsman; who; by discovering a law for the mysterious and seemingly
capricious phenomena of 〃scent;〃 might perhaps throw light on a
hundred dark passages of hygrometry。 The fisherman; too; … what an
inexhaustible treasury of wonder lies at his feet; in the subaqueous world
of the commonest mountain burn! All the laws which mould a world
are there busy; if he but knew it; fattening his trout for him; and making
them rise to the fly; by strange electric influences; at one hour rather than
at another。 Many a good geognostic lesson; too; both as to the nature of
a country's rocks; and as to the laws by which strata are deposited; may
an observing man learn as he wades up the bed of a trout… stream; not to
mention the strange forms and habits of the tribes of water…insects。
Moreover; no good fisherman but knows; to his sorrow; that there are
plenty of minutes; ay; hours; in each day's fishing in which he would be
right glad of any employment better than trying to
〃Call spirits from the vasty deep;〃
who will not
〃Come when you do call for them。〃
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What to do; then? You are sitting; perhaps; in your coracle; upon
some mountain tarn; waiting for a wind; and waiting in vain。
〃Keine luft an keine seite; Todes…stille f 乺 chterlich;〃
as G 攖 he has it …
〃Und der schiffer sieht bek 乵 mert Glatte fl 刢 he rings umher。〃
You paddle to the shore on the side whence the wind ought to come;
if it had any spirit in it; tie the coracle to a stone; light your cigar; lie
down on your back upon the grass; grumble; and finally fall asleep。 In
the meanwhile; probably; the breeze has come on; and there has been
half…an…hour's lively fishing curl; and you wake just in time to see the
last ripple of it sneaking off at the other side of the lake; leaving all as
dead…calm as before。
Now how much better; instead of falling asleep; to have walked
quietly round the lake side; and asked of your own brains and of Nature
the question; 〃How did this lake come here? What does it mean?〃
It is a hole in the earth。 True; but how was the hole made? There
must have been huge forces at work to form such a chasm。 Probably
the mountain was actually opened from within by an earthquake; and
when the strata fell together again; the portion at either end of the chasm;
being perhaps crushed together with greater force; remained higher than
the centre; and so the water lodged between them。 Perhaps it was
formed thus。 You will at least agree that its formation must have been a
grand sight enough; and one during which a spectator would have had
some difficulty in keeping his footing。
And when you learn