now recovering, but still requires constant care. My cousins are most
assiduous and tender nurses. They are attentive, without being
officious, and they arrange the time of their attendance, so as to
permit each to have some leisure for her own daily occupations. This
gratifies my aunt particularly; I have frequently heard her say, that it
is a duty of those who attend on the sick to be as cheerful as possible,
and that nothing contributes to cheerfulness so much as employment. She
thinks it no proof whatever of real sensibility, to lay aside all one’s
usual pursuits because a friend or relation is ill; it only weakens the
mind, and produces on the countenance that expression of anxiety which
distresses or alarms the patient.
I do not know exactly what my aunt’s illness has been--her eyes have
been so much affected, that she has been condemned for some time to
total idleness, and hitherto she has not been permitted to listen to
much reading or even conversation. I should have thought that a person
who is so active in general, would have been doubly sensible of the
weight of idle time. But her mind has such various stores of knowledge,
deep and light, that she never can be in want of novelties to employ it;
to-day I was allowed to stay with her for some time, and she repeated to
me some beautiful moral reflections, as well as some lighter poetical
compositions on which she had employed her mind last night. It is thus
she beguiles the wakeful hours, and habituates herself to think more
slightly of the sufferings which she sometimes endures.
_19th, Sunday._--My dear aunt is certainly much better.--By her desire I
was permitted to take care of her while the rest of the family went to
church; and I was thus left sole guardian of this good patient, so
precious to us all.
Immediately after they went away, she fell into a gentle slumber, and as
I had not provided myself with a book, and was fearful of disturbing her
by walking to the book-case, I sat quietly near the bed, so that I could
watch her. For want of other employment I amused myself with comparing
my former with my present life; and though on the whole they are very
different, there is one point, dear mamma, in which they are perfectly
similar--for the friends I am now with are, just like you, really and
rationally religious. My reverie over, I repeated to myself some of our
favourite sacred poetry, among which was Mrs. Barbauld’s address to the
Deity. I then tried to recollect the various religious books I had read
since I came here; and afterwards I endeavoured to arrange the knowledge
which I had acquired not only from them but from my uncle’s
conversations.
While I was engaged in these reflections, my aunt awoke, and having
taken her medicine, she desired me to read to her some of the Old and
New Testament; and then, as she insisted on it, I went out for a short
time, leaving her maid in the room.
My mind, of course, dwelt on that good and amiable aunt, to whom I owe
so much; and every turn I made in the garden brought me to some object
that reminded me of the kind things she had said to me in our walks, and
the many opportunities she had taken of giving my mind a right
direction. Her religion is always cheerful, and she has the art of
introducing little useful reflections into common conversation, so as to
double the impression they make. Just where I was then sauntering, she
had said to me only a few hours before she was taken ill, “You see that
the embryo plant contained in this seed will not vegetate without heat
and moisture--and so, my dear niece, our good dispositions, whatever
they may be, will wither away without the continual help of Him who is
ever ready to assist us, and to open our minds to the high views of a
future state which He has set before us; nor, Bertha, can it be
considered one whit more wonderful that we should hereafter change into
a life of immortality, than that the larva should burst into a beautiful
butterfly, or that these little black seeds should expand into luxuriant
foliage, and deck their branches with splendid flowers.”
The wind had been very high all that morning, and many broken branches
were scattered about the shrubbery: my aunt seemed to delight in the
“wild music of the wind-swept grove;” and as we sheltered ourselves from
the blast, she pointed out to me the numbers of minute insects that were
enjoying their short day of existence, unmindful of its terrors; and the
birds that were struggling through it with materials for their nests;
and the bees who could scarcely withstand its power, yet were urged on
by their instinctive industry to begin their winter’s store. “How that
hoarse storm,” she exclaimed, “and all these tokens of the opening
spring, remind one of the Almighty power and benevolence!”
I immediately quoted the well known line,
Which Nature’s works through all their parts proclaim.
“Well applied, Bertha. In every department of nature we find sufficient
proofs of that omnipotence and goodness. The astonishing force of an
unseen agent, like the wind, comes home indeed to the feelings at this
moment, and leads one to reflect on its wonderful causes and its
beneficial effects; but when we view with the astronomer the countless
stars and the regular movement of the planets in their orbits; or, with
the chemist, trace the infinite variety of matter up to the different
proportions in which a few elementary substances are combined; or if we
examine the microscopic perfection of the commonest of these flowers; or
the young leaves already formed and wrapped up for months in the buds;
or the beautiful preparation of hard scales and downy net-work for the
preservation of the young plant inclosed in the seeds,--the mind is
absolutely lost in admiration!
I read His awful name emblazoned high,
With golden letters on the illumined sky,
Nor less the mystic characters I see
Wrought in each flower, inscribed on every tree;
In every leaf that trembles in the breeze,
I hear the voice of God among the trees.”
_20th._--For some days past, the rooks have been very busy, building
their nests.--There are a few tall trees near this, which stand in a
clump apart from the rest; Frederick says that the rooks have a fancy
for them, and build there year after year. No creatures seem to be more
attached to the place where they have lived; nor can any be more
sociable, as they generally place several nests together. But their
sociable disposition does not imply honesty towards each other; for
when a pair are constructing their nest, one always remains to guard it
while the other goes in search of materials, lest it might be pillaged
by the neighbouring rooks. Frederick and I observed a transaction of
this nature to-day; and it caused a great uproar, for the crime is
always punished by expelling the thieves from the society.
White of Selborne says, they depart on foraging excursions in the
morning, and return in the evening; and that, after the young have taken
wing, there is a general desertion of the nest trees; but he says the
families return in October, to repair their dwellings.
Among their favourite food is the grub of the chaffer-beetle, which, if
allowed to multiply, would lay waste the corn-fields and meadows;--and
yet how many mistaken people accuse these poor rooks of doing mischief!
Frederick contrived to get one of them to shew me, that I might know how
to distinguish them from other species of the crow family. The rook is
black, tail somewhat rounded, plumage glossy, the bill is more straight
and slender, and its base is encircled by a naked white skin which is
scaly, and takes the place of those black projecting feathers or
bristles, which, in the other species of crow, extend as far as the
opening of the nostrils.
Rooks, I am told, are birds of passage in France, but in England they
are stationary. In Siberia, they are the forerunners of summer; and in
France, they announce the approach of winter.
Now that they are busy building their nests, they make a noisy, hoarse
cawing, which I have not yet persuaded myself to like; but it is
agreeable to Mary and Caroline--I suppose, because it is united in their
minds with the idea of spring.
_21st._--After sitting a little time with my aunt, who, I am delighted
to tell you, is much better, I had a botanising walk with Miss Perceval.
What a very agreeable companion she is!
She told me that few countries, so limited in extent, comprise such a
variety of plants as the British islands. Yet few of them are peculiar
to these countries: those of our southern districts may be almost all
found in France and Germany; those of Scotland are nearly common with
the productions of Sweden and Denmark; and our elevated hills supply a
vegetation similar to that of Norway and Lapland. The climate of Ireland
varies so little from that of the corresponding parts of England and
Scotland, that there is scarcely any difference in their native plants.
She mentioned, however, two; the _menziesia polifolia_, or St. Patrick’s
heath, and the _saxifraga geum_, with its varieties, which are found
wild in Ireland only. I reminded her of the arbutus, but she seemed to
doubt that it is a native of Killarney, which surprised me, as you told
me that it was; and my uncle expressed the same opinion lately. On the
contrary, she is inclined to believe the tradition, that the Monks of
Mucross Abbey introduced it there from Spain--for, she says, trees are
seldom found, in a state of nature, confined to one spot only: and it is
well known that the arbutus does not grow naturally in any other part of
Ireland; it grows, however, abundantly on all the shores of Spain, and
from thence she thinks it may have been originally brought.
She gave me a very satisfactory reason why the native vegetable
productions of Great Britain are inferior in number to those of
countries on the continent; few seeds are furnished with the means of
flying across the Channel so as to have naturalised themselves here.
Where no sea intervenes, they are gradually but continually spreading
from one place to another. On the road sides and in the corn-fields of
France, Germany, and Holland, we see many plants which have been
imported for our gardens; even in the Flora Danica there are many
belonging to that small country, which are not possessed by us; and all
the mountainous regions of Europe, though separated by a great distance,
have several species in common, while we can boast of very few which are
found in Great Britain only.
Miss P. told me, however, of some; for instance, the Isle of Man cabbage
has not yet been observed in any other parts of the world than in that
island, in the Hebrides, and on the north-western shores of England and
Scotland. One of the most interesting of our British plants, she says,
is pipewort; for in no part of the continent of Europe is it, or any
individual of this genus, to be found; and, what is very remarkable,
though all the other species of the family are inhabitants of the
tropics, yet ours is found in one of the most northern of the Hebrides,
and in a lake which is peculiarly cold.
It is the same among the _cryptogamous_ tribes, such as lichens, fungi,
and mosses. Though we think Britain rich in that extensive class, most
of them are known in other parts of Europe, or in North America; and she
says it is a singular fact, that the lower we descend in the scale of
vegetation, the more universally are the individuals of those tribes
dispersed over the surface of the globe. In Carolina, for example, a
large proportion of the _fungi_ are the same with those of France and
Germany, while among what she calls the _phenogamous_ plants, or those
which have _visible flowers_, there are scarcely any that are common to
Europe.
The _mosses_ too, which have been received from the higher parts of
North America, and from Kamtschatka, are almost all indigenous in
Europe.
_22nd._--I had often wished to see the contents of a set of nice little
drawers under the book-cases on one side of the library; at last, to my
great satisfaction, I have been allowed to examine the small geological
collection which they contain. It consists of specimens of the different
_series_ of rocks, accompanied by the organic remains which distinguish
them.
My uncle first shewed us some bits of hornblende, primary limestone,
mica-slate, and granite, as specimens of the inferior order, or ancient
primitive rocks, destitute of all organic remains, and having something
of a crystalline appearance.
Next he shewed us the drawers containing the transition or submedial
series, including grey wackè, transition limestone, quartz, common
slate, and serpentine; they contain some specimens of the lowest scale
of organized beings, such as zoophytes, madrepores, and testacea, but
very sparingly, and all different from those now known.
Then came the medial order, or carboniferous rocks of old red sandstone,
mountain limestone, and all the parallel strata of coal, slate-clay, and
freestone, which he calls _coal measures_. He shewed us abundant remains
in them of animals, but very few of which have any resemblance to
existing species. Some of the limestone or marble specimens were
polished on one side, so as to shew their beautiful veins and colours.
On several bits of the coal and black slate, I saw the impression of
leaves, branches, and seeds, but no shells, or any kind of animal
remains: there was one perfect fern leaf, but my uncle says, of an
unknown family, and a great many reeds. There was also, a flat block of
greyish freestone, on which the regular scales of some seed vessel, like
a very large fir cone, were deeply marked; and on another, I am sure I
could distinctly trace the imbricated form and the spines of the common
prickly pear of the Brazils. Indeed, my uncle thinks that all these
vegetable remains seem nearly allied to the plants of tropical climates;
and he says, it would be a most interesting employment for some
naturalist to devote himself to the study of what might be called
_subterranean botany_. These coal measures occupy several drawers; for
besides the Staffordshire, Newcastle, and other coals, he has specimens
of the seventeen coal beds of the forest of Dean, and a large collection
of their organic remains, which he has taken great pains in arranging.
The next drawers contain the supermedial series, beginning with the
magnesian limestone, new red sandstone, and red marl. There are very
large districts of this formation in the central parts of England, and
they include the great deposits of rock-salt, which is of so much
importance, he says, to the empire. Considerable beds of gypsum are also
found; but it contains no organic remains of either animals or
vegetables. Above these,--for you no doubt have perceived what I forgot
to mention, that my uncle began at his lowest drawer, in order to shew
the lowest strata first,--above these, he showed me a collection of the
lias and oolite strata, both of them impure limestones, but extremely
rich in the number and variety of organic remains. These consist of
ferns and flags, corals and zoophytes, shells of all kinds, univalve,
bivalve, and multivalve; ammonites of all sizes, fishes of several
species, and turtles and other amphibia unlike any of the species now
known. To one of these amphibia has been given the name ichthyosaurus,
which, my uncle says, means the fish-like lizard; it having the head of
a crocodile and the back bone of a shark; he has only a small specimen,
which stands over the book-case, but he says some have been found in the
lias near Lyme, in Dorsetshire, three or four feet in length. And he
told me that at Stonesfield, near Woodstock, in Oxfordshire, the fossil
remains of another extraordinary animal of the amphibious tribes was
discovered, which has been called the monitor; no complete skeleton of
it has yet been put together, but many of the detached parts must have
belonged to an animal forty feet long, and twelve feet high!
The remainder of this numerous series consists of different strata of
sands and clays, and various limestones, up to the chalk formation; and
they contain a repetition of the fossils he shewed me in the lower
parts of it. He frequently made me observe, that these fossils are all
not only very widely distinguished from the families found in the
carboniferous and transition series, but that there are also striking
peculiarities in themselves according to the bed which they occupy.
We came next to the great chalk formation, with its wonderful deposition
of flints in parallel layers; and then to the last, or superior order,
consisting of gravel or sand, or of clay, which is in some places four
or five hundred feet thick, and resting on the chalk. Its organic
remains are highly interesting; but my uncle said he would not perplex
our memories at present, by a minute examination of the specimens in his
collection; he wished to give us general ideas, hereafter we may study
the particulars. Before he closed his drawers, he shewed us, that below
this upper formation all the remains of organic bodies were in a
petrified or mineralized state; that is, the general structure and
external form of the body has been preserved, but the original matter of
which it was composed has entirely disappeared, and has been replaced by
the substance of the mineral in which it was imbedded. On the contrary,
in the strata which cover the chalk, the shells are merely preserved,
and in such a state, that when the clay or sand in which they lie is
washed off, they might appear quite recent, if they had not lost their
colour and become more brittle. My uncle shewed us a few specimens of
these, and also of some shells, which he says are peculiar to _fresh_
water, but which are often found in alternate layers with the _marine_
shells, as if they had been deposited by alternate inundations of fresh
and salt water. And lastly, he shewed us some of the shells found in a
horizontal stratum of gravel on the coasts of Essex and Suffolk, about
fifty feet above the sea, which are exactly the same with the shells at
present existing in the sea on the same coast. Above all these regular
strata, he says, there is in many places spread a confused covering of
gravel, apparently formed by the action of a deluge, which had shattered
and rounded the fragments of the rocks over which its torrents had
swept.
In this gravel the remains of numerous land quadrupeds are found; many
of them of species now unknown, such as the mastodon, and mammoth or
fossil elephant, with varieties of the hyæna, bear, rhinoceros, and elk,
but indiscriminately mingled with others, which still exist in the
country.
I have taken a good deal of pains to acquire a clear idea of this order
of the strata, with their vegetable and animal remains. My uncle did not
shew them all at one time, we went over them by degrees, a little every
day; but I have just summed them up altogether, to give you an idea of
what I have seen.
_24th, Good Friday._--Before we went to church to-day, my uncle spoke to
us for a short time on the solemn event we were going to commemorate;
and though my notes of what he said can be of little use to you, yet I
am anxious to shew my dear mamma that I take still more pains to profit
by what he tells us on this most important subject, than upon Geology or
any thing else.
“You are all too well acquainted with Scripture,” said he, “not to know
that the lesson which it everywhere inculcates, is, that man by sin and
disobedience had fallen under the displeasure of his Maker, and that
there was an invincible necessity, however inexplicable to our
comprehension, that our Saviour should lay down his life to redeem us
from that sin, and to procure for repentant sinners forgiveness and
acceptance.
“That the death of Christ was the real and efficient sacrifice, of which
the various offerings under the law were but the types or shadows, is
evident from a crowd of passages in Holy Writ to which I have repeatedly
drawn your attention. But as if to prevent the possibility of doubt on
the subject, St. Paul emphatically tells the Hebrews that the High
Priest entering into the Holy of Holies with the annual sin-offering
was only ‘a figure for the time then present.’ And he distinctly adds,
that Christ, not ‘by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own
blood, obtained eternal redemption for us.’
“The promise made to our first parents intimated a future deliverer, who
should remove those evils which had been entailed on mankind by their
misconduct. This was the assurance that became to the Israelites the
grand object of their faith; and it was to perpetuate this fundamental
article of their hope and belief, that a standing memorial both of the
fall and of the promised deliverance was appointed. Now, what memorial
could be more apposite, than that of _animal sacrifice_?--It connected
in one view the two great events in the moral history of man, the Fall,
and the Recovery: the death denounced against sin, and the death
appointed for that Holy Intercessor whose blood was to be accepted as a
final atonement.
“How true it is, that the ways and thoughts of God are not like those of
men!
“Wonderful in every part of it, but chiefly in the last acts of it, was
the awful scene of this stupendous expiation. That the author of life
should himself be made subject to death--that his sufferings and
humiliation should be the manifestation of his glory--that by stooping
to death he should conquer death;--and that the height of human malice
should but accomplish the purposes of God’s mercy!
“If you compare the whole chain of prophecies with the history of our
Lord’s sufferings, you will find that it was not until they were
fulfilled to the minutest point, that the patient Son of God, as if then
at liberty to depart, said ‘It is finished.’--Yes, all that the wicked
were destined to contribute to the general deliverance was finished.
“We cannot understand the mysteries of God; but we may easily perceive
his goodness. We cannot discover his motives, but we have no difficulty
in discovering his will. We cannot comprehend the actions of Providence,
or the moral government of the universe; but we can have no uncertainty
about the laws which should govern our own actions--they are clearly and
forcibly stated in the Gospel; all that it imports a sinful being to
know, to believe, or to do, all that concerns our fall and our
redemption, everything that involves the greatest interests of the human
race, is there unfolded. We cannot penetrate that inscrutable decree
which rendered it unfit to pardon sin without vicarious atonement; but
we may form some faint conception of the immense sacrifice that Christ
made for us, in order to satisfy Eternal Justice. From the horror with
which he contemplated his approaching death, and from the agony with
which he prayed that the cup of bitterness might pass from him, we may
surely infer that his sufferings were of no ordinary nature--that
the sacrifice was, indeed, great. Yet in the depth of his
anguish, his prayer was one of perfect resignation and devout
humility--‘Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.’
“Let us then learn, from his great example, how and where to seek for
consolation when misfortune or misery overtakes us; let us pour forth
our petitions with the same fervour as he did; and let us bow with the
same submission in our hearts to the decrees of unerring wisdom.”
_25th._--My excellent aunt came down stairs yesterday evening, and this
bright cheering day she took a little walk with my uncle. Grace and I
had the pleasure of accompanying them. Every thing seemed to sympathise
with her recovery--all nature seemed to be reviving--buds opening, and
young leaves bursting out; many branches of hawthorn in sheltered places
quite green, and the young elms feathered with their pretty opening
leaves. The glades in the forest were carpeted with primroses--the birds
were building in every bush, and singing as they worked; the lambs were
sporting about, and the pastures beginning to shew the little cheerful
daisy--
The lambkin crops its crimson gem,
The wild bee murmurs on its breast,
The blue fly bends its pensile stem
Light o’er the skylark’s nest.
Grace repeated that pretty stanza of Montgomery’s; and when I asked her
if she knew what was meant by “its crimson gem,” she replied, “Yes,
Mamma told me that the buds of trees are called gems, from the Latin
word _gemma_.” My uncle added that here the term is poetically applied
to the flowers while yet unclosed--though it is only leaf-buds to which
botanists give that name.
I begged of my uncle to shew me the difference between the oats and
wheat; for though there is a great difference in their appearance when
in ear, yet I had not learned to distinguish the young plants.