Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 71.djvu/326

320 thousands of plants, insects and animals; time to write ten score scientific books and treatises; time to direct hundreds of students who gathered at Upsala from near and far to be guided by the new organizer of science; and yet in all that busy life he never was too busy to let his true feelings come out, never too busy to love the sunshine and birds and flowers. The wonderful hold he had on his students and followers shows his never-slacking enthusiasm, and even to-day this is felt by reading his travels and his scientific addresses and papers, or by following his life, so admirably recounted by Fries. He trained himself to see and note whatever was essential and to express this in as few words and as directly as possible, and yet it seems natural for him to pass from scientific description to poetic prose full of the beautiful Northern imagery, which is so rich in the Swedish language. Indeed there is so much of the imaginative in his writing that the Swedes, as Levertin has done, like to name him with their poets.

He starts on his scientific trips with a bird-like delight in the outdoors much like that of the old ballads:

 Hit befel on Whitsontide, Erly in a May mornyng, The son vp fejre can shyne, And the briddis mery can syng.

This is a mery mornyng," seid Litull John. "Be hym that dyed on tre; A more mery man then I am one Lyves not in Christiantë." (Robin Hood and the Monk.)

Is this very different from the spirit of Linné when he set out from Upsala to study the plants and the rocks and the people of Lapland?

I journeyed from Upsala town the 12th of May, 1732, which was a Friday, 11 o'clock when I was 25 years old, all but twelve hours. Now began all the ground to delight and smile, now comes beautiful Flora and sleeps with Phœbus.

 Omnia vere vigent et veris tempore florent Et totus fervet Veneris dulcedine mundus.

Now stood the winter rye quarter of an ell tall, and the grain had newly shown a blade. The birch began now to burst forth, and all leafy trees to show their leaves, except the elm and aspen. . . . The lark sang to us the whole way, quivering in the air.

The sky was clear and warm, the west wind cooled with a pleasant breeze, and a dark hue from the west began to cover the sky. . . . The woods began to increase more and more, the sweet lark which ere now had delighted our ears, deserted us, but yet another one meets us in the woods with as great a compliment, namely the thrush, Turdus minor, who, when she on the highest fir-top plays to her dearest, also lets us joy therein. Yes, she tunes in so high with her varied notes that she often overmasters the nightingale, the master of song.