Riverside Letters; a continuation of “Letters to Marco”

Abstract

ALTHOUGH in his preface Mr. Leslie is careful to state that he cannot assert in the case of these Letters, as he did in the previous volume of his “Letters to Marco,” that they were written wholly without view to publication, yet is there little or no change in subject-matter or in style. They are, like the former collection, genuine letters sent to his friend Mr. Marks, R.A., and the topics on which he writes are of mutual interest to the two friends who both, as he says, “love nature for her own sake, untrammelled by the prepossessions that not unfrequently accompany that love among the votaries of science or sport,” and in publishing them he doubtless hopes to find like sympathetic readers among the many who share that love with the two Royal Academicians. Nor do we think he hopes in vain. Admirers of nature are a companionable folk; they love to compare notes, to be asked to share each other's triumphs, to admire each other's finds, and among the topics on which Mr. Leslie dilates are many in which they will find an interest. They will be ready with their tribute of admiration for his Iris susiana and his Cipripedium spectabile (diverse triumphs), with their sympathetic sorrow at the loss of bis old and faithful donkey, and will appreciate his avowal of the inexpressible pleasure he felt at the casual discovery of the exquisitely coloured berry of the lily of the valley. “You will, I dare say, laugh at me for my sentimentality,” he writes. We cannot believe that his correspondent did, nor will the appreciative reader. It is the spirit of the true lover of nature, to whom such sights, the more that they come unexpectedly, can ever “bring thoughts that do lie too deep for tears.”

Riverside Letters; a continuation of “Letters to Marco.”

By George D. Leslie, author of “Our River.” Pp. xvi + 251. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1896.)