Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1875 edition. Excerpt: ... PREFACE. IT is with sincere pleasure I find myself entrusted with the task of introducing to the English public another of those admirable treatises on zoological and physical subjects which marked a distinct era in M. Michelet's literary life. These treatises are four in number, and were originally published in the following order: -- LOiseau ("The Bird"), 1856; L'Insecte ("The Insect"), 1857; La Mer ("The Sea"), 1861; and La Montagne ("The Mountain"), 1868. I have spoken of them as "treatises on zoological and physical subjects;" but, in truth, they are something less and something more. They do not deal with these subjects as the man of science does; they are wanting in systematic arrangement and definiteness of detail. But, on the other hand, they exhibit a quickness of insight, a richness of fancy, and a felicity of description for which the reader would look in vain to the manuals of zoologist or physicist . They open up to the student the inner meanings of Nature; they teach him that around and about us there is much which no philosopher can explain, which it is the province of the poet, or the ardent lover of Nature, to develop and illustrate. And this development, this illustration, is worked out bv Michelet with all the force of a mature intellect, ri PREFACE. and all the characteristic vigour of a picturesque and individual style. So that when the great writer occasionally " ventilates" sentiments not in entire accordance with our sober English taste, we are nevertheless charmed by the happiness of the diction in which they are clothed. And on almost every page some touch of tender feeling, some vivid gleam of imagination, some indication of profound sympathy, proves to the reader that he is under the spell of a powerful and...