And there are four kinds of tomtits round here, remember: but we may go on with such talk for ever. Wiser men than we have asked the same question: but Lady Why will not answer them yet.
However, there is another question, which Madam How seems inclined to answer just now, which is almost as deep and mysterious.
What?
HOW all these different kinds of things became different.
Oh, do tell me!
Not I. You must begin at the beginning, before you can end at the end, or even make one step towards the end.
What do you mean?
You must learn the differences between things, before you can find out how those differences came about. You must learn Madam How's alphabet before you can read her book. And Madam How's alphabet of animals and plants is, Species, Kinds of things. You must see which are like, and which unlike; what they are like in, and what they are unlike in. You are beginning to do that with your collection of butterflies. You like to arrange them, and those that are most like nearest to each other, and to compare them.
You must do that with thousands of different kinds of things before you can read one page of Madam How's Natural History Book rightly.
But it will take so much time and so much trouble.
God grant that you may not spend more time on worse matters, and take more trouble over things which will profit you far less. But so it must be, willy-nilly. You must learn the alphabet if you mean to read. And you must learn the value of the figures before you can do a sum. Why, what would you think of any one who sat down to play at cards--for money too (which I hope and trust you never will do)--before he knew the names of the cards, and which counted highest, and took the other?
Of course he would be very foolish.
Just as foolish are those who make up "theories" (as they call them) about this world, and how it was made, before they have found out what the world is made of. You might as well try to find out how this hay-field was made, without finding out first what the hay is made of.
How the hay-field was made? Was it not always a hay-field?
Ah, yes; the old story, my child: Was not the earth always just what it is now? Let us see for ourselves whether this was always a hay-field.
How?
Just pick out all the different kinds of plants and flowers you can find round us here. How many do you think there are?
Oh--there seem to be four or five.
Just as there were three or four kinds of flies in the air. Pick them, child, and count. Let us have facts.
How many? What! a dozen already?
Yes--and here is another, and another. Why, I have got I don't know how many.
Why not? Bring them here, and let us see. Nine kinds of grasses, and a rush. Six kinds of clovers and vetches; and besides, dandelion, and rattle, and oxeye, and sorrel, and plantain, and buttercup, and a little stitchwort, and pignut, and mouse-ear hawkweed, too, which nobody wants.
Why?
Because they are a sign that I am not a good farmer enough, and have not quite turned my Wild into Field.
What do you mean?
Look outside the boundary fence, at the moors and woods; they are forest, Wild--"Wald," as the Germans would call it. Inside the fence is Field--"Feld," as the Germans would call it. Guess why?
Is it because the trees inside have been felled?
Well, some say so, who know more than I. But now go over the fence, and see how many of these plants you can find on the moor.
Oh, I think I know. I am so often on the moor.
I think you would find more kinds outside than you fancy. But what do you know?
That beside some short fine grass about the cattle-paths, there are hardly any grasses on the moor save deer's hair and glade- grass; and all the rest is heath, and moss, and furze, and fern.
Softly--not all; you have forgotten the bog plants; and there are (as I said) many more plants beside on the moor than you fancy.
But we will look into that another time. At all events, the plants outside are on the whole quite different from the hay- field.
Of course: that is what makes the field look green and the moor brown.
Not a doubt. They are so different, that they look like bits of two different continents. Scrambling over the fence is like scrambling out of Europe into Australia. Now, how was that difference made? Think. Don't guess, but think. Why does the rich grass come up to the bank, and yet not spread beyond it?
I suppose because it cannot get over.
Not get over? Would not the wind blow the seeds, and the birds carry them? They do get over, in millions, I don't doubt, every summer.
Then why do they not grow?
Think.
Is there any difference in the soil inside and out?
A very good guess. But guesses are no use without facts. Look.
Oh, I remember now. I know now the soil of the field is brown, like the garden; and the soil of the moor all black and peaty.
Yes. But if you dig down two or three feet, you will find the soils of the moor and the field just the same. So perhaps the top soils were once both alike.
I know.
Well, and what do you think about it now? I want you to look and think. I want every one to look and think. Half the misery in the world comes first from not looking, and then from not thinking. And I do not want you to be miserable.
But shall I be miserable if I do not find out such little things as this.
You will be miserable if you do not learn to understand little things: because then you will not be able to understand great things when you meet them. Children who are not trained to use their eyes and their common sense grow up the more miserable the cleverer they are.
Why?
Because they grow up what men call dreamers, and bigots, and fanatics, causing misery to themselves and to all who deal with them. So I say again, think.
Well, I suppose men must have altered the soil inside the bank.
Well done. But why do you think so?
Because, of course, some one made the bank; and the brown soil only goes up to it.
Well, that is something like common sense. Now you will not say any more, as the cows or the butterflies might, that the hay-field was always there.
And how did men change the soil?
By tilling it with the plough, to sweeten it, and manuring it, to make it rich.