Whatever rags of old-world fatuity may have
lingered in that strong brain, he had been not the less a delightful
teacher, and had imparted an ardent love of nature to his little family of
pupils in that peripatetic school between hawthorn hedges or in the open
fields by the Lee.
And now, in quiet rambles with Angela, in the midst of a landscape
transfigured by that vernal beauty which begins with the waning of April,
and is past and vanished before the end of May, Denzil loved to expound the
wonders of the infinitesimal; the insect life that sparkled and hummed in
the balmy air, or flashed like living light among the dewy grasses; the
life of plant and flower, which seemed almost as personal and conscious a
form of existence; since it was difficult to believe there was no sense of
struggle or of joy in those rapid growths which shot out from a tangle of
dark undergrowth upward to the sunlight, no fondness in the wild vines that
clung so close to some patriarchal trunk, covering decay with the
beautiful exuberance of youth. Denzil taught her to realise the wonders of
creation--most wonderful when most minute--for beyond the picturesque
and lovely in nature, he showed her those marvels of order, and law, and
adaptation, which speak to the naturalist with a stronger language than
beauty.
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