Madam How and Lady Why; Or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children

it need never be. Though the fog is clinging to the fir-trees, and creeping among the heather, till you cannot see as far as Minley Corner, hardly as

with her tail to lay her eggs in, before the frost catches her and ends her like the rest: though all things, I say, seem dead, yet there is plenty of life around you, at your feet, I may almost say in the very stones on which you tread. And though the place itself be dreary enough, a sheet of flat heather and a little glen i

ome in good time, if she is called, even by a little child. And she will let us see her at her work, and, what is more, teach us to copy her. But there is another fairy here likewise, whom we can hardly hope to see. Very thankful should we be if she lifted even the smallest corner of her veil, and showed us but for a moment if it were but her finger tip-so beautiful is she, and yet

o see Lady Why. For she is the servant, and Lady Why is the mistress; though she has a Master over her again-who

They do not tell you the "Reason Why" things happen, but only "The Way in which they happen." However, I must not blame these good folks, for I have made the same mistake myself often, and may do it again: but all the more shame to me. For see-you know perfectly the difference between How and Why, when you are talking about yourself. If I ask you, "Why did we go out to-day?" You would not answer, "Because we opened the door." That is the answer to "How did we go out?" The answer to Why did we go out is, "Because we chose to take a walk." Now when we talk about other things beside ourselves, we must

even dream. And what her reason for making fire burn may be I cannot tell. But I believe on excellent grounds that her reason is a very good one. If I dare to guess, I should say that one reason, at least, why fire burns, is that you may take c

etween Why and How, so that you should remember them steadily in after life

and yet, good and wise woman as she is, she never frets, nor tires, nor fudges her work, as we say at school. She takes just as much pains to make an acorn as to make a peach. She takes just as much pains about the acorn which the pig eats, as about the acorn which will grow into a tall oak, and help to build a great ship. She took just as much pains, again, about the acorn which you crushed under your foot just now, and which you fancy will never come to anything. Madam How is wiser than that. She knows that it will come to something. She will find some use for it, as she finds a use for everything. That acorn which you crushed will turn into mould, and that mould will go to feed the roots of some plant, perhaps next year, if it lies where it is; or perhaps it will be washed into the brook, and then into the river, and go down to the sea, and will feed the roots of some plant in some new continent ages and ages hence: and so Madam How will have her own again. You dropped your stick into the river yesterday, and it floated away. You were sorry, because it had cost you a great deal of trouble to cut it, and peel it, and carve a head and your name on it. Madam How was not sorry, though she had taken a great deal more trouble with that stick than ever you had taken. She had been three years making that stick, out of many things, sunbeams among the rest. But when it fell into the river, Madam How knew that she should not lose her sunbeams nor anything else: the stick would float down the river, and on into the sea; and there, when it got heavy with the salt water, it would sink, and lodge, and be buried, and perhaps ages hence turn into coal; and ages after that some one would dig it up and burn it, and then

t also that, if people choose to learn, she will teach them to get out of her way whenever she has business to do which is dangerous to them. But as for her being cruel and unjust, those may believe it who like. You, my dear boys and girls, need not believe it, if you will only trust to Lady Why; and be sure that Why is the mistress and How the servant, now and for ever. That Lady Why is ut

can't

be en

ke, the resignation which is the beginning and the end of all wisdom and all religion, is to believe that Lady Why knows best, because she her

he will always show us one of her lesson books if we give her time. And if we have to wait some time for her answer, you need not fear catching cold, though it is November;

it if you like, and I will guess too. You

sing, then we may guess. And you have no ground for supposing there ever was an earthquake here strong enough t

u will find out the longer you live; and therefore it is most reasonable to suppose that this glen has changed its shape, as everything else on earth has done. Besides, I told you not that

He whom Lady Why obeys, were not very patient and gentle with mankind, they would have perished off the face of the earth long ago, simply from their own stupidity. I, at least, was very stupid in this case, for I had my head full of earthquakes, and convulsions of nature, and all sorts of prodigies which never happened to this glen; and so, whi

at did

the bottom

u know also that the pond is always filling up with sand and mud; and that though we clean it o

of this bog. You see it coming down every

all once part of the hill on which you stand." I confess I was very much ashamed of myself when she said that. For that is the history of the whole mystery. Madam How is digging aw

imple a thing to have dug

urs in talking about water, without having come to the end of its wonders. Still Madam How is a great economist, and never wastes her materials. She is like the sailor who boasted (only she never boasts) that, if he had but a long life and a strong knife, he would build St. Paul's Cathedral before

down the heather-stems, to the ground. And whither do they go then? Whither will the water go,-hundreds of gallons of it perhaps,-which has dripped and run through the heather in this single day? It will sink into the ground, you know

ow you the mist that fell yesterday, perhaps, c

or ends suddenly in a steep rounded bank, almost like the crest of a wave-ready like a wave-cr

down them, in the deep heath and fern; besides, there are plenty of rabbit-holes there, becaus

wn these banks, much less roll down them, because there is almost certain to b

but the rain, and mist, and dew, which has sunk down first through the peaty soil, and then through the gravel and sand, and there has stopped. And why? Because under the gravel (about which I will tell you a strange story one day) and under the sand, which is what the geologists call the Upper Bagshot sand, there is an entirely different set of beds, which geologists call the Bracklesham beds, from a place near the New Forest; and in those beds there is a vein of cl

articular order in which Madam How laid down the gravel and sand and mud at the bottom of the sea, ages and ages ago. This

the clear blue sky; till we agreed that, putting aside the difference of size, they were as beautiful and grand as any Alps we had ever seen in pictures. And how we saw (for there could be no mistake about it there) that the Chine was being hollowed out by the springs which broke out high up the cliff, and by the rain which wore the sand into furrowed pinnacles and peaks. You recollect the beautiful place, and how, when we looked back down it we saw between the miniature mountain walls the bright blue sea, and heard it murmur on the sands outside. So I verily believe we might have done, if we had stood somewhere at the bottom of this glen thousands of years ago. We should have seen the sea in front of us; or rather, an arm of the sea; for Finch

had orders to lift up the whole coast of Bournemouth only twenty or even ten feet higher out of the sea than it is now. She could do that easily enough, for she has been doing so on the coast of South America for ages; she has been doing so this very summer in what hasty people would call a hasty, and violent, and ruthless way; though I shall not say so, for I believe

w; and instead of hollowing itself rapidly after every shower of rain, as you saw the Chine at Bournemouth doing, would hollow itself out slowly, as this glen is doing now. And one thing more would happen,-when the sea ceased to gnaw at the foot of the cliffs outside, and to carry away every stone and grain of sand which fell from them, the cliffs would very soon cease to be cliffs; the rain and the frost would still crumble them down, but the dirt that fell would lie at their feet, and gradually make a slope of dry land, far out where the shallow sea had been; and

to depend on what I say. If you want to understand Madam How, you must ask her questions yourself, and make up your mind yourself like a man, instead of taking things at hearsay or second-hand, like the vulgar. Mind, by "the vulgar" I do not mean poor peop

can I

soon to make a glen in the side of the heap, just like those on Hartford Bridge Flat. I believe she will; and certainly, if she does, it will be a fresh proof that my guess is right. And then we will see whether water will not make glens of a different shape than these, if it run over soils of a different kind. We will make a Hartford Bridge Flat turned upside down-a cake of sand with a cap

out by running water. I am sure if you would do this you would find something to amuse you, and something to instruct you, whenever you wish. I know that I do. To me the longest railroad journey, instead of being stupid, is like continually turning over the leaves of a wonderful book, or looking at wonderful pictures of old worlds which were made and unmade thousands of years ago. For I keep looking, not only at the railway cuttings, where

ou some other time; and show you, too, the marks of it in every gravel p

s you have seen paintings and photographs of,-valleys thou

say that I never saw a valley, however deep, or a cliff, however high, which had not been scooped out by water; and that even the mountain-tops which stand up miles aloft in ja

se peaks of the Matterhorn, or the Weisshorn, or the Pic du Midi of the Pyrenees, of which you have seen sketches and photographs. Just so water might saw out Hartford Bridge Flat, if i

m How's methods is to watch her at work in little corners at commonplace business, which will not astonish or frighten us, nor put huge hasty guesses and dreams into our heads. Sir Isaac Newton, some will tell you, found out the great law of gravitation, which holds true of all the suns and stars in heaven, by

ve a questio

d of a kettle rise up and shake when the water inside boiled? Of course; and of course, too, remember that Madam How must have done it. Then think over between this and our next talk, what that ca

e to it this day, and look at, and talk over it, and become thereby wiser and more earnest, and we will hope more humble and better people. Whatever else Lady W

the beginning of His way

asting, from the beginni

brought forth; when there were n

re settled, before the h

earth, nor the fields, nor the hig

I was there: when He set a comp

uds above: when He strengthe

e waters should not pass His commandment: wh

up with Him: and I was daily His de

art of His earth; and my deli

e, O ye children: for blessed

of us which we call our hearts and spirits, and which will endure when eyes and brain are turned again to dust. If your heart be pure and sober, gentle and truthful, then Lady Why speaks to you without words, and tells you things which Madam How and all her pupils, the men of science, can never tell. When you lie, it may be, on a painful sick-bed, but with your mother's hand in yours; when you sit by her, looking up into her loving eyes; when you gaze out towards the setting sun, and fancy golden capes and islands in the clouds, and seas and lakes in the blue sky, and the infinite rest and peace of the far west sends rest and peace into your young heart, till you sit silent and happy, you know not why; when sweet music fills your heart with noble and tender instincts which need no thoughts or words; ay, even when you watch the raging thunderstorm, and feel it to be, in spite of its great awf

onour and power, for Thou hast created all things