”JOB said, Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee, and no man who has ever honestly taken this advice to heart is in a position to gainsay its truth.
To learn to appreciate the beauties of the
world in which we live is a great victory. It establishes within us a never-failing source of pleasure, and enhances the value of existence a thousandfold. I would not exchange the everyday joys of a healthy observant ploughman for the worrying wealth and cares of a millionaire. The idea that to be rich in gold is to be happy is a dying, vulgar fallacy. Men are coming to know that there are greater possessions than those which can be measured by the surveyor’s chain or locked in iron safes. A love of Nature is one of them, and it has the unspeakably good quality of endurance.
Nature appeals to us in a thousand tongues — every one of which may be known and loved. The whispering winds of summer swaying the birch trees gently to and fro; the blasts of winter roaring through the leafless arms of the sturdy forest oak; the hollow boom and awe-inspiring moan of the restless sea in some dark cave, where the otter sleeps and the rock dove broods; the rich scent of the evening air floating across the clover-decked machar of the Western Isles; the reeds reflected in graceful beauty on the placid waters of a Norfolk Broad lying silent in the mists of the morning; the sombre blackness of a peat and heather shored Highland loch; the witchery of the soft blue sky studded with an archipelago of fleecy white clouds; the sun rising in golden splendour out of the eastern sea, and setting in sublime grandeur behind purple mountain peaks; the air palpitating with the songs of innumerable happy birds; the hum of a vast multitude of insects at work or play; and a great number of other happenings throughout the realms of Nature, make us feel the joy of being and witnessing what is going on around us and for us and all men…”
Richard Kearton FZS, FRPS (2 January 1862 – 8 February 1928) and Cherry Kearton (8 July 1871 – 27 September 1940), brothers, were a pair of British naturalists and some of the world’s earliest wildlife photographers. They developed innovative methods to photograph animals in the wild and in 1895 published the first natural history book to be entirely illustrated by wild photographs. Richard was a made a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London and Royal Photographic Society. Cherry later became a wildlife and news filmmaker, and friend to Theodore Roosevelt. The Royal Geographical Society created the Cherry Kearton Medal and Award in his honour.
Contributed by
Juan Pablo Macías