The Pleasures of Ignorance

The Pleasures of Ignorance, by
Robert Lynd

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Title: The Pleasures of Ignorance
Author: Robert Lynd
Release Date: September 12, 2004 [EBook #13448]
Language: English
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THE PLEASURES OF IGNORANCE
BY ROBERT LYND

LONDON
GRANT RICHARDS LTD.
ST MARTIN'S STREET
1921
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE RIVERSIDE PRESS
LIMITED
EDINBURGH

TO JAMES WINDER GOOD
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE PLEASURES OF IGNORANCE 11
II. THE HERRING FLEET 19
III. THE BETTING MAN 29
IV. THE HUM OF INSECTS 40
V. CATS 51
VI. MAY 61
VII. NEW YEAR PROPHECIES 70
VIII. ON KNOWING THE DIFFERENCE 82
IX. THE INTELLECTUAL SIDE OF HORSE-RACING 91
X. WHY WE HATE INSECTS 102

XI. VIRTUE 114
XII. JUNE 123
XIII. ON FEELING GAY 132
XIV. IN THE TRAIN 141
XV. THE MOST CURIOUS ANIMAL 149
XVI. THE OLD INDIFFERENCE 158
XVII. EGGS: AN EASTER HOMILY 167
XVIII. ENTER THE SPRING 176
XIX. THE DAREDEVIL BARBER 186
XX. WEEDS: AN APPRECIATION 195
XXI. A JUROR IN WAITING 205
XXII. THE THREE-HALFPENNY BIT 215
XXIII. THE MORALS OF BEANS 224
XXIV. ON SEEING A JOKE 233
XXV. GOING TO THE DERBY 243
XXVI. THIS BLASTED WORLD 253

Acknowledgments are due to "The New Statesman," in which all but
one of these essays appeared. "Going to the Derby" appeared in "The
Daily News."--R.L.

I

THE PLEASURES OF IGNORANCE
It is impossible to take a walk in the country with an average
townsman--especially, perhaps, in April or May--without being amazed
at the vast continent of his ignorance. It is impossible to take a walk in
the country oneself without being amazed at the vast continent of one's
own ignorance. Thousands of men and women live and die without
knowing the difference between a beech and an elm, between the song
of a thrush and the song of a blackbird. Probably in a modern city the
man who can distinguish between a thrush's and a blackbird's song is
the exception. It is not that we have not seen the birds. It is simply that
we have not noticed them. We have been surrounded by birds all our
lives, yet so feeble is our observation that many of us could not tell
whether or not the chaffinch sings, or the colour of the cuckoo. We
argue like small boys as to whether the cuckoo always sings as he flies
or sometimes in the branches of a tree--whether Chapman drew on his
fancy or his knowledge of nature in the lines:
When in the oak's green arms the cuckoo sings, And first delights men
in the lovely springs.
This ignorance, however, is not altogether miserable. Out of it we get
the constant pleasure of discovery. Every fact of nature comes to us
each spring, if only we are sufficiently ignorant, with the dew still on it.
If we have lived half a lifetime without having ever even seen a cuckoo,
and know it only as a wandering voice, we are all the more delighted at
the spectacle of its runaway flight as it hurries from wood to wood
conscious of its crimes, and at the way in which it halts hawk-like in
the wind, its long tail quivering, before it dares descend on a hill-side
of fir-trees where avenging presences may lurk. It would be absurd to
pretend that the naturalist does not also find pleasure in observing the
life of the birds, but his is a steady pleasure, almost a sober and
plodding occupation, compared to the morning enthusiasm of the man
who sees a cuckoo for the first time, and, behold, the world is made

new.
And, as to that, the happiness even of the naturalist depends in some
measure upon his ignorance, which still leaves him new worlds of this
kind to conquer. He may have reached the very Z of knowledge in the
books, but he still feels half ignorant until he has confirmed each bright
particular with his eyes. He wishes with his own eyes to see the female
cuckoo--rare spectacle!--as she lays her egg on the ground and takes it
in her bill to the nest in which it is destined to breed infanticide. He
would sit day after day with a field-glass against his eyes in order
personally to endorse or refute the evidence