Mosaic Image: pixibay.com
This is one in an ongoing series of nature essays from Lives of Game Animals (1925-1928) by Ernest Thompson Seton. It appeared in Vol. I pg. ix.
Preface
“There was once a great mosaic, constructed of precious stones, jewels, and gold, exquisite in workmanship, full of history, and setting forth the laws of life, well-being and joy.
That mosaic was broken, scattered, and lost. No one knows exactly what it was like. But wonderful morsels are picked up from time to time in the dustbins, in the woods, on the highway, in the dens of animals, in the minds of men, in the dreams of children.
To a student who saw certain of these gleams of color – hints of wonder – there came in some sort a vision of the lost masterpiece, and he set about piecing together such broken bits as he could find. Vast gaps there were; but by patient toil he assembled enough to reveal a little of the glorious thing a-coming, and the glimpse that the restoration gave afforded him exquisite happiness. In the very doing of it he found an ample reward.
Fellow woodmen! May I claim to be that student? The life of each of my animals is a part of a great mosaic. The scraps I have gathered in the woods, in the records of the great museums, in the journals of the naturalists, in the tales of guides and hunters. Much trash and tailings galore I found; but every little while my rake turned up a flake of gold, a bright little bit of enamel – a precious fact, a thing with the stamp of the Master.
And this test I could always apply in assembling the fragments; if they are put together aright, they fit perfectly and need no tooling; a little clearing of mud, perhaps, but no filing, no reshaping. Such tampering could work nothing but ruin. When they are right, they fit.
Many gaps there are and always will be, but sections of the wonder are coming to view.
These Hundred Lives, then, are my attempt at fitting the parts of the mosaic that have come to hand. They will, I hope, prove a starting point for other workers in the field; those with larger gifts and opportunity. At any rate, I have had the joy of making the attempt.
I have finished my work. Let me add a word. I do not consider that I am offering even a fragmentary presentation of the final truth that is coming. This I feel – that I am merely assembling tools, and some day a great man will come, and with those tools construct a telescope that shall surely reveal to us the vision that the world is awaiting.”