Volume 1

Oysters, and all about them : being a complete history of the titular subject, exhaustive on all points of necessary and curious information from the earliest writers to those of the present time, with numerous additions, facts, and notes / by John R. Philpots.

  • Philpots, John Richards.
Date:
1890-1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Oysters, and all about them : being a complete history of the titular subject, exhaustive on all points of necessary and curious information from the earliest writers to those of the present time, with numerous additions, facts, and notes / by John R. Philpots. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    “ All that relates to Nature is in itself so delightful, and the pursuit of it elicits so many of our best and truest feelings, that every undertaking of this kind ought to be imbued with the sentiment inculcated by the above maxim, instead of repelling students by too much technicality. “The author and his readers have a joint property in the subject-matter, and they are held together by the same tie of sympathy. ‘ . . . Pleasure is spread through the earth In stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find.’ “ Our communion with God, through His works, affords one of the purest and most unalloyed of pleasures that is permitted to us in this transitory state. Even the mere contemplation of them, in any of their various aspects, if it is made in a fitting mood, assures us, much more forcibly than human teaching can, that our minds—our spirits—our souls partakb of His eternity, and are imperishable. This idea has pervaded all men and in every age. It is innate and ineradicable. “At the same time it cannot be denied that novels, magazines, and newspapers constitute now-a-days the literature which chiefly occupies the small reading-time of the public, and that scientific books generally are over- looked, unless they advance some startling proposition as to the origin or remote antiquity of our own race. There can be no use, however, in blaming the popular taste ; nor would it be reasonable to expect that every one should follow a scientific path, if his inclinations do not lead him that way. The love of Nature is not confined to any one period, and its votaries must not feel disappointed, should their peculiar studies not be shared by all their contem- poraries.”