The Fall of the Year
By Dallas Lore Sharp (1911)
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp (1911). Unabridged Charlotte Mason living book edition for Form II Natural History & Science.
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Chapter 1: Introduction
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 1
There are three serious charges brought against nature books of the present time, namely, that they are either so dull as to be unreadable, or so fanciful as to be misleading, or so insincere as to be positively harmful. There is a real bottom to each of these charges.
Dull nature-writing is the circumstantial, the detailed, the cataloguing, the semi-scientific sort, dried up like old Rameses and cured for all time with the fine-ground spice of measurements, dates, conditions—observations, so called. For literary purposes, one observation of this kind is better than two. Rarely does the watcher in the woods see anything so new that for itself it is worth recording. It is not what one sees, so much as the manner of the seeing, not the observation but its suggestions that count for interest to the reader. Science wants the exact observation; nature-writing wants the observation exact and the heart of the observer along with it. We want plenty of facts in our nature books, but they have all been set down in order before; what has not been set down before are the author’s thoughts and emotions. These should be new, personal, and are pretty sure therefore to be interesting.
More serious than dullness (and that is serious enough) is the charge that nature books are untrustworthy, that they falsify the facts, and give a wrong impression of nature. Some nature books do, as some novels do with the facts of human life. A nature book all full of extraordinary, better-class animals who do extraordinary stunts because of their superior powers has little of real nature in it. There are no such extraordinary animals, they do no such extraordinary things. Nature is full of marvels—Niagara Falls, a flying swallow, a star, a ragweed, a pebble; but nature is not full of dragons and centaurs and foxes that reason like men and take their tea with lemon, if you please.
I have never seen one of these extraordinary animals, never saw anything extraordinary out of doors, because the ordinary is so surprisingly marvelous. And I have lived in the woods practically all of my life. And you will never see one of them—a very good argument against anybody’s having seen them.
The world out of doors is not a circus of performing prodigies, nor are nature-writers strange half-human creatures who know wood-magic, who talk with trees, and call the birds and beasts about them as did one of the saints of old. No, they are plain people, who have seen nothing more wonderful in the woods than you have, if they would tell the truth.
When I protested with a popular nature-writer some time ago at one of his exciting but utterly impossible fox stories, he wrote back,—
“The publishers demanded that chapter to make the book sell.”
Now the publishers of this book make no such demands. Indeed they have had an expert naturalist and woodsman hunting up and down every line of this book for errors of fact, false suggestions, wrong sentiments, and extraordinaries of every sort. If this book is not exciting it is the publishers’ fault. It may not be exciting, but I believe, and hope, that it is true to all of my out of doors, and not untrue to any of yours.
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Table of Contents
49 ChaptersEvery chapter below is pre-indexed for oral narration and easy 1-click scheduling into your weekly Charlotte Mason lesson plan.
Chapter 1: Introduction
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 1
Chapter I The Clock Strikes One
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 2
Chapter Ii Along The Highway Of The Fox
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 3
Chapter Iii In The Toadfish's Shoe
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 4
Chapter 5
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 5
Chapter 6
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 6
Chapter 7
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 7
Chapter 8
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 8
Chapter 9
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 9
Chapter 10
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 10
Chapter 11
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 11
Chapter 12
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 12
Chapter 13
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 13
Chapter V Whipped By Eagles
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 14
Chapter Vi Thanksgiving At Grandfather's Farm
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 15
Chapter 16
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 16
Chapter 17
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 17
Chapter 18
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 18
Chapter 19
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 19
Chapter 20
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 20
Chapter 21
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 21
Chapter 22
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 22
Chapter 23
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 23
Chapter Viii The Muskrats Are Building
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 24
Chapter Ix The North Wind Doth Blow
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 25
Chapter X An Outdoor Lesson
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 26
Chapter Xi Leafing
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 27
Chapter 28
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 28
Chapter 29
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 29
Chapter 30
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 30
Chapter 31
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 31
Chapter 32
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 32
Chapter 33
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 33
Chapter 34
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 34
Chapter 35
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 35
Chapter 36
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 36
Chapter Xiii Honk, Honk, Honk!
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 37
Chapter I
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 38
Chapter Ii
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 39
Chapter Iii
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 40
Chapter Iv
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 41
Chapter V
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 42
Chapter Vi
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 43
Chapter Viii
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 44
Chapter Ix
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 45
Chapter X
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 46
Chapter Xi
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 47
Chapter Xii
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 48
Chapter Xiii
The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp — Chapter 49
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