Genre:

Letter, Serial

Subjects:

Botany, Education, Reading, Observation, Anatomy, Taxonomy, Nomenclature, Expertise, Entomology, Amusement, Fieldwork, Feeling

    The narrator recommends her friend to peruse 'the "Studies of Nature" by S. Pierre' observing: 'It is from that work that I have derived the greatest part of my knowledge, and it will teach you how to make observations' (208). She describes the anatomy and taxonomy of further plants, remarking: 'The learned will laugh, perhaps, at my description; but tell me, my dear Eugenia, whether my explanations are plain, and I faithfully describe what my eyes consider and study'. Recommends the first three volumes of Noël A Pluche's Spectacle de la Nature as containing 'some simple practical elementary observations on the charms of natural history'. (209) She concludes: 'Yesterday part of the flowers I had gathered drooped while I held them. It was truly affecting, those poor little plants slumbered in the hand that had severed them from life' (211).