dionæas, is a very good traveller’s story. But the best as well as the most considerable of these essays, occupying in fact, two-fifths of the volume, is one entitled ‘Sight-Seeing.’ Here we have the benefit of the author’s famiharity, not merely with the places in India worth seeing, but with the customs and character of the people. With such a ‘sight-seer’ as guide, the reader sees many things the ordinary traveller would miss, and much information and not a little food for reflection are compressed into a relatively small space in a style which is not only pleasant but eloquent.” — The Athenæum.
“A deftly-mixed olla-podrida of essays, travel, and stories. ‘Sight-Seeing’ is one of those happy efforts which hit off the real points of interest in a journey. ‘My Wife’s Birds’ is an essay, genial and humorous; the ‘Daughter of Mercy,’ an allegory, tender and suggestive. But the tales of adventure carry off the palm. These stories are marvellous and fanciful, yet imaginative in the highest sense. ‘The Man-Eating Tree’ and the ‘Hunting of the Soko,’ blend thrilling horror and weird superstition with a close imitation of popular stories of actual adventure.” — The World.
“In a series of powerfully drawn sketches, Mr. Robinson shows that he belongs to the happy few in whom intimate acquaintance with Indian objects has created no indifference. The vignettes which he paints are by turns humorous and pathetic, serious and powerful, charming and artistic. From them we gain a vivid impression of the every-day world of India. They show us in really admirable descriptions, bright and quaint, what a wealth of material for Art, Literature, and Descriptive Painting lies latent even in the daily experiences of an Englishman in India The author writes about butterflies and insects, things furred and feathered, flowers and trees, with a keen eye for the life and instincts of Indian scenery, and with a delightful sympathy for the East. … His exquisite sketches remind one of the classical work — ‘White’s Natural History of Selborne.’ In Mr. Robinson’s book there is to be found the same patience in observation united to the charm of a highly-cultured mind. … Where everything is so good it would be idle to show a preference by quotation.” — Magazin für die Literatur des Auslandes.
“Mr. Phil. Robinson has his own way of looking at Nature, and a very pleasant way it is. His love of his subject is as genuine, perhaps more so, than that of the solemn naturalist who writes with a pen of lead: he can be at once lively and serious; and his knowledge, which resembles in variety the contents of an ostrich’s stomach, is exhibited without effort. Indeed, it would be incorrect to say that it is exhibited at all. His style is, no doubt, achieved with art, but the art is not seen, and his easy method of expressing what he knows may deceive the unwary reader. … This delightful volume! A book which deserves the attention both of old and young readers.” — The Spectator.
“When Mr. Robinson sent out those delightful chapters entitled ‘In My Indian Garden,’ it was evident that a new genius had appeared on the horizon of English literature. In that exquisite little book, the original and accurate observations of animal life which charmed the naturalist were conveyed with a humor so entirely new and clothed with a diction so perfect as to give a very high literary value to the work as well as a signal promise of further performance on a yet larger scale. … His purely literary quality reminds us of the old masters of humor; but it has the unique advantage of alliance with a range of exact knowledge of the animal world of which none of Mr. Robinson’s predecessors can boast. And yet our author, with all his knowledge and love of animals, is preeminently a classic humorist. His rare and distinctive faculty is seen in his way of inverting our method of studying animals. In his scheme of investigating nature, man does not play his usually proud part of discoverer and exponent of his fellow animals in fur and feathers; rather he is discovered and expounded by them. When the Unicorn in Mr. Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-glass first saw Alice, he remarked that he had always thought little girls were fabulous creatures. Mr. Robinson possesses in perfection this power of presenting man from what may be supposed to be an animal’s point of view. And the view that every animal exists for itself and that all barriers to its self-interest are so many accidents and interferences with the scheme of nature, finds in our author’s hands the most startling and amusing expression. … Mr. Robinson possesses grace,