Article June 20, 2016 Issue

Keeping on, with patience

Andrew Wilson

One time when some young relatives came to visit me, they told me they were looking for snails and asked me if I had seen any. I told them I often saw them in the yard and had seen some that day in the front garden.

I wondered why snails held such fascination for children, as well as for adults, for I have an adult friend who has spent a lifetime studying shells and snails, and is a world authority, writer, and lecturer on them.

I asked this friend what the snail could teach us. He told me that among the qualities it may be said to possess are: durability, domesticity, adventurousness, and patience. The snail’s seemingly slow but determined progress suggests it has unlimited patience.

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