A TOUK 
 BOUND MY GAKDEN. 
 
 TEANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH 
 OF ALPHONSE KARR, 
 
 istb aitb (Ebi 
 
 BY THE REV. J. G. WOOD, M.A., F.L.S., <tc. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE ILLUSTRATED NATURAL HISTORY." 
 
 A NEW EDITION. 
 
 WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS BY WILLIAM HARVET. 
 
 LONDON : 
 FREDERICK WARNE AND CO. 
 
 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, 
 
 BREAD STREET HILL, E. C.
 
 P R E P A C E. 
 
 WHILE so many foreign authors are enjoying an English 
 reputation scarcely inferior to that by which they are distin- 
 guished in their own land, it is rather remarkable that the 
 works of Alphonse Karr should be so little known in this 
 country. There are few writers who have shewn such keen 
 perception of character, such true delicacy of feeling, and such 
 real originality of thought, as are to be found in every page 
 of this charming author. Through all his works there runs 
 a vein of the gentlest feelings towards mankind, an apprecia- 
 tion of everything that is good and noble, and a sympathy 
 with every kindly affection of our nature, rendered more 
 piquant by a slight spice of genial misanthropy. 
 
 His lively wit is directed lightly against the ordinary 
 failings of mankind; and there is but one class of men for 
 whom he has no mercy. He treats a sham much as an 
 American Indian treats an enemy he tomahawks him with 
 an argument, scalps him with an epigram, and triumphantly 
 despoils him of his borrowed plumes. 
 
 2090893
 
 Vlll PllEFACE. 
 
 In the translation of the Work, it has been an object to 
 preserve, as far as possible, that originality which adds so 
 much to the power of a book; and for this reason the 
 allusions to French customs and manners have been left 
 untouched. Wherever practicable, the plants and other ob- 
 jects of natural history have been designated by their English 
 titles; but, as many of them are not British, their French 
 names have necessarily been retained. 
 
 In order to make the present volume more worthy of the 
 public notice, it has been copiously illustrated with Wood- 
 cuts by WILLIAM HARVET, and the BROTHERS DALZIEL. 
 
 MJ.KTON
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PMl 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 Introduction 1 
 
 LETTER II. 
 The Loves of the Spiders The Tc T Comparisons 6 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 The Two Carpets The Glories of Nature always within our Reach In 
 the Journey of Life are many Promises of Happiness Our Play- 
 things are but changed in Name 10 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 The Start Costume The Wren The Mason Bee The Chrysis 
 
 Marie Antoinette IV 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 Varied Colours of the Rose Its Progress from a Wild Flower, or Eglan- 
 tine, to its present Perfection The Cetonia, the Enemy of the 
 Rose The Aphis Rosae Extraordinary Fecundity of an Aphis 
 The Lady-bird Nature's Provision to preserve a Balance Th? 
 generative Principle in Flowers Grafted Rose 23 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 Savants The Reseda or Mignonette The Marsh-mallow and the 
 
 Baobab 36 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 Nut-tree Nut-Weevil What is Property ? 41 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 The Lily The Ichneumon-fly The Poppy 48 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 Awakening of Creation The Lupin Night The Sleep of Creation 
 
 The Glowworm The Death's-head Moth Respiration of Plantf . 59
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LETTER X. 
 That is Happines?T Recollections and Regrets Universality ol 
 
 Death Who are mad, and who sane f , . 68 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 Upon my Back 72 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 Colour* , . . . . 79 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 On my Face - < 86 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 The Violet Ants The Power o f Love Miracles 93 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 The Tulips, and their Story 102 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 Quasi Maritime 117 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 The Metamorphosed Rivulet ,. . . . 123 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 The Anthropophagi 126 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 The Caddis Aspects of Death Flowing Water Dress The Leaf- 
 cutter Bee 131 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 Flowers and their Memories ,141 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 Music Dragon-flies The Water-lily and the Vallisneria 144 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 Memories of the Dead 150 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 The Golden-crested Wren Amateurs of Flowers The Peony ... 1 53 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 The poor Travellers The Castle of Chillon . 158 
 
 LETTER XXV. 
 An Amateur finds fault with an Auricula 165 
 
 LETTER XXVI. 
 An Old Wall 168 
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 The childisn Theft Retribution 174
 
 CONTENTS. xi 
 
 FAGk 
 
 LETTER XXVIII. 
 The Pipe and the Snuff-box 180 
 
 LETTER XXIX. 
 Quasi Apiarian ...... 184 
 
 LETTER XXX. 
 Bees 190 
 
 LETTER XXXI. 
 Virgil again The Hyacinth The Larkspur 199 
 
 LETTER XXXII. 
 False Gods ' 203 
 
 LETTER XXXIII. 
 The Mantis The Orchis The Gall Insect Cochineal Value of 
 
 Scarlet 207 
 
 LETTER XXXIV. 
 The little Causes of great Events The ;Fraxinella The Nigella 
 
 Pinks 211 
 
 LETTER XXXV. 
 The enriched Woodman 216 
 
 LETTER XXXVI. 
 Fennel The encroaching Visitor 218 
 
 LETTER XXXVII. 
 The encroaching Visitor .'.... 225 
 
 LETTER XXXVIII. 
 Wonders of Travel Scientific Nomenclature 228 
 
 LETTER XXXIX. 
 Wild Flowers in Gardens The Shower . 232 
 
 LETTER XL. 
 After the Shower 235 
 
 LETTER XLL 
 
 The Clothes Moth An incredulous Man does not believe in the Sausage- 
 tree 239 
 
 LETTER XLII. 
 Flax The discomfited Florists - 246 
 
 LETTER XLIII. 
 
 A Modern Deity A Philosophical and Theological History of Hemp 
 and Flax, with trreir various Fortunes from their Birth to their 
 Apotheosis . 252
 
 Kll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 LETTER XLIV. 
 The Tendrils of Plants The Purple of the Ancients the March of 
 
 the Orchis 257 
 
 LETTER XLV. 
 
 Nature's Sympathy less sublime than its Indifference 260 
 
 LETTER XLVI. 
 The Connoisseur is deceived 264 
 
 LETTER XLVII. 
 A Tale of Youth 271 
 
 LETTER XLVIII. 
 The Vine 281 
 
 LETTER XLIX. 
 L'Herbe au Chantre Racine Boileau Sorcerers Pliny Homer 
 
 and Yellow Garlick 286 
 
 LETTER L. 
 Virtues of Plants 290 
 
 LETTER LI. 
 The Tulip under incognito 294 
 
 LETTER LII. 
 Each Plant has its own Type, hut Men try to form themselves on one 
 
 single Type 299 
 
 LETTER LIII. 
 Man the Monarch of Creation The Violet and its Proprietors . . . 305 
 
 LETTER LIV. 
 Flowers and their Proprietors 308 
 
 LETTER LV. 
 
 The Groundsel Laurels Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality .... 311 
 LETTER LVI. 
 
 Dreamland 314 
 
 LETTER LVII. 
 Aromatic Plants Scientific Nomenclature 317 
 
 LETTER LVI II. 
 The Yellow Roses 322 
 
 LETTER LIX. 
 
 Origin and Properties of certain Plants Their Colours only compara- 
 tiveEnd of the Tour . 830
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Do you remember, my friend, the day on which you set out 
 for that long and delightful tour, the preparations for which 
 had so long engrossed your time and attention? 
 
 I called in the morning, to pass a few minutes -with you, 
 as I had been accustomed to do, but not being aware that it 
 was the day fixed on for your departure, I was surprised at 
 the unusual state of your house : everybody appeared un- 
 settled and busy, and the servants were running up and down 
 stairs unceasingly. An elegant travelling carriage, with the 
 horses harnessed, was standing in the court-yard. At the 
 moment I entered, the postilion had already placed one of 
 his huge boots in the stirrup, and one of your servants,
 
 ^ A TOUR HOUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 mounted is a courier to prepare relays, was teazing his horse, 
 which curvetted beneath him. 
 
 On my arrival, I found you absent and preoccupied ; it 
 was an effort for you to answer my questions, and address a 
 few words to me; you seemed as agitated as a bird about to 
 take wing. 
 
 You bade me adieu with a warm and friendly squeeze of 
 the hand, and sprang into the carriage ; Arthur, your valet 
 de chambre, got up behind, you waved your hand, and the 
 courier set off at full gallop. In the meanwhile, the postilion 
 drove out of the court-yard, cracked his whip as a signal of 
 departure; this brought the neighbours to their windows, 
 the passers-by stopped, you waved me one more adieu, and 
 bid the postilion, " Go on !" The horses were off at a gallop, 
 and all soon disappeared at the turning of the street. 
 
 As for me, I stood looking after you, bewildered, stupified, 
 sad, dissatisfied, humiliated, without knowing precisely why. 
 
 The neighbours reclosed their windows; the passers-by 
 continued their way; your porter closed the gate of the 
 court-yard, the hinges giving forth their inharmonious gra- 
 ting: and yet there I stood motionless in the street, not 
 knowing what to do, what was to become of me, or where I 
 should go; it appeared to me that the only road in the 
 world was that which you were pursuing, and that you had 
 taken it away with you. 
 
 Nevertheless, I began to perceive that people looked at me 
 with astonishment, and I took at random for the sake of 
 moving rather than with a view of going anywhere the oppo- 
 site direction to that by which you had departed. 
 
 It was not long before it occurred to me to ask myself 
 where I was going; and this question, to a certain point, 
 embarrassed me ; the public walks appeared dull the people 
 out of spirits I determined to return home. 
 
 As I walked along, I began to think of you in not the very 
 best of humours. I could not help fancying that your air 
 was almost disdainful ; you seemed nattered by the attention 
 your departure and your equipage excited; you appeared to 
 leave your street, your house, and your old friend, as we leave 
 things that are worn out, and with which we have no kngei 
 anything to do.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 Gradually, I allowed feelings almost amounting to ill-will 
 towards you to creep into my heart; but, happily, I soon 
 stifled them, when I found, upon examination, that they owed 
 their birth to nothing but envy. 
 
 Every happiness excites jealousy. "When we see others in 
 the enjoyment of it, we endeavour to persuade ourselves that 
 they have injured us in some serious manner; and then we 
 try to dignify that mean sentiment of envy with a nobler 
 name, and call it just resentment, proper pride, or wounded 
 dignity. 
 
 When once I recognised my weakness, I quickly triumphed 
 over it, and justified you ; but it was not so easy a matter to 
 justify myself to my own conscience. 
 
 Truly the evil one would have very little hold of us if 
 he presented the baits he lays for us under their proper 
 names. 
 
 When I returned to my home I could not refrain from 
 envying your happiness, but you I no longer envied; you 
 again appeared the same excellent friend, as soon as I ceased 
 to seek in you those chimerical qualities that are imposed 
 upon a poor Pylades, although we never examine if we our- 
 selves are for another what we require another should be for 
 us; in a word, every one is anxious to have a friend, without 
 taking any particular pains to be one himself. 
 
 But, as my ill-humour towards you faded away, it seized 
 upon myself, and I complained bitterly that my scanty 
 fortune would not permit me, like you, to see other countries, 
 other men, other climates; and I became painfully aware 
 of the poverty to which I had hitherto given but little 
 attention. 
 
 What ! said I to myself, shall I be always, then, like that 
 poor goat which I see fastened to a post in a field yonder? 
 She has already cropped all the grass which grew within the 
 circle its cord allowed it to traverse, and she must recom- 
 mence by nibbling the herbage which she has already eaten 
 down as close as velvet. 
 
 Whilst thus soliloquizing, I stood upon the balcony of 
 a low window which opened on to my garden, looking out 
 mechanically upon the scene before me ; the sun was setting ; 
 at first my eyes, and afterwords my soul, were enthralled
 
 4 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 and engrossed by the magnificent spectacle which presented 
 itself. 
 
 High up in the heavens, towards the west, were three strips 
 of clouds : the highest was formed of a kind of foamy flakes, 
 grey and rose-coloured; the second was in long tints of a 
 darkish blue, slightly tinged with saffron yellow; the third 
 was composed of grey clouds, over which floated a clear 
 yellow vapour : beneath was a vast lake of bright, pure, and 
 limpid blue, while under this was stretched a long grey cloud, 
 with a fringe of pale fire, and lower down was another lake of 
 d rather paler blue; when again floated a narrow cloud, of a 
 grey colour, like that of the burned ashes of a volcano, and 
 under this was a fresh lake of a somewhat greenish blue, like 
 some turquoises, but deep and limpid as the others; and 
 then, beneath all, were masses of cloud, whose upper part 
 was white, glistening with pale fires, and the under part of 
 a sombre grey, with a fringe of the most brilliant flames. 
 
 There, in a thick orange -coloured vapour, sank the sun, of 
 which only a blood-red point was visible. Then, when the 
 sun had totally disappeared, all that had been yellow in the 
 picture assumed corresponding shades of red ; the pale blue 
 or faint green became a more full and dark azure. And all 
 nature seemed, as I did, to admire these eternal beauties. 
 
 The breeze had ceased to agitate the leaves of the trees; 
 the birds no longer disputed for their roosts under the thick 
 foliage; not even an insect was heard to buzz in the air; the 
 very flowers had closed their rich blossoms, and there was 
 nothing to occupy or distract the senses. 
 
 Then I reflected that, at many miles distance, you, in 
 your caleche, with your courier and your postilion before, 
 your valet behind, could not possibly behold a more splendid 
 spectacle than that which was spread before my eyes and 
 that, probably such a one would awaken in you less con- 
 templation, and consequently less delight. 
 
 And I thought of all the riches which God has given to the 
 poor; of the earth, with its mossy and verdant carpets, its 
 trees, its flowers, its perfumes ; of the heavens, with aspects so 
 various and so magnificent; and of all those eternal splen- 
 dours which the rich man has no power to augment, and 
 which so far transcend all ho is able to buy.
 
 1 thought of the exquisite delicacy of my senses, which en- 
 ables me to enjoy these noble and pure delights, in all their 
 plenitude. I also remembered how few and simple were my 
 wants and desires; the richest, most secure and most indepen- 
 dent of fortunes. And,with joined and clasped hands, with eyes 
 raised towards the gradually darkening heavens, with a heart 
 filled with joy, serenity, and thankfulness, I implored pardon 
 of God for my murmurings and my ingratitude, and offered 
 up my grateful thanks for all the enjoyments he had lavished 
 upon rne. 
 
 And as I sunk to sleep that night, my spirit was filled with 
 pity for those poor rich. 
 
 I
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 THE LOVES OF THE SPIDKRS THE TOUR COMPARISONS. 
 
 As I stood at my window the next morning, I perceived in 
 n corner a spider's web. The hunter, who had spread his nets, 
 was busy in repairing the rents caused, either the evening 
 before or that morning, by some prey of an unexpected size, 
 or a desperate resistance. When all was repaired, the spider, 
 which was twice as big and as heavy as the largest fly, ran 
 along the web without breaking a single mesh, and went 
 to conceal itself in an obscure corner, whence it might watch. 
 I observed it for a long time. Two or three flies floating 
 heedlessly about were taken in these perfidious toils, and 
 struggled in vain; the implacable Nimrod darted upon its 
 captives, and sucked them without mercy; after which it 
 repaired one or two damaged threads, and returned to its 
 hiding-place. 
 
 But behold ! another spider of a smaller size. Why has 
 it left its nets and its ambush? Ha ! ha! it is a male, and 
 a male in love ; he thinks no longer of the chase, he is like 
 the sou of Theseus 
 
 " My bow. my darts, my car, invite in vain." 
 
 He approaches, and he draws back he loves, he fears. There
 
 THE SPIDERS. 7 
 
 he is, upon the first thread of the web of her whom he loves ; 
 terrified at his own audacity, he recoils and flies away, but 
 only quickly to return. He makes one step, then another, 
 then stops. 
 
 Gentle reader, you have seen timid lovers, you have been 
 one yourself if you have ever really loved. You have trembled 
 with terror beneath the pure and innocent glance of a young 
 girl ; you have felt your voice fail when near her; and certain 
 words which you wished to utter, but durst not, have seemed 
 to fill your throat to strangulation. But never have you 
 seen a lover so timid as this and not without good reasons. 
 
 The female spider is much larger than the male, and this is 
 almost generally the case with insects. If, at the moment at 
 which the lover presents himself, her heart speaks to her, she 
 yields, like all other beings, to the sweet influence of love; she 
 softens as the panther does, she gives herself up to the delight 
 of loving and being beloved, and ventures to evince it ; she 
 encourages her timid lover, and her web becomes for that 
 beloved lover the silken ladder of our romances. 
 
 But if she is insensible, if her hour has not yet come, she 
 nevertheless advances slowly to meet the trembling Hippo- 
 lytus, who seeks in vain to read in her features whether he is 
 to hope or to fear; then, when at a few paces from the 
 amorous youth, she darts upon him seizes him and eats 
 him ! 
 
 True it is then that the most ancient and most ridiculous 
 metaphors invented by lovers cease to be metaphors, and 
 assume a real and terrifying sense. Here is certainly a lover 
 who has reason to complain of the hard-heartedness of his 
 beloved. Here is a lover who will not be accused of exagge- 
 ration, if, into the avowal of his sentiments he should allow 
 to glide the often-abused question, "Am I to live or die?" or 
 even this sentence. " If you repulse my love, it will be my 
 death-warrant." 
 
 My friend, however, was more fortunate, for the belle 
 advanced towards him, whilst he waited for her in visible 
 anxiety; but whether he perceived in her behaviour any 
 unsatisfactory sign, or whether the coquette had not sufficient 
 skill to compose her countenance, which I could not dis- 
 tinguish from the smallness of its proportions, or whether she
 
 8 A TOUll ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 allowed more hunger than love to appear in her air, or 
 whether, in short, the lover was not struck with one of those 
 intense flames which brave all dangers, he took to flight with 
 such rapidity that I lost sight of him, as doubtless did his 
 inhuman mistress, for she returned tranquilly to her ambus- 
 cade, to wait for other victims. 
 
 1 had before been present at similar scenes ; for I have 
 passed a great part of my life in the country, and had much 
 studied the habits of insects; but this time, the little drama 
 of which I had been a spectator made a particular impression 
 upon me, and my thoughts reverted to you. 
 
 Truly, said I to myself, this must be a singular restlessness 
 of spirit, this love of travelling, and travellers are strange 
 beings to go to great distances, and at great expense, to see 
 new things, without having taken the trouble to look at their 
 feet or over their heads, where as many extraordinary and 
 unknown things are passing as they can possibly desire to 
 know. There he is, gone, continued I, still thinking of you ; 
 and he may make the tour of the whole world without 
 meeting with so strange a love affair as I have just been a 
 witness of from my window. 
 
 Under whatever part of the heavens they may dwell, in 
 whatever fashion they may dress, or not dress at all, men live 
 upon four or five passions, which are always the same, which 
 do not vary in their depths, and veiy little in their forms. 
 
 Love nowhere presents so singular a drama as that which 
 has just passed before my eyes. 
 
 In yonder tuft of moss, green as an emerald, wavy as velvet, 
 and as large as the palm of my hand, there are loves, hatreds, 
 combats, transformations, and miracles, going on, which are 
 perfectly unknown to us, and which we have never looked 
 after. And further, in great things, particularly such as 
 concern man, nature appears to have restricted herself to 
 rules almost invariable, whilst among flowers and insects, she 
 seems to have abandoned herself to the most strange and 
 delightful fantasies. 
 
 A whimsical mania is that which makes men close their 
 eyes against all surrounding objects, and only deign to open 
 them at five hundred miles from home. 
 
 "Well!" cried I to myself. " I also will make a voyage ; I
 
 THE TOUR. 9 
 
 will see new and extraordinary things ; I also will have 
 something to tell." 
 
 Make you the tour of the world, 
 
 I WILL MAKE THE TOUB OP MY GARDEN. 
 
 I will wait for you here, my friend; you will find me 
 under my fig-tree, or under one of the honeysuckles, and I 
 will make you avow that there is a great and terrible punish- 
 ment for travellers as for inconstant lovers : for travellers, 
 arrival; for inconstants, success; for they then find how 
 much all countries and all women are alike. 
 
 What are you going to see abroad? How proxid you will 
 be in your first letter, if, by chance, you should ever think 
 of writing to me at all, to tell me you have seen women 
 tattooed and painted in divers colours, with rings in their 
 noses. 
 
 And I will answer you : Well, my good friend, what occa- 
 sion was there for going so far? Why did you go further 
 than two streets from your own house? There was nothing 
 to prevent your looking at your sister-in-law, who, after the 
 example of a hundred other women you are acquainted with, 
 and each of whom is at once painter, original, and portrait, 
 puts pearl white and rouge upon her brow and cheeks, black 
 upon her eyelids, blue to increase the apparent fulness of her 
 veins, and passes rings through her ears in the same manner 
 that savage women pass them through their noses. Pray, 
 why is it more strange to pierce one cartilage than another? 
 Can the difference be worth going so far to see ? 
 
 I know very well you will meet with sharpers and cheats ; 
 with the imbecile, the hypocritical, the proud, the egotistical, 
 the envious, the mendicant; but have you not remarked that 
 there area few of these to be equally found here? 
 
 Is it so difficult, in this country, to experience hunger or 
 thirst too much heat, or too much cold, that you think it 
 worth while to go so far for these unpleasant sensations? 
 
 Is there any plague, or any fever, or any leprosy unknown 
 in our country that you feel a wish to take? 
 
 Or, are you so weary of the common house-flies which 
 annoy you here in the summer, that you travel two thousand 
 miles for the pleasure of being stung by musquitoes ?
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 THE TWO CARPETS THE GLORIES OP NATURE ALWAYS WITHIN OUR REACH 
 IN THE JOURNEY OF LIFE ARE MANY PROMISES OF HAPPINESS OUR PLAY- 
 THINGS ARE BUT CHANGED IN NAME. 
 
 THROUGHOUT the night, my thoughts have been upon yon 
 my absent friend, of you and your travels, and I com- 
 prehend you less than ever. Are you well acquainted with 
 these flies that shine and buzz around you; with these flowers 
 which bloom and perfume the air; with these birds that sing 
 so sweetly ; with these leaves that tremble with that water 
 which murmurs? Have you contemplated them, each once 
 only, and the various parts that compose them 1 ? Have you 
 followed them from their birth to their death? Have you 
 seen their loves and their marriages, before going so far to 
 see things you have not seen? As for me, this morning I had 
 a great treat, of which I hasten to give you a share. 
 
 About three years ago I purchased an old carpet to place 
 in my studio, as I call an apartment tolerably well furnished,
 
 THE TWO CARPETS. 1 I 
 
 in which I sometimes shut myself up, to prevent interrnpiion 
 whilst I am doing nothing. This carpet represents foliage 
 of a sombre green, strewed over with large red flowers. Yes- 
 terday my eyes fell upon my carpet, and I perceived that 
 the colours were becoming very faint, that the green was 
 getting of a very dingy hue, that the red was faded in a 
 deplorable mariner, and that the wool was worn off, and 
 showed the string over the whole space that led from the 
 door to the window, and from the window to my arm-chair 
 in the chimney corner. That is not all ; whilst moving an 
 enormous and heavy table of carved wood, I made a rent in 
 the carpet. All this disturbed me so much, that I imme- 
 diately had the rent repaired, but I could neither restore 
 freshness to the leaves nor brilliancy to the red flowers. 
 But this morning, whilst walking round my garden, I 
 stopped before the grass-plot which is nearly in the centre 
 of it. 
 
 Now here, said I, is just such a carpet as I like, always 
 fresh, always handsome, always rich. It cost me sixty pounds 
 of grass seeds, at twopence halfpenny the pound, that is to 
 say, twelve shillings, and it is about the same age as that in 
 my closet, which cost me twelve pounds ten shillings. That 
 which cost twelve pounds ten shillings has undergone sad 
 changes; it is now poor, and becoming poorer every day, in 
 its tarnished splendour, threadbare, disgraceful and patched ; 
 whilst this before me becomes every year more beautiful, 
 more green, more tufted. And with what profuseness of 
 beauty it changes and renews itself! In spring it is of 
 a pale green, strewed over with small white daisies and a few 
 violets. Shortly after, the green becomes deeper, and the 
 daisies are replaced by glossy buttercups. To the buttercups 
 succeed red and white trefoil. In the autumn, my carpet 
 assumes a yellower tint, and instead of the red and white 
 trefoil, it is sprinkled with colchicums, which spring from 
 the earth like little violet-coloured lilies. In winter its white 
 enow dazzles the eyes, as it has been danced and walked over. 
 Then although in the spring, as well as the autumn, it is a little 
 worn and ragged, it puts itself to rights in such a manner, that 
 we cannot perceive its wounds, or even its scars: whilst my 
 other carpet remains there with its eternal red flowers, which
 
 12 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 become more ugly every day, and with its badly-mended 
 rents. How rich then I am! 
 
 Will you write to me as you promised? On my part, I 
 will write you an account of my journey; I do not well know 
 whither to direct my letters, but yours will tell me when and 
 where. But what do you expect to see yonder which you 
 could not see here? I will endeavour to describe, as if it 
 were done by yourself, some distant country. Let us see : 
 " The sky is grey, like a heavy leaden cupola ; the earth is 
 covered with a sheet of snow; the trees bend their black 
 skeleton forms to the sharp winds; at their feet venomous 
 toad-stools spring and flourish, the flowers are dead ; the 
 frozen water is motionless between its herbless banks. Those 
 who persist in calling fountains mirrors, in which shepherd- 
 esses contemplate their simple, pretty features, and arrange 
 their modest dress ; those who only see in nature what they 
 have first read in books, are obliged to admit that their 
 poetical mirrors are turned silver side uppermost. Some firs, 
 in their melancholy, sombre foliage, afford asylum to only 
 a few mute birds, with their feathers standing on end with 
 cold, and which, pressed with hunger, fight for the scanty 
 fruit left upon the leafless trees; the purple berries of the 
 whitethorn, the scarlet berries of the service-tree ; the orange 
 berries of the cranberry, the black berries of the privet, or 
 the blue ones of the laumstinus. 
 
 " There is in the air neither the song of birds nor the 
 buzzing of insects, nor the perfume of flowers. The sun only 
 remains every day for a few hours above the horizon; he 
 rises and sets in pale and dull splendour." 
 
 What country is this? If it were you, my dear friend, 
 who were writing these lines, you would call this dismal 
 climate Norway, with its snows and ice. For myself, this 
 country is my winter garden; in six months it will be so. I 
 have only to wait. I need not go and seek, midst a thousand 
 dangers and, what is still worse, midst a thousand cares 
 the rich countries where the sun is the object of adoration. 
 I will wait a few days, and the sun will make me seek a 
 friendly shade of balmy coolness. 
 
 There are times when the flowers languish with heat : there 
 arc times when one only hears among the parched herbs, the
 
 THE GLORIES OF NATURE. 
 
 monotonous cry of the grasshopper, when one sees nothing 
 stirring abroad but the lizards. The nights are cool, sweet, 
 
 THE LIZAKlJ. 
 
 and fi-agrant ; the flowering trees are filled with nightingales, 
 exhaling perfumes and celestial melody; and the grass is 
 brilliant with the glow-worms gliding about with their violet 
 flames. 
 
 You will in this manner, describe to me some far-off 
 country; / will thus delineate what my garden affords. The 
 seasons, as they pass away, are climates which travel round 
 the globe, and come to seek me. Your long voyages are 
 nothing but fatiguing visits, which you go to pay to the 
 seasons which would themselves have come to you. 
 
 But there is still another laud, a delightful country, which 
 would in vain be sought for on the waves of the sea, or 
 across the lofty mountains. In that country, the flowers not 
 only exhale sweet perfumes, but intoxicating thoiights of 
 love. There every tree, eveiy plant breathes, in a language 
 more noble than poetry, and more sweet than music, things 
 of which no human tongue can give an idea. The sand of 
 the roads is gold and precious stones; the air is filled with 
 songs, compared to which those of the nightingales and 
 thrushes, which I now listen to, are no better than the 
 croaking of frogs in their reedy marshes. Man in that land 
 is good, great, noble, and generous.
 
 ]4 A TOUll ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 There all things are the reverse of those which, we see 
 every day; all the treasures of the earth, all dignities crowded 
 together, would be but objects of ridicule, if there offered in 
 exchange for a faded flower, or an old glove, left in a honey- 
 suckle arbour. But why do I talk about honeysuckles'? 
 Why I am forced to give the names of flowers you know to 
 the flowers of these charming regions? In this country no 
 one believes in the existence of perfidy, inconstancy, old age, 
 death, or forgetfulness, which is the death of the heart. Man 
 there requires neither sleep nor food ; an old wooden bench 
 is there a thousand times more soft than eider-down else- 
 where ; slumbers are there more calm and delicious, constantly 
 attended by blissful dreams. The sour sloe of the hedges, 
 the insipid fruit of the bramble, there acquire a flavour so 
 delicious that it would be absurd to compare them to the 
 pine-apple of other regions. Life is there more mildly happy 
 than dreams can aspire to be in other countries. Go, then, 
 and seek these poetic isles ! 
 
 Alas! in reality, it was but a poor little garden, in a mean 
 suburb, when I was eighteen, in love, and when she would 
 steal thither for an instant, at sunset ! 
 
 So loved I a little shut-up garden. 
 
 After all, is this life anything but a terrible journey, 
 without repose, and with but one common end in view? Is 
 it anything more than arriving successively at various ages, 
 and taking or leaving something at each? Does not all that 
 surrounds us change every year? Is not every age a different 
 country? You were a child; you are a young man; you 
 may become an old man. Do you believe you shall find as 
 much difference between two persons, however remote from 
 each other they may be, as between you a child and you an 
 old man? 
 
 You are in childhood; the man is there with his fair hair, 
 his bold, limpid glance, and his light and joyous heart; he 
 loves every one, and every one seems to love him ; everything 
 gives him something, and everything promises him still much 
 more. There is nothing which does not pay him a tribute of 
 joy, nothing which, for him, is not a plaything. The butter- 
 flies in the air, the bluebottles in the corn-fields, the sand of 
 thb sea-shore, the herbage of the meadows, the green alleys of
 
 THE JOURNEY OF LIFE. 15 
 
 the forest all give him pleasure, all whisper to him promises 
 of mystic happiness. 
 
 You arrive at youth; the body is active and strong, the 
 heart noble and disinterested. There, you violently break 
 the playthings of your childhood, and smile at the importance 
 you once attached to them, because you have found some 
 fresh play-things, with which you are as much in earnest as 
 you Avere with your tops and balls ; now is the turn of friend- 
 ship, love, heroism, and devotedness, you have all these 
 within you, and you look for them in others. But these are 
 flowers that fade, and do not flourish at the same time 
 in every heart. With this one, they are only in bud; with 
 that, they have long since passed away. You ask aloud 
 the accomplishment of your desires, as you would ask holy 
 promises. There is not a flower or a tree that does not 
 appear to have betrayed you. 
 
 But here we now are, arrived at old age ; we then have grey or 
 white hairs or a wig. The beautiful flowers of which we were 
 speaking yield fruit but little expected, incredulity, egotism, 
 mistrust, avarice, irony, gluttony. You laugh at the play- 
 things of your youth, because you still meet with others to 
 which you attach yourself more seriously, places, medals, 
 ribbons of different orders, honours, and dignities. 
 
 " It nothing boots that man, by doom, grows old, 
 He gains each stage, still ignorant and new; 
 On our last winters, on our age extinct, 
 Wisdom bestows but pale and sickly light, 
 Like the fair moon's, whose mild and opal rays 
 Fall on night's hours, when nothing more is done." 
 
 Days and years are darts which Death launches at us, it 
 reserves the most penetrating for old age; the early ones 
 have destroyed successively your faiths, your passions, your 
 virtues, your happiness. Now it pours in grape-shot! it 
 has shot away your hair, and your teeth, it has wounded and 
 weakened your muscles, it has touched your memory, it aims 
 at the heart, it aims at life. Then everything becomes your 
 enemy: in youth, the beautiful nights of summer brought 
 you perfumes, remembrances, and delicious reveries; they 
 yield you nothing now but coughs, rheumatism, and pleurisies. 
 
 You hate those who are younger than yourself, because 
 they will inherit your money; thej are already the heirs of
 
 16 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN". 
 
 your youth, your hopes, your visions, of ail which is already 
 dead in you 
 
 " Few men the secret learn of growing old : 
 Like certain fruits, they rot, but ripen not." 
 
 Tell me, are we to-day that which we were yesterday, or 
 shall be to-morrow? Have we not cause to make singular 
 observations upon ourselves daily ? Do we not present a 
 curious spectacle to ourselves? 
 
 Well, I will decide to commence my journey to-morrow, or 
 perhaps I shall finish by finding that it is too great an exer- 
 tion, even to make the tour of one's garden.
 
 THE WREN. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 THE START COSTUME THE WREN THE MASON BF.E THE CHRYSIS MARIE 
 ANTOINETTE. 
 
 I HAVE started, my dear friend, and two things already em- 
 barrass me. In the first place, I do not know at what 
 precise distance from the point of departure we must be, to 
 entitle us to employ in our recitals the emphatic pretext 
 which gives so much importance to travellers We set out, we 
 sailed, we saw, we noticed, we drank, and so forth. 
 
 Have I any right to make use of this, the true travelling 
 language? And if I do not, will my journey be a real 
 journey ? 
 
 My second difficulty is in the accounts you no doubt pre- 
 pare for me, at the same time that I am inditing a description 
 of my journey, you have an inappreciable advantage over me. 
 If, upon reading some narration, a little extraordinary, or a 
 description somewhat supernatural, I indulge in an " Ah ! 
 ah ! " or a gesture of incredulity, or even of admiration min- 
 gled with doubt, you will answer me : " Co and see it ! " It is 
 only three thousand miles off. But if, on the contrary, I 
 astonish you by anything unusual or prodigious, I have not 
 the same resource ; I can only say to you " Look for your-
 
 18 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 self ; it is on your right hand or your left ; it is on the rose- 
 bush at the end of the walk, or upon the periwinkle at your 
 feet;" or, "Step a little on one side; that which I am de- 
 scribing is in the moss you are treading upon: you may 
 destroy my proof." I have nothing then to do but to tell you 
 the truth ; whilst you, satisfied that it is a general belief that 
 travellers at least exaggerate, will not be restrained by a virtue 
 which will bring you no honour, but will simply cause you to 
 be accused of dryness and poverty of imagination. 
 
 I saw your travelling costume, my dear friend ; I owe you 
 a description of mine: it is an old dressing gown of black 
 velvet, with \vhich you are well acquainted ; a cap to match, 
 and a pair of yellow morocco slippers I do not carry fire- 
 arms. 
 
 I leave my study at a quarter before six : the sun is already 
 high above the horizon ; his rays sparkle like fire-dust through 
 the leaves of the great service trees, and shining on my house 
 impart to it a rose and saffron-tinted hue. I go down three 
 steps. Here we are in China ! You stop me at my first word 
 with a smile of disdain. My house is entirely covered by a 
 "Wistaria* : the Wistaria is a creeping, branching plant, with a 
 foliage somewhat resembling that of the acacia, and from 
 which hang numberless large bunches of flowers of a pale blue 
 colour, which exhale the sweetest odour. This magnificent 
 nlant comes from China: perhaps you are admiring it there 
 whilst I contemplate it here. 
 
 I do not believe I exaggerate, even with you, when I 
 declare that I think this a thousand times more beautiful 
 than the richest palaces this house of wood, all green, all 
 blossoming, all perfumed, which every year increases in ver- 
 dure, blossoms, and sweet odours. 
 
 Under the projecting roof is the nest of a wren, quite a 
 little bird, or rather a pinch of brown and grey feathers, like 
 those of a partridge ; it runs along old walls, and makes a nest 
 of moss and grass, in the shape of a bottle. I salute thee, 
 my little bird, thou wilt be my guest for this year ! Thou art 
 welcome to my house and to my garden. Tend and bring up 
 thy numerous family. I promise thee peace and tranquillity; 
 thy repose, but more particularly thy confidence, shall be 
 respected. There is moss yonder, near the fountain, and 
 
 * W'istaria sinensis.Eo.
 
 THE WREN. 19 
 
 plenty of dried herbage in the walks, from the newly-mown 
 grass-plat. There she is on the edge of her nest; she looks 
 at me earnestly with her beautiful black eyes. She is rather 
 frightened, but does not fly away. 
 
 The little wren is not the only guest at my old house. 
 You perceive between the joists, the intervals are filled up 
 with rough stones and plaster. On the front, which is ex- 
 posed to the south, there is a hole into which you could not 
 thrust a goose-quill ; and yet it is a dwelling : there is a nest 
 within it, belonging to a sort of bee, who lives a solitary 
 life.* Look at her, returning home with her provisions; her 
 hind feet are loaded with a yellow dust, -which she has taken 
 from the stamens of flowers: she goes into the hole; when 
 she comes out again there will be no pollen on her feet; with 
 honey, which she has brought, she will make a savoury paste 
 of it at the bottom of her nest. This is, perhaps, her tenth 
 journey to-day, and she shows no inclination to rest. 
 
 All these cares are for one egg which she has laid; for a 
 single egg which she will never see hatched; besides, that 
 which will issue from that egg, will not be a fly like herself, 
 but a worm, which will not be metamorphosed into a fly for 
 some time afterwards. 
 
 She has, however, hidden it in that hole, and knows 
 precisely how much nourishment it will require before it 
 arrives at the state which ushers in its transformation into a 
 fly. This nourishment she goes to seek, and she seasons and 
 prepares it. There, she is gone again ! 
 
 But what is this other brilliant little fly which is walking 
 upon the house wall 1 Her breast is green, and her abdomen 
 is of a purple red; but these two colours are so brilliant, 
 that I am really at a loss to find words splendid enough to 
 express them, but the names of an emerald and a ruby joined 
 together. 
 
 That pretty fly that living jewel is the "chrysis." I 
 scarcely dare breathe, for fear of making it fly away. I should 
 like to take it in my hands, that I might have sufficient time 
 to examine it more closely. t This likewise is the mother of a 
 family; she also has an egg to lay, from which will issue a 
 
 * Anthuphora retusa. ED. t Chrysis ig/iita. ED,
 
 20 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 fly like herself, but which she will never see. She also knows 
 how much nourishment her offspring will require ; but, more 
 richly clothed than the bee, she does not, like her, know how 
 to gather the pollen from flowers, or to make a paste of it 
 with honey. 
 
 She has but one resource, and that resource she is deter- 
 mined to employ she will neither recoil from roguery nor 
 theft to secure tue subsistence of her offspring; she lias 
 
 l&E CHRYS1S. 
 
 recognised the solitary bee, and she is going to lay her egg in 
 her nest : it will hatch sooner than that of the true pro- 
 prietor; then the intruder will eat the provisions so painfully 
 collected for the legitimate child, who, when it is hatched in 
 its turn, will have nothing to do but to die of hunger. 
 
 There she is at the edge of the hole she hesitates she 
 decides she enters. 
 
 This insect interests me, she is so beautiful ! The other 
 likewise interests me, she is so industrious! But, here she 
 comes back through the air : one would think her a warrior 
 covered with chased armour and a golden cuirass ; she buzzes 
 as she comes along. The chrysis has heard the buzzing, 
 which is for her the terrible sound of a war trumpet. She
 
 THE CHRYSIS. 21 
 
 wishes to fly; she comes out; but the other, justly irritated, 
 pounces upon the daring intruder, beating it with her head. 
 She bruises and tears the brilliant gauze of her wings, and 
 beats her down to the dust, where she falls stupified and 
 inanimate. 
 
 The bee then enters into her nest, and deposits and prepares 
 her provisions; but, still agitated with her combat and her 
 victory, she sets out again through the air. I follow her 
 with my eyes for a long time, and at last she disappears. 
 
 The poor chrysis is not, however, dead : she gets up again, 
 shakes herself, flutters, and attempts to fly; but her lacerated 
 wings will no longer support her. What can she do to escape 
 the fury of her enemy? It is not her business to fly away; 
 her business is to deposit her egg in the bee's nest, and to 
 secure future provision for her offspring, but the bee came 
 back too soon. She ascends, climbing painfully: at times 
 her strength seems to fail her; she is forced to stop, but 
 at last she arrives she enters she is in ! Now one's 
 interest is for her. Just now she was only beautiful, now she 
 is very unfortunate. I am aware that a long plea might be 
 made for the other. I should not like to be appointed j udge 
 between them. Ah ! she is out again she flies away ! But 
 oh, how happy she is to have succeeded! Now I begin to 
 feel for the bee. The poor bee continues to bring provisions 
 for its young, which, nevertheless will die of hunger: she 
 makes fresh journeys to the flowers she loves; she places 
 herself on the catkins of the willow, upon the white flowers 
 of the arbutus, that beautiful evergreen tree, whose blossoms 
 resemble those of the lily of the valley, and whose fruits are 
 like strawberries; she stops also on the berries of the yew, 
 that poor tree, so tormented in our gardens, by being tor- 
 tured into globes, squares, vases, swans, peacocks a good, 
 kind tree, which lends itself to everything, and is naturally 
 abused. 
 
 Were I to watch, one after the other, all the flies which 
 shine in the sun upon my house, the insects which conceal 
 themselves in the flowers of the wistaria, to suck honey from 
 them, and the insects which insinuate themselves to eat those 
 honey suckers; the caterpillars which crawl upon the leaves, 
 and the enemies of those caterpillars and those butterflies
 
 22 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 if I were to describe to you their birth, their loves, their 
 combats, their metamorphoses perhaps you -would have 
 returned from your tour before I had proceeded a single step ; 
 but am determined, in this journey, to stop only at things 
 which strike my eyes, without research, without labour, 
 without study. Let us quit the old wooden house then, and 
 follow at random this tortuous path. 
 
 Here is the white julienne,* with its long branches of 
 flowers ; to enjoy its perf ame, you must stoop down to it ; it 
 is only in the evening that it exhales its sweets to a distance. 
 This was one of the favourite flowers of the unfortunate queen 
 Marie Antoinette. She was confined in the vilest chamber of 
 the prison of the Conciergerie. In the same apartment, 
 separated from her only by a screen, was a gendarme, who 
 quitted her neither night nor day. The queen's whole 
 wardrobe consisted of an old black gown and stockings, which 
 she took off to mend herself, remaining with her feet bare. 
 I am not sure that I should have loved Marie Antoinette, 
 but how is it possible to avoid admiring so much misery and 
 misfortune ! A woman, her name is not sufficiently known 
 a good and an excellent woman, discovered a blessing and 
 a luxury to bestow upon her whom it was forbidden to name 
 otherwise than as the widow Capet. Madame Richard, a 
 keeper of the prison, brought her every day bouquets of the 
 flowers she loved; pinks, juliennes, and tuberoses. She thus 
 exchanged perfumes for the putrid miasmas of the prison. 
 The poor queen had something to look at besides the humid 
 walls of her dungeon. Madame Richard was denounced, 
 arrested, and put into prison, but they did not dare to perse- 
 cute her further, and shortly they released her. At a later 
 period, Danton exclaimed in his dungeon : " Oh, if I could 
 but see a tree!" The julienne remains the flower of Mario 
 Antoinette. The great Conde, when confined at Vincennes, 
 cultivated pinks. 
 
 * The sweet-scented white shrubby stock (Mathiola incana).ED.
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 TARIED COLOURS OP THE ROSE ITS PROGRESS PROM A WILD FLOWKR, OA 
 EGLANTINE, TO ITS PRESENT PERFECTION THE CETONIA, THE ENEMY OP THB 
 ROSE THE APHIS ROS.'E EXTRAORDINARY FECUNDITY OP AN APHIS THS 
 LADY-BIRD NATURE'S PROVISION TO PRESERVE A BALANCE THE GENERATIVE 
 PRINCIPLE IN FLOWERS GRAFTED ROSE. 
 
 I WAS very near passing by this rose-tree : I am passionately 
 fond of roses, but I don't like to talk about them. The poor 
 roses have been so abused ! The Greeks said five or six pretty 
 things about them; the Latins translated these, and added to 
 them three or four of their own. From that time, the poeta 
 of all countries and all ages have translated, copied, and 
 imitated that which the Greeks and Latins said, without at 
 all heightening our love of the flower by any fresh colouring. 
 They have even continued to call the month of May the 
 month of Roses, without reflecting that roses blossom earlier 
 in Greece and Italy than in our lands, where almost all roses 
 wait for the suns of June to expand their beauties. 
 
 Are you not wearied, as I am, with the eternal loves of the 
 butterfly and the rose; loves, by-the-bye, which have no 
 existence? Butterflies light upon roses as upon other flowers,
 
 2 t A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 but the rose is far from being one of the flowers they prefei 
 Are you not wearied, as I am, with the tints of the lily and 
 ihe rose, with which all women are bedaubed, and which, in 
 reality, would be as hideous as diamonds or coals for eyes, 
 genuine pearls for teeth, or eatable cherries for lips'? Are you 
 not wearied, as I am, at having all our beauties roses; in a 
 word, with all the insipidities and sillinesses for which these 
 poor roses are the pretext? I think it disgraceful that our 
 poets are not better acquainted with nature and all the 
 eternal splendours with which God has endowed our abode. 
 I scarcely know one who has not proved by the manner in 
 which he speaks of flowers, trees, and herbage, that he has 
 never taken the pains to look at them. Only listen to them ! 
 they confine themselves within three or four trivial gene- 
 ralities, which they have read, and which they repeat like 
 syuonymes. 
 
 They are meadows enamelled with flowers. With what 
 flowers? of what colours are they? And in spring and 
 autumn it is just the same; violets and roses always bloom 
 together in verse, though never in nature. Some, more bold 
 than the rest, say that these flowers are of a thousand colours. 
 The flowery banks of rivulets ! Are they the same flowers 
 that enamel the meadows'? They know no more about them. 
 Zephyr who sports in the groves; which same zephyr is very 
 fond of kissing a half-blown rose. 
 
 They who write in verse are only acquainted with la rose, a 
 demi cclose (the half-blown rose), on account of the rhyme. 
 An innovator, about four hundred years ago, ventured upon 
 fraiche eclose (newly blown), but they stopped there. 
 
 But, look yonder; see, springing from its beautiful foliage, 
 sharp pointed as swords, a stem bearing only on one side a 
 spike of lovely rose-coloured or white flowers; that is a 
 gladiolus. The poets speak of it sometimes, but they only 
 know one thing about it, and that is, that it rhymes with 
 tilleul (a linden- tree). They never fail to bring them together, 
 placing the glaieul under the tilleul a thing I would not do 
 in my garden for the world; my poor gladiolus would fare but 
 badly in such a situation. It is very fortunate they don't 
 sometimes put the tilleul under the glaieul (the linden-treo 
 under the gladiolus) : it would rhyme quite as well.
 
 THE ROSE. 25 
 
 But let us return to our rose. We will not call it the Queen 
 of Flowers ; we will avoid all the common-places of which it 
 has been the subject, and over which it has triumphed. Let 
 us look at it only, and say what we see. There is no country 
 without roses; from Sweden to the Coasts of Africa, from 
 Kamtschatka to Bengal, or on the Mountains of Mexico, the 
 rose flourishes in all climates and in all soils; it is one of the 
 grand prodigalities of nature. 
 
 The rose-tree before which we now stop is covered with 
 white blossoms. Others bear flowers, varying from the palest 
 rose to the deepest crimson and purple, from the most 
 delicate straw colour, to the most brilliant yellow. Blue is 
 the only colour nature has refused it. There are very few 
 blue flowers. 
 
 Pure blue is a privilege which, with some few exceptions, 
 nature only grants to the flowers of the fields and meadows. 
 She is parsimonious in blue : blue is the colour of the heavens, 
 and she only gives it to the poor, whom she loves above all 
 others. 
 
 Botanists, who take no account of either colours or per- 
 fumes, pretend that double roses are monsters. What shall 
 we call the botanists? We will exchange a few words with 
 the botanists before we come to the end of this journey. 
 
 This rose-tree was once a wild rose, or eglantine, which, Li 
 some obscure corner of a wood, decked itself with little 
 simple roses, each composed of five petals. One day, its head 
 and its arms were cut off; and then the skin of one of the 
 stumps which it was allowed to retain was opened, and between 
 the bark and the wood, a little morsel of the bark of another 
 rose-tree was insinuated, upon which was a scarcely perceptible 
 bud. From that day all its strength, all its sap, all its life, 
 have been consecrated to the nourishment of this bud. The 
 wound is closed, but the cicatrice may still be seen. This 
 eglantine bears no flowers of its own : it is a slave, who works 
 for a haughty master. That beautiful tuft of leaves and 
 flowers are not its flowers or its leaves. 
 
 But observe ! there is, upon the green stem, just below the 
 graft, a rose-bud, which begins to peep out. That bud will 
 become a branch; that branch will belong to it. Oh, then 
 nature will resume her rights: the tyrant above, the beautiful
 
 26 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 rose-tree, the cultivated rose-tree, will wait in vain for the 
 tribute hitherto paid to him ; the sap will no longer ascend 
 to him it will all he kept for this dear scion; there is not 
 too much for it. But the gardener has perceived this attempt 
 at rebellion : he has cut off the pretender, and all is restored 
 to order. A few days, however, after this, the rose-tree 
 again appeai-ed to languish; the brilliancy of the monarch 
 was diminished ; the foliage looked yellow and faded ; and 
 yet the stem of the eglantine was shining and smooth. Seek 
 for the cause. The poor slave is ingenious and obstinate : he 
 has caused a shoot to glide along under the eai-th, and only 
 allowed it to see the day at a distance from its parent. Go 
 back two or three steps, and behind that gilly-flower you will 
 see a little rose-bush, growing in shade and silence. It is like 
 what its father was; like him it has flexible branches and 
 narrow leaves. Wait a year, and it will become an eglantine. 
 Rub its leaves, and you will find they exhale a pine-apple 
 odour, peculiar to one species of eglantine. Such was its 
 father when he had branches and leaves of his own. Here 
 it is in bud ; here it is in blossom. 
 
 But the despot we left yonder is dead, and died of a 
 horrible death : he died of hunger. The revolted slave who 
 supported him, has, for a length of time, conducted under 
 ground, all his sap to his well-beloved offspring. That 
 beautiful crown of double flowers is withered: he himself, 
 the poor slave, is sick, and will soon die; for he has kept 
 nothing for himself. But he dies free : he dies avenged. He 
 leaves a strong, young, and vigorous offspring upon which the 
 little eglantine blossoms of the woods will burst forth next 
 year. 
 
 Our white rose-tree is not in this situation. The eglantine 
 which bears and nourishes it appears to be resigned to its 
 fate; indeed, we might even say it is proud of its slavery. 
 There are other slaves in the world who have no wish to break 
 their chains when they are well gilded. Our eglantine seems 
 to take pride in its beautiful crown. 
 
 But what emerald is that concealed in the heart of that 
 rose? The emerald is living: it is a cetonia;* it is a flat, 
 square insect, with hard wings, like those of a cockchafer, 
 
 * Cetonia aurata. ED.
 
 THE APHIS. 27 
 
 and brilliant as a precious stone. Turn it up : its under side 
 is of a still more beautiful colour; it is another precious 
 stone, more violet than the ruby, more red than the amethyst. 
 The cetonia, or rose-beetle, lives scarcely anywhere but in 
 roses. A rose is its house and its bed. It feeds on roses. 
 When it has eaten its house, it flies away in search of another, 
 but it prefers white roses to all the rest. If by chance you 
 find it upon another rose, which is rarely the case, neither its 
 abode nor its bed are to its mind. It would inspire you with 
 the same pity that you would feel for a ruined banker, obliged 
 to dwell in the fourth story, and to eat soup and bouilli, as 
 his only banquet. It feels sad and humiliated by it; but 
 still, breathing creatures must live. There are people who 
 resign themselves to a worse fate than this. 
 
 Twenty flies of different species and colours, are to be found 
 upon different parts of the rose-tree; but I pay no attention 
 to them they are there by chance. The} 7 travel as you do; 
 they trifle as I do. I only take heed of the natives of the 
 country: I shall meet with the others elsewhere. We are 
 not yet ready to quit our rose-tree; for strange things are 
 going on in it at this moment. 
 
 Where are you, my dear friend ? I have no idea where ; 
 but I very much doubt if the country in which you are 
 sojourning be as smiling as my rose-tree; and, particularly, 
 whether the inhabitants be as handsome, brilliant, and happy 
 as the inhabitants of my rose-tree. And is it nothing to see 
 living beings happy? But, to a certainty, you are viewing 
 nothing so extraordinary as that which 1 see at this mo- 
 ment. 
 
 At the extremities of the young shoots of the rose-tree are 
 myriads of very small insects, of a reddish green, which en- 
 tirely cover the branch, and seem motionless: they are 
 aphides or vine-fretters, which are born within a line or two 
 of the place where they now are, and which never venture to 
 travel one inch in the course of their lives. They have a 
 little proboscis, which they plunge into the epidermis of the 
 branch, and by means of which they suck certain juices 
 which nourish them. They will not eat the rose-tree. There 
 are more than five hundred assembled upon one inch of the 
 branch, and neither foliage nor branch seems to suffer much.
 
 28 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 Almost every plant is inhabited by aphides differing from 
 those of others. Those of the elder are of a velvety black ; 
 those of the apricot are of a glossy black; those of the oak 
 are of a bronze colour; those of gooseberry-trees are like 
 mother-of-pearl; upon the absinthe they are spotted white 
 and brown: on the field-sorrel, black and green; upon the 
 birch, black, and another shade of green; upon the privet, of 
 a yellowish green; and upon the pear-tree, coffee-coloured. 
 All enjoy a life sufficiently calm. You scarcely ever see 
 an insect of this kind who is vagabond 
 enough to pass from one branch to 
 another. They sometimes go so far as 
 to make the tour of the branch they 
 dwell upon; but everything leaves us 
 to believe that this is only done in 
 the effervescence of ill-regulated youth, 
 or under the empire of some passion. 
 These outbreaks are extremely rare. 
 Some of these aphides, however, have 
 wings; but these wings only corne at 
 a ripe age, and they do not abuse 
 TIIE APIIIS - them. The only serious care that seems 
 
 to occupy the life of the aphis, is the changing of its clothes. 
 It changes its skin, in fact, four times before it becomes a 
 perfect aphis; something like us men who try on two or three 
 characters before we fix upon one, although in general, we 
 preserve three during our whole lives : one which we exhibit ; 
 one which we fancy we have; and another which we really 
 have. 
 
 When the aphides have finished changing their skins, 
 there only remains one duty to fulfil, which is to multiply 
 their species ; but they take very little heed about that : they 
 have not, as quadrupeds have, to suckle their young as 
 birds, to hatch their eggs or, as other insects, to enclose them 
 in a cavern with necessary aliments. The aphis produces its 
 little ones whilst sucking its branch; and it never turns 
 round to look at the offspring it has given birth to. If the 
 mother shows but little anxiety for the little one, the little 
 one only returns the same amount of filial love that it has 
 received of maternal love. It sets out, descends below the
 
 THE APHIDES. 29 
 
 rest, takes its rank, and plunges its little trunk into the 
 green skin of the rose-tree. There issue thus about a 
 hundred from a single mother, who all fall in regularly beiow 
 their predecessors, and begin to eat. In ten or eleven days 
 they change their skins four times ; on the twelfth day, in 
 their turn, they begin to produce little ones who take their 
 rank, and themselves become prolific towards the twelfth day 
 from their birth. The aphides of the poppy are more pre- 
 cocious; in seven or eight days they have changed their 
 vestments four times, and enjoyed what I should call the 
 happiness- of being parents, if they were not quite indifferent 
 about the matter. 
 
 But, my good friend, you will say, upon reading this 
 passage of my journey, there is an important deficiency here: 
 you profess to describe the lives of these aphides, and you 
 don't say a word of their loves or their nuptials. I have 
 here, you will add, an immense advantage over you. I 
 relate to you, of every nation, a thousand whimsical or curious 
 ceremonies connected with marriage. Yes, my excellent 
 friend, I may answer, I could remind you of the loves of 
 those two spiders, which, when starting for my journey, I 
 fell in with in the corner of my window; but my present 
 business is only with aphides. Aphides are acquainted with 
 neither love nor hymeneals : aphides eat and make little ones, 
 exactly in the manner of Mother Gigogne, who so delighted 
 our childhood. Nature has taken the fancy to free herself, 
 with regard to aphides, from the general law of reproduction. 
 Don't, however, imagine that she shrinks from the difficulty 
 on account of the smallness of these animals. There are 
 other animals which can only be distinguished with the assis- 
 tance of a microscope, which, in this respect, come within 
 the general rule. Notwithstanding the admiration which 
 the study of insects must create, you must not let this 
 admiration be exercised upon their greater or smaller size. 
 Great and small are only such with relation to ourselves; 
 and when we expi-ess astonishment at seeing a perfection in 
 the organs of the invisible cheese-mite, equal to those of the 
 ox or the elephant, it is a false feeling, arising from a false 
 idea. 
 
 One of these aphides will produce nearly twenty young ones
 
 30 
 
 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 in the course of a day; that is to say, a volume ten or twelve 
 times equal to its own body. A single aphis which, at the 
 beginning of the warm weather, would bring into the world 
 ninety aphides, which ninety, twelve days after, would each 
 produce ninety more, would be, in the fifth generation, 
 author of five billions, nine hundred and four millions, nine 
 thousand aphides which is a tolerable amount. Now, one 
 aphis is, in a year, the source of twenty generations. I very 
 much doubt whether there would be room for them upon all 
 the trees and all the plants in the world. The whole earth 
 would be given up to aphides; but this fecundity, of which 
 there are so many examples in nature, need not alarm us. 
 One poppy plant produces thirty-two thousand seeds, one 
 tobacco plant, three hundred and sixty thousand; each of 
 these seeds producing in its turn thirty-two thousand, or 
 three hundred thousand would you not think that, at the 
 end of five years the earth would be entirely covered with 
 tobacco and poppies'? A carp lays three hundred and fifty 
 
 thousand eggs at once. But life and death are nothing but 
 transformations. Death is the aliment of life. These aphides 
 are the game that nourishes other insects, which in turn form 
 the food of the birds we eat. Then we are returned to the 
 elements, and serve as manure to the grass and the flowers, 
 which will produce and feed other aphides. 
 
 We need not go far to seek for the enemies of the aphides.
 
 THE LADY-BIRD. .31 
 
 Look! here, quite at his ease, on a rose-bud, is a little insect 
 
 well known to children: it is shaped like a tortoise, and is 
 
 about the size of a pea. Naturalists 
 
 call it a " coccinella," and children 
 
 know it as the lady-bird. It is now 
 
 innocent enough ; but it has not always 
 
 been so. Before it became possessed 
 
 of its pretty form, and its polished 
 
 shell of orange, yellow, black, or red, 
 
 sprinkled witli black or brown specks, 
 
 it was a large, flat worm, with six feet, 
 
 and of a dirty grey colour, marked 
 
 with a few yellow spots. These worms, 
 
 which issue from amber-coloured eggs, 
 
 deposited by the female upon leaves, 
 
 are no sooner born than they set out 
 
 in search of aphides. When they have 
 
 found a branch covered with game, 
 
 they establish themselves in the midst 
 
 of it, and are not in want of food till 
 
 the moment they frel they are about 
 
 to be transformed ; then they attach themselves to some 
 
 solitary leaf, and wait, in abstinence, till they become veritable 
 
 lady-birds. 
 
 There would still be a superabundance of aphides if the 
 lady-birds were their only enemies. But do you not see, 
 hovering over one of the roses, a fly,* whose two wings move 
 so rapidly that it appears motionless? You would not care 
 to catch it, it so much resembles a bee, or rather a wasp. 
 Its body is striped with yellow and black, but instead of being 
 round like the two insects you dread, it is remarkably flat; 
 besides this, it has only two wings, and I do not believe 
 that, any two-winged fly has a sting. It does not seem 
 to take any notice of the aphides which cover the branch 
 near to it. It is a parvenu. Tt has forgotten the Immility 
 of its youth, when it had not its rich yellow and black vest- 
 ments, or, more particularly, its wings. It was formerly a 
 sort of shapeless worm, of a colour not at all striking, a dirty 
 green, with a yellow stripe the whole length of its body 
 
 * Sc<eva jjyrtatri. ED. 
 
 i HE i.Anv-m RD.
 
 32 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 Placing itself upon a bed of game, this worm seizes the 
 aphides, one after another, with a sort of hollow trident, 
 through which it sucks them, taking particular care to reject 
 the empty dry skin every time. One of these worms eats 
 nearly an aphis a minute; as regards the aphides, the matter 
 appears to be perfectly indifferent to them, not one of them 
 is ever seen to make the least effort to avoid being eaten. 
 
 A Roman emperor, who found his end approaching, cried 
 out, in allusion to the custom of decreeing an apotheosis to 
 dead emperors: "I feel that I am becoming a godi" So 
 there is a moment at which this worm feels that it is becoming 
 a fly : and, like the lady-bird, it seeks a solitary place to pre- 
 pare for this metamorphosis. 
 
 Here is a branch on which the aphides are only on one 
 side; to-morrow there will be none at all: the reason of this 
 is, that they are attacked by their most redoubtable enemy, 
 an enemy which the learned and witty Reaumur called the 
 Lion of the Pucerons. This is, like the others, flat in form, 
 and is of a cinnamon colour with citron-yellow stripes; it is 
 much more voracious than the two other species of which we 
 have spoken. If one of these worms, by mistake, happens to 
 seize one of his brethren instead of an aphis so much the 
 worse for his brother it will eat him. It would be losing 
 precious time to replace it upon a branch, and take an aphis 
 instead of it. One can afford very little leisure for so much 
 ceremony, when one has but a fortnight to eat all these 
 fat aphides in ! In fact, at the end of a fortnight, it forgets 
 its appetite, and retires into a corner, shuts itself up in a shell 
 of white silk, as large as a pea, which it spins in a very short 
 time. Three weeks afterwards, the shell opens, and there 
 issues from it the most beautiful little creature you ever saw. 
 It is a sort of large fly* of a gay green colour, covered, when 
 it is settled, by long and large wings, of so fine a texture, that 
 its body can be plainly seen through them. These wings, 
 which are of a very pale green, present to the eye fibres, as it 
 were, of a deeper green, which form a network more charming 
 than that of the richest lace ; on each side of the head is an 
 eye of a fiery red colour, the splendour of which far surpasses 
 that of precious stones. 
 
 * Chrysopa reficwtata. ED. See fig. on p. 58.
 
 NATURE'S PROVISION TO PRESERVE A BALANCE. 33 
 
 The learned formerly found little bunches upon leaves, 
 which excited their attention ; these were stems as fine as 
 hairs, supporting a small bud, white like themselves; at 
 other times the buds were found open, like the chalice of a 
 flower; the thing was declared to be a plant by the learned. 
 The learned, however, were wrong; Reaumur made it clear 
 that they were the eggs of that pretty fly of which we have 
 just spoken, before and after the birth of the worm which 
 was afterwards to be transformed into a fly. 
 
 I was afraid but now, of seeing the aphides invade the 
 whole earth ; I at present begin to fear that there will not be 
 aphides enough to feed all the insects to which they are 
 assigned as game. Nature appears to have partaken of this 
 second fear, and for this reason has suppressed the delays 
 and formalities, ordinarily reputed necessary ; aphides must 
 be born, eat, and be eaten in a very few days. 
 
 But what is that black animal which is ascending the 
 stem of the rose-tree 1 ? It is an ant; it climbs spirally, to 
 avoid the thorns; there it is upon the branch that is covered 
 by the aphides. Is this another enemy 1 Why, La Fontaine 
 told you it fed upon worms and insects; there, it is upon 
 them, but it does not devour them. As aphides eat, they 
 secrete a sweet liquor of which ants are very fond, and this 
 one is come to regale itself it is a little black milkmaid, who 
 comes to milk some little green cows, which pasture in a 
 meadow of the size of a rose-leaf. 
 
 There is a bee which has glided into a rose ; it is not long 
 before it comes out again, and flies away ; its hind feet are 
 loaded with a yellow dust, which it has abstracted from the 
 heart of the flower. That yellow dust, mixed with the honey 
 which it disgorges, will be the paste destined for the worms 
 which are to become young bees. Do not fancy, however, 
 that this dust has no other destination. It is now time to 
 speak of the loves of the roses. 
 
 We will abstain from allusions to, as we said before, the 
 apocryphal loves of the Rose and the Butterfly. The but- 
 terfly who lights upon a rose, seldom comes there for any 
 other purpose than to deposit eggs, which will become cater- 
 pillars that will eat the rose. The loves, then, of which I 
 will speak are real loves, and are the most charming in the 
 
 p
 
 34 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 world. Figure to yourself thai, all those roses which blooin 
 in the garden, pale purple or purple violet, yellow or nastur- 
 tium colour, white, or mixed with purple and white, conceal 
 from your eyes numbers of innocent loves. 
 
 The ancients placed dryads and hamadryads in trees ; there 
 are nymphs quite as charming in roses. Let us go back to 
 the rose-tree of the woods. Its flower is composed of five 
 leaves or five petals : in the middle are some delicate threads, 
 supporting little yellow masses, these are the stamens; these 
 threads surround a sort of little green egg, which is called 
 an ovary, which contains the seed or grains; the grains 
 lire eggs, which the plants leave for the earth and the sun to 
 hatch, as turtles do, when they deposit their eggs in the 
 sand. The mass which surmounts the stamens is covered 
 with that yellow dust with which the bee that has just 
 disappeared over the wall had loaded its feet. Every grain 
 of that dust is a skin which contains a much finer dust, 
 which fecundates the pistil. When once the pistil fecundates, 
 the nuptial bed is taken down- the leaves of the rose fade 
 and fall, one by one ; the stamens become dry, and disappear. 
 The ovary enlarges, and becomes an oblong fruit of the shape 
 of an olive, green at first, then yellow, then orange, then 
 scarlet; then, some day, the fruit bursts, and grains of a gold 
 colour, containing eternal generations of rose-trees, fall upon 
 the earth, and there germinate. The little nymph who inhabits 
 the rose has from fifteen to twenty lovers; but all the inhabi- 
 tants of flowers have not a similar harem : that of the pink 
 has but ten husbands; the fair inhabitant of the tulip is 
 obliged to be content with six; the nymph of the Iris has 
 only three; that of the lilac two; of the red Valerian only 
 one; she who has chosen for a retreat the sumptuous poppy, 
 has around her no less than a hundred eager lovers. And 
 don't believe, my good friend, that these are lovers invented 
 by versifiers. Cut off the stamens of a rose, and isolate it; 
 you will see the petals lose their splendid colour, become 
 rusty, and fall; but far from enlarging, and being brighter 
 in colour, the pistil also will sink barren. The hangings of 
 the nuptial bed will serve it for a winding-sheet; the rose 
 will die without leaving any posterity. The double rose is a 
 coquette of an entirely unique species; you have read fairy tales,
 
 LOVES OP THE ROSES. 35 
 
 in which a magician changes into trees or flowers her rejected 
 lovers; have we not, besides, in mythology, Daphne changed 
 into a laurel, Clytie into a sunflower? Did not Narcissus 
 and Adonis become flowers, to which they left their names? 
 Well, every one of the rose-leaves (beyond five) which sur- 
 round the nymph who dwells in the double rose, is one of 
 these lovers each of the petals is made of one of the stamens 
 that she had. Certain roses are so double that they have 
 not one stamen left, and then they never have any seeds. 
 Our white rose, which has but five rows of petals, has pre- 
 served a few of its lovers. 
 
 Then we left the white rose-tree ; and, taking three steps, 
 we found ourselves in a hostelry, which has the advantage of 
 being our own home. And you, my friend, where are you 
 ^oing to dine? or, rather, where do you not dine? Where do 
 you sleep? or rather, where do you not sleep? 
 
 Ancient robbers upon the highways observed that they 
 were often imprisoned, that they were sometimes hung, and 
 they found it necessary to introduce some modification into 
 one of the most ancient professions; they discarded those 
 brown vests, those red pantaloons, those pistol bedecked 
 girdles, which are only met with in melodramas, and they 
 assumed a cotton cap and a white apron ; they took out the 
 licence of an aubergiste, and continue to plunder upon the 
 high roads, the theatre of their ancient exploits, but now 
 under the immediate protection of their ancient enemies, the 
 authorities and gendarmes. 
 
 In which of these caverns are you this evening if even 
 you are happy enough to have reached one? What suspicious 
 food is presented to your appetite? Do you think you are 
 certain the sheets of your bed have never been used by any 
 one else? And with what insects are you about to share 
 your couch?
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 OR MIGNONETTE THE MARSH-MALLOW AND THI 
 BAOBAB. 
 
 Savants are men, who, in their greatest success, only contrive to pet 
 deeper into the mud than other people. Language of Science, and the 
 Languaye of Old Association*. 
 
 A. BRISK shower having driven me in from the garden, I sit 
 me down quietly then in my study, and amuse myself with a 
 species as curious as any of those we shall have opportunities 
 of observing in either your voyage or mine. I propose saying 
 a little about savants. 
 
 You cannot but remember that smiling portion of your 
 life, full of gaiety, sports, and affections I mean childhood; 
 that childhood always too soon given up to pedants, who 
 aggravate children for ten years, in order to render them 
 aggravating for the rest of their lives.
 
 SAVANTS. 37 
 
 Represent to yourself one of our school play-hours: all 
 those open, ingenuous, cheerful countenances; these engaged 
 in running and jumping, those with their kites, others in 
 throwing and catching balls, and others, again, skilfully 
 striking marbles with other marbles from a great distance. 
 Recreation is the true education that belongs to this age; by 
 it we become healthy, vigorous, active, and brave. But the 
 fatal hour has struck. 
 
 A man, with black clothes and a yellow visage, appears in 
 the court. Everything becomes silent, everything stops, 
 everything is sad. The sports of boyhood must all cease. 
 And why] No doubt, for the sake of learning a trade, an 
 occupation, to assure beforehand the independence of the 
 whole of their lives. Not at all. 
 
 There are amusements for a riper age as well as for 
 childhood. Youth has no amusements : it despises them, it 
 does not want them it requires happiness. 
 
 Childhood in nowise desires other ages to partake of its 
 amusements. Youth would be furious if others wished to 
 take away a portion of its felicity. But mature age insists 
 upon having partakers of its amusements; which arises from 
 the circumstance of these amusements being very tiresome. 
 In fact, these said amusements consist in nothing but reading 
 and re-reading, for the hundredth time, the same Latin aud 
 Greek books. 
 
 For my part, I cannot see why each age should not be 
 left in the free enjoyment of its own pleasures, or why children 
 should be tormented during the whole of their joyous age, 
 by being taught a game which may amuse them at an age 
 they are not certain of attaining. I cannot see why they 
 should be forced to admire what they don't understand; why 
 an entirely literary education should be given to people who 
 are destined to be dispersed through all the conditions of 
 human life; or why literary studies should be confined, 
 during ten years, to the learning of the only two languages 
 that are never spoken. 
 
 Jean Jacques Rousseau knew but very little Latin. I 
 have no need to tell you why Homer did not understand 
 Latin at all. 
 
 That which savants do with regard to children, they do
 
 38 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 with regard to everything they come near. They render 
 everything -wearisome, dry, stiff, and pretentious. 
 
 They cannot leave flowers alone they put them in starch. 
 See a savant enter a smiling meadow or a perfumed, blooming 
 garden ; listen to him : you would take a disgust for both 
 meadow and garden. 
 
 They began by forming for those graceful things called 
 flowers, three barbarous languages, which they afterwards 
 mixed, in order to compound one still more barbarous ; then 
 every savant brought his little contributions of new bar- 
 barisms, as was done among the ancients to those heaps of 
 stones placed by the road-sides, to which every traveller was 
 obliged to add a pebble at least. 
 
 I was about to write, at hazard, such of the words of this 
 language made by these gentlemen as -occur to me. But 
 you would not only say, is it not sad work to see flowers 
 thus treated, that festival of the sight, as the ancient Greeks 
 called them. But I am sure you would not read two lines 
 of them; therefore, I will let you off with half-a-dozen 
 Mesocarps, quinquelocular, infundibuliform, squanjraiflora, 
 guttiferse, monocotyledons, &c. &c. &c.* 
 
 Have you enough? You will never make a botanist; 
 you would have to store your memory with an endless no- 
 menclature like the above, with the satisfaction of knowing 
 that the learned are adding to it daily, and that when 
 acquired you had not gained the name of a single flower. 
 
 As to the names of flowers, look, at the foot of that wall, 
 at these bunches of mignonette, or reseda. Linnaeus, who 
 fully played his part in the barbarisms, but who considered 
 flowers in a friendly light, and who, of all savants, has least 
 ill-treated them Linnaeus said that the odour of the reseda 
 was ambrosia. Contemplate while you can its green and 
 fawn-coloured spikes, inhale its sweet odour; for hei-e comes 
 a savant there conies another the reseda is about to be 
 transformed! In the first place, there is no sxich thing as 
 odour. Botanists do not admit of odour. For them, odour 
 signifies nothing, nothing more than colour does. 
 
 Colour and odour are two luxuries; two superfluities of 
 which the learned have deprived flowers. 
 
 * In the original, more than a page is filled with botanical terms. ED. 
 t Reseda odorata. Introduced from Africa in Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. ED.
 
 THE RESEDA. -^O 
 
 Our savants are desirous that all flowers should resemble 
 those which they dry in their herbals horrible cemeteries, in 
 which flowers are buried with ostentatious epitaphs. One of 
 these savants looks at the plant and says, " That is a capparis, 
 of the family of the capparides, without stipulae. The petals 
 of the corolla alternate with the sepals of the calyx ; the 
 filaments are hypogynous ; the pistil is stipitate, and formed 
 of the union of three carpels, the ovules attached to the 
 three trophosperms ; its seeds are often r,euiform, and have 
 an endosperm " 
 
 " Gently ! gently ! " cries the other savant ; " the reseda is 
 not a capparis. The reseda is an euphorbia, according to 
 Mr. Lindley, and a cistus, in my opinion. The calyx is a 
 common iuvolucrum ; the ovary globular, seldom unilocu- 
 lar ; the seeds are enveloped in a fleshy endosperm." 
 
 "I admit the endosperm," replies the other savant, 
 "and I allow that it is fleshy ; but I maintain that the reseda 
 belongs to the capparides. I will further say that it shows 
 bat little of a botanist to make an euphorbiaceous plant of it." 
 
 But let us stop ! We should tear our sweet mignonette 
 to tatters. Listen to a savant upon another subject. 
 
 He is speaking of the guimauve, or dwarf mallow,* a little 
 creeping plant, with round leaves and rose-coloured blossoms, 
 that you will have great trouble to find in the grass. Listen ! 
 
 " The calyx is gamosepalous ; the anthers are reniform 
 and unilocular ; the pistil is composed of several carpels, 
 often verticillated ; the fruits form a plurilocular capsule, 
 which opens in as many valves as there are monosperm or 
 poly sperm cells ; the seeds are generally without endosperm, 
 with foliaceous cotyledons." 
 
 You understand nothing of this, though, perhaps, if you 
 have an extraordinary verbal memory, you may retain some 
 of the words. Then request the savant to tell you something 
 about the baobab. 
 
 The baobab, or Adansonia,"\ is the largest tree in the world ; 
 it may be taken at a distance for a forest ; its trunk is often 
 a hundred feet in circumference ; it is asserted that some exist 
 in Senegal that are five thousand years old. 
 
 Hear the savant give a description of a baobab : 
 
 * Maha rot-undifolia.ED. t Adansonia digitata. ED.
 
 40 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 " The calyx gamosepalous ; the anthers are reniform and 
 unilocular ; the pistil is composed of several carpels, often 
 verticillated ; the fruits form a plurilocular capsule, which 
 opens in as many valves as there are monosperm and poly- 
 sperm cells " 
 
 You stop the savant. " I beg your pardon, learned sir ; it 
 is of the dwarf mallow you are speaking, or, at least, you 
 said just the same of the dwarf mallow but an instant ago." 
 
 " Dwarf mallow or baobab," replies the savant, " it is, for 
 us, absolutely the same thing ; we do not observe those 
 differences which strike the vulgar, of which the dignity of 
 science will not allow us to take notice." 
 
 Savants acknowledge neither size, odour, colour, nor 
 flavour : with them the plum-tree is a cherry-tree, the apricot 
 is a plum : these very men, who, in other cases, give ten 
 names to the same plant, call all these prunus; the almond- 
 tree and the peach-tree have but one name between them 
 amygdalus. 
 
 And then you know what charming names the pretty 
 flowers of our fields have received, no one knows whence, 
 except from their own sweet nature : they know nothing of 
 paquerettes (Easter daisy); marguerites (the prettiest name 
 tor daisies) ; vergiss-meinnicht (forget-me-not). Marguerites 
 and paquerettes are asters; and the pretty forget-me-not, 
 with all its delightful associations, is loaded with the name of 
 myosotis occipioides. Can you imagine what a rage you 
 would have been in, my dear friend, if some godfather had 
 insisted upon calling your pretty little Mathilde, Pelronella, 
 or Rosalba ] 
 
 The rain has ceased, the sun has dispersed the clouds, and 
 makes the drops on the leaves glitter like so many diamonds; 
 the drooping branches recover their natural position ; a linnet 
 sings in a hawthorn. The savants may settle their disputes 
 by themselves.
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 NUT-TREE NUT-WEEVIL WHAT IS PROPERTY' 
 
 THE ardour of the sun drives us to the friendly shade of the 
 trees ; and here, on the verge of the thicket, is a nut-tree 
 which arrests our steps for a few minutes. 
 
 I have told you, my friend, of the little nymphs to whom 
 roses and other flowers are as a grotto or a nuptial bed, 
 wherein their loves are concealed by rich purple curtains. 
 All do not enjoy the same facilities ; all do not find their 
 lover and their husband in the same chalice, under the same 
 leaves ; it is evident that roses, and a vast number of other 
 flowers which thus unite the two sexes in the same corolla, 
 are like the Guebres, who contracted marriages among bro- 
 thers and sisters ; if you were travelling that way, you would 
 be mighty proud to meet with some rude monument which 
 might recal the memory of this now forgotten usage. 
 
 The nut-tree* is not thus constituted ; the male and female 
 flowers are not xinited in one corolla, but they are both born 
 
 * Corylus Avellana.'ED. 
 G
 
 43 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 upon the same tree. The male flowers appear the first, gene- 
 rally about the beginning of February, a long time before 
 the femaks venture forth. They are long catkins of a pale 
 yellow, in the form of little close clusters, which hang from 
 the upper extremities of the branches ; shivering through the 
 dreary season, they await the coming of the female flowers; 
 some wither, die with cold, and fall off", before these deign 
 to show themselves; but the male flowers are much the 
 more numerous. The female flowers, placed beneath the 
 catkins, begin to appear; these are green, scaly buds, termi- 
 nated by a very small tip of beautiful crimson red; it is this 
 little bunch or tuft which receives and retains the yellow dust 
 that falls from the catkins ; and that is the way nuts are made. 
 The hazel reminds us of four pretty verses of Virgil 
 
 " Populus A'.cidae gratissima, vitis laccho, 
 Formosae myrtus Veneri, sua laurea Phoebo. 
 Thyllis amat corylos, illas dum Phyllis amahit, 
 Nee myrtus vincet corylos nee laurea Phcebi." 
 
 " Hercules loves the poplar, and Bacchus the branches of 
 the vine ; the myrtle is consecrated to Venus, and the laurel 
 is cherished by Apollo. But Phyllis loves nut-trees, and, 
 while she loves them, nut-trees shall triumph over both the 
 myrtle of Venus and the laurel of Apollo." 
 
 Great virtues were for a long time attributed, nay, still are 
 attributed in the provinces, to a hazel-branch ; it is pretended 
 that a wand of a nut-tree, cut in a certain season, with 
 certain ceremonies, and in the hands of a man purified after 
 certain methods, points of itself to a part of the earth in 
 which is concealed either a mine or a spring. However far 
 off you may be, you will not easily find a. more singular belief 
 than that. 
 
 Upon the nut-tree, as well as upon the trees which sur- 
 round it, I can see countless numbers of insects, without 
 reckoning those which, by their small size, escape my sight ; 
 there are some upon the leaves, some under the leaves, and 
 some in the leaves, that is to say, in the thickness of the 
 leaves. 
 
 Between the two membranes of the leaves of the nut-tree, 
 little caterpillars live, eat, attain their growth, and spin a 
 small web rather larger than a grain of millet seed. Almost
 
 NUT-TREE. 43 
 
 all trees, almost all plants, have insects which thus live in the 
 interior of their leaves. A worm which insinuates itself into 
 the leaves of the white lungwort, comes out in his day, meta- 
 morphosed into a little beetle of a whitish colour, in the form 
 of a weevil ; the one which escapes from the thickness of the 
 leaves of the mallow, after having lived and been meta- 
 morphosed there, is of a violet colour ; another worm feeds 
 upon the parenchyma between the two membranes of the 
 leaves of the henbane, which is a violent poison, and comes 
 out transformed into a fly. 
 
 But let us return to the caterpillar which dwells in the 
 leaves of the nut-tree. A little moth has laid one egg 011 
 each leaf of the nut-tree; from this egg a caterpillar issues, 
 which, armed with good teeth, makes in the epidermis of the 
 leaf a wound by means of which it introduces itself into its 
 thickness; when once there, it advances, eating right and 
 left; until there remains so little of the leaf, that, by holding 
 it up to the sun, we can plainly perceive the miner. When 
 it has attained its full growth, it shuts itself up in a web of 
 silk, from which it issues at a later period, a moth : this insect, 
 smaller than an ordinary gnat, when seen through a micro- 
 scope, appears to be the most richly clad, perhaps, of all the 
 moths known; its head is ornamented with two small white 
 tufts, its two upper wings are striped each with seven little 
 bands, alternately of gold and silver. 
 
 All their species do not travel in their leaf in the same 
 manner; the worm which lives only in the leaves of thistles, 
 eats straight before it ; therefore its road has the appearance 
 of a gallery, very narrow at the beginning, and widening in 
 proportion as it is itself developed. The worms of the leaves 
 of the lilac live in society in the same leaf. 
 
 Some of the fruits of the nut-tree, in spite of their cuirass 
 of wood, are inhabited as well as the leaves; the flower is not 
 yet faded when an insect* comes and deposits one of its eggs 
 in it; the worm which issues from this egg, easily introduces 
 itself into the fruit, which is scarcely formed and quite soft; 
 there it feeds upon the kernel, which grows as fast as it 
 grows, and enlarges in proportion as it enlarges; but in the 
 meantime the shell is formed, and hardens so as sometimes 
 
 * lialanintti Nucum. ED.
 
 44 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 to brave the teeth of man. This El Dorado, in which the 
 worm, sheltered from the inclemency of the seasons, had 
 enjoyed at discretion the food which best suited it, has 
 become a prison : it must get out, for it is in the earth that 
 its metamorphosis must take place; nature has given it, at 
 the age it has then attained, teeth which enable it to make a 
 perfectly round hole in the walls of its prison, by which it 
 effects its escape. When you see a nut with a hole thus 
 made, you may be sure that the worm which inhabited it lias 
 either left it or is about to leave it; the hole by which it 
 entered is long since cicatrised. 
 
 When we examine thus the lives of these little creatures, 
 divided into two such distinct ages, we abandon ourselves to 
 singular reveries. At first, it is a worm of an ugly shape, 
 condemned to an humble, obscure, and laborious life, and sur- 
 rounded by enemies. It soon ceases to eat ; it spins itself a 
 winding-sheet of silk, and encloses itself in it. There it is, 
 as far as our eyes can convince us, as dead as it can be ; but 
 wait a few days, and it issues from the winding-sheet clothed 
 in the richest colours, with brilliant wings which enable it to 
 fly above that earth upon which it had seemed painfully to 
 crawl. It finds in the sweet air a female beautiful and happy 
 as itself, and their loves terminate only with their existence. 
 
 This life which we lead upon earth, is it really our perfect 
 state ? Is that which we call death really the end of life ? 
 Have we not also to hope for celestial wings, with which to 
 hover about the sun and beautiful stars above the miseries, 
 passions, and wants, of a first existence? 
 
 Bernardin de St. Pierre, who really loved flowers and 
 trees, and who often speaks of them very delightfully, adopted 
 a point of view which, necessarily, often led him to describe 
 things very differently from what they really are : he thought 
 that man was the centre and the object of the entire creation; 
 that everything had been made for him. Sometimes, things 
 presented themselves which he found it very difficult to recon- 
 cile with this system so generally adopted and I don't know 
 why. He somewhere says that nature has only placed odori- 
 ferous flowers in the grass upon low stems, or upon shrubs, but 
 that not one bloomed upon a lofty tree. Bernardin de St. 
 Pierre forgot the acacia, which often rises to a height of
 
 WHAT IS PROPERTY? 45 
 
 sixty or eighty feet. It was this same system that made him 
 say, "At the sight of men, animals are struck with love or 
 fear." He left out a third impression, which many animals 
 experience at the sight of man hunger, and a great desire to 
 eat him. 
 
 Ask the first passer-by, provided he be of the country, to 
 whom that fine acacia belongs? He will answer you, without 
 hesitation, " That acacia belongs to M. Stephen." In fact, I 
 have agreements, in due form, that this acacia is mine. Now, 
 is not this a cruel sarcasm? This tree is more than a hun- 
 dred years old, and has preserved all its vigour and its 
 youth; whilst I I am thirty-six years of age, or rather 
 there are already of the mysterious number of years which 
 have been granted me, or inflicted upon me, thirty-six which 
 I have spent, and which I no longer have. I have already 
 begun to die: I have lost two teeth; and lengthened vigils 
 fatigue me. This tree has seen three generations born and 
 die beneath its shade: if I become very aged, if I escape 
 accidents and diseases, if I die from having lived, I shall see 
 it flourish thirty times more ; and then, some of the children 
 who are now playing at marbles, and whom we are teaching 
 Latin in spite of themselves, whom we now coax with sugared 
 brsad and butter, but who will then be men, will shut me up 
 in a deal box, and place me by the side of others under the 
 earth, in order to make more room for those who are upon 
 it, until another generation which they have brought up for 
 that purpose, shall squeeze them into similar boxes, and place 
 them beside us. 
 
 And I call this tree mine ! Ten more generations will live 
 and die beneath its shade; and yet I call this tree mine. 
 And I can neither reach nor see that nest which a bird has 
 built upon one of its highest branches. I call this tree mine, 
 and I cannot gather one of its blossoms; and yet I call this 
 tree mine! 
 
 Mine! 
 
 There is scarcely anything which I call mine which will 
 not last much longer than I shall: there is not a single 
 button of my gaiters that is not destined to survive me many 
 years. 
 
 What a strange thing is this property of which men are so
 
 46 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 envious! When I had nothing of my own, I had forests and 
 meadows, and the sea, and the sky with all its stars ; since 
 I purchased this old house and this garden, I have no longer 
 anything but this house and this garden. 
 
 Property is a contract by which you renounce everything 
 that is not contained within four certain walls. 
 
 I remember an old wood near to the house in which I was 
 born: what days have I passed under its thick shade, in its 
 green alleys; what violets I have gathered in it in the month 
 of March, and what lilies of the valley in the month of 
 May ; what strawberries, blackberries, and nuts, I have eaten 
 in it; what butterflies and lizards I have chased and caught 
 there; what nests I have discovered; how I have there 
 admired the stars which in an evening used to appear to 
 blossom in the tops of the lofty trees, and in the morning the 
 sun which glided in golden dust through that thick dome of 
 foliage ! What sweet perfumes, and what still sweeter reve- 
 ries, have I there inhaled ! what verses have I there made ! 
 how I have there read and re-read her letters! How often 
 have I gone thither at the close of day, to recline upon a 
 little knoll covered with trees, to see the glorious sun set, his 
 oblique rays colouring with red and gold the white trunks of 
 the birch-trees which surround me ! This wood was not 
 mine: it belonged to an old bedridden marquis, who had, 
 perhaps, never been in it in his life and yet it belonged to 
 him ! 
 
 Far from being the master of nature, as so many philoso- 
 phers, poets, and moralists pretend, man is her assiduous 
 slave;' property is one of the baits by means of which he 
 burdens himself with a crowd of singular taxes. Look 
 yonder at that man cutting his haf, how tired he is: the 
 sweat pours from his brow! H is cutting his hay for his 
 horse he is proud and happy. 
 
 Man is appointed by nature to harvest her grain, and to 
 sow it again in suitable soils, and to dig the earth round the 
 foot of trees in order that they may receive the sweet and 
 salutary influences of sun and rain. 
 
 The poor man has, in every moderately inhabited city, 
 a public library, and consequently has at his command from 
 fifteen to twenty thousand volumes; should be become rich,
 
 THE WOOD. P. 4fl.
 
 WHAT IS PROPERTY? 47 
 
 he will purchase a library of books for himself; that is to 
 say, he will only have five or six hundred, but what joy and 
 pride will arise from the possession of them! 
 
 You are poor the sea is yours with its solemn noises, the 
 grand voices of its winds, the aspect of its imposing rage, 
 and of its still more imposing calms; it is yours, but it like- 
 wise belongs to others : at some future period, when, by dint 
 of labour, mental exertion, perhaps baseness, you shall have 
 become more or less rich, you will have a little marble basin 
 constructed in your garden, or at least you will be eager to 
 buy and keep in your house a vase containing a couple of 
 gold fish. 
 
 There are moments at which I ask myself whether by 
 chance our minds may not be so turned that we call poverty 
 that which is splendour and riches, and opulence that 
 is misery and destitution. 
 
 N
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 LILY ICHNEUMON-FLY THE POPPY. 
 
 I BELIEVE it is not satisfactorily known what kind of bulbous 
 roots were deified among the Egyptians. Lilies, hyacinths, 
 and tulips, appear to me to have much greater rights to these 
 honours than the garlic and onions of our kitchens. The 
 Latins, however, thought that it was to the latter this ele- 
 vated rank belonged. 
 
 " O sanctas gentes, quibus haec nascuntur in hortis 
 Numina." 
 
 " People holy and happy enough to see their gods spring 
 up in their gardens." 
 
 The white lily has many enemies ; the poets have misused 
 it equally with the rose. I do not know who first thought 
 of degrading it by rendering it a political or party symbol.
 
 LILIES TI1E CRIOCERIS. 49 
 
 It would indeed be difficult to say how many governments 
 and revolutions there have beon in France since that tuft 
 of lilies was planted in my garden, how many systems 
 have been lauded to the skies, and dragged through the 
 dirt. 
 
 The lilies in the arms of France were not taken from the 
 lilies of our gardens: they bear no resemblance to them. 
 Some authors who have written volumes on this subject, say 
 that they are the yellow iris of the marshes; others, that the 
 fleurs de lis were originally bees ; while, again, others contend 
 that they were lance heads. 
 
 Nevertheless, the lilies have not escaped the fate of other 
 political flowers, such as the violet, the imperial, and the 
 red pink ; all have been, by turns, proscribed and recalled, 
 multiplied to excess or pitilessly rooted up, in the flower-beds 
 of the Tuileries, and generally placed under the watchful 
 care of the police, considered as suspicious, hostile to power, 
 and mixed up with several conspiracies. The parties and 
 the men who planted and proscribed them are long since 
 dead, and almost forgotten. And yet, every spring, these 
 poor flowers, returned to private life, continue to bloom 
 again in their proper seasons. 
 
 One insect alone appears to have taken possession of the 
 lily, and established its abode in it. It is a little beetle, 
 whose form is of an elongated square, with black body and 
 claws, and hard elytra, or wings, of a brilliant scarlet. There 
 is no lily that is not an asylum for some of these. They are 
 called Crioceres. When you have hold of one, press it in your 
 hand, and you will hear a creaking noise, which you may at 
 first take for a cry, but which is nothing but the rubbing of 
 its lower rings against the sheaths of its wings. 
 
 It did not always wear this brilliant costume this cos- 
 tume under which it scarcely eats, and that very daintily 
 this costume under which it appears to have nothing to do 
 but to strut about and make love. It was at first a sort of flat 
 worm, with six feet, of a kind of yellow mixed with brown, 
 which dwelt likewise then upon the leaves of the lily, but 
 which then led a very different life. It was then as greedy 
 and gluttonous as it is now abstemious and delicate. But 
 that was because it had two powerful reasons for eating. The 
 
 H
 
 f)0 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 leaves of the lily which it has eaten issue from its tody almost 
 without alteration, as if they had been crushed in a mortar. 
 By a particular disposition of its body, this paste of leaves falls 
 upon it, and forms for it a house, or a cuirass, which conceals 
 it entirely. There comes, however, a day which brings other 
 cares. Spring, and its season, will soon return. It is pleasing 
 neither in form nor colour. It ceases to eat, shakes its strange 
 vestment, walks about in an agitated manner, descends and 
 buries itself in the earth. Some months after, it comes out 
 shining, lustrous, as brilliant as you now see it, richly clothed 
 in the most beautiful china-like gloss. Full of confidence in 
 themselves, the males and females seek each other, and soon 
 meet. Then the males die. The females have still something 
 to do : they lay their eggs which at first are of a reddish 
 colour, but afterwards brown and fasten them to the under- 
 side of the leaves of the lily; then they, in their turn, die. 
 When born, their children will find abundar.ee of the food 
 that is necessary for them. 
 
 What! already withered leaves! I stoop to pick up these 
 three or four dead ones. The leaves move, and flyaway! 
 But there is no wind to carry them away thus. These leaves 
 are a moth,* to which nature has given the form, the colour, 
 the disposition, the perfect figure, of three or four dried 
 leaves, with their shades and their fibres. Under its first 
 form, it is a pretty 'large caterpillar, of a dark colour, grey and 
 Drown, with brown hairs, and a fleshy brown horn at the 
 extremity of its body. 
 
 Apropos of caterpillars, Pliny says that the Romans ate a 
 sort of large white worm,t found in the trunks of old oak- 
 trees ; and that they formed a very highly esteemed dish. 
 They were fattened for some time on meal before they were 
 served up to the sumptuous tables of the wealthy Romans. 
 This must have been a horrible ragout if, by-the-bye, people 
 who, like you and me, eat oysters, have any right to deea 
 anything disgusting. 
 
 Here is a caterpillar which seems to have set out on iti 
 
 * Gnstrnpachi q>t rrti folia. ED. 
 
 t Probably the larva of the Goat-moth, (Coisus ligniperda,) or the Stag-beetle, 
 I -.anus cnvs.) ED.
 
 THE ICHNEUMON. 51 
 
 travels; in fact, it is not at home here. I recognise it now : 
 it is striped with pale blue and yellow, spotted with black. 
 It comes from the kitchen garden yonder, behind that screen 
 of poplars ; for there is nothing here that suits it. It lives 
 upon the leaves of the cabbage tribe, which it shares with 
 other green caterpillars, which are metamorphosed into those 
 white butterflies so common in our gardens and fields. I do 
 not know what sort of a butterfly this becomes. I will catch 
 it, and imprison it, to witness its metamorphosis.* But what 
 is going on now? A little fly,t of a reddish-brown colonr. 
 whose body seems to be attached to its corselet by a slender 
 thread only, has pounced upon the caterpillar, which appears 
 to be not at all inconvenienced by it, but keeps on its way. 
 It is most likely breakfast time, and it is in search of a 
 cabbage. But what is the fly about? What does it want 1 
 Is it a fly of prey? Does it mean, like a little eagle, to 
 carry off the caterpillar as a meal for itself and its young 
 ones 1 The caterpillar weighs twenty times as much as it 
 does that is impossible. But the fly is armed with a sting 
 twice as long as its whole body, and as fine as a hair. It is an 
 enemy. It is going to kill the caterpillar with that formid- 
 able weapon, and, without doubt, eat it. It raises its sting, 
 and this slender hair separates into three parts, in its whole 
 length: two are hollow, and are the halves of a sheath for the 
 third, which is a sharp, toothed wimble. It darts it into the 
 body of the caterpillar, which appears to perceive or know 
 nothing of the matter. It soon withdraws its sword, returns 
 it to the scabbard, flies off, and disappears. The caterpillar 
 did not stop; nor does it stop. It is going to find its cloth 
 laid, and an excellent breakfast ready. In a few days, it will 
 descend into the earth to go through its metamorphosis ; but 
 if I do not shut it up, in order to ascertain what sort of a 
 butterfly it becomes, my expectations would be disappointed. 
 The fly which stung it, and which naturalists call the ichneu- 
 mon, has only laid an egg in its body. That swcrd, the 
 
 * It is transformed into one of those white butterflies that are so common in this 
 country as well as in France. ED. 
 
 t The ichneumon that generally attacks the cabbage caterpillar, is Microgaster 
 flameratu*. The author, however, describes an entirely different inject, fimjiln 
 imtnifeatata. Ei>.
 
 52 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 third part of a hair, is hollow, and has deposited an egg in 
 an interior part of the caterpillar, where this operation does 
 it no harm. From this egg issues a worm, which consumes 
 the caterpillar very slowly. The latter feels ill at ease, loses 
 its appetite, and makes its cocoon; but, in its cocoon, its 
 troublesome guest never ceases to devour it, till, in its turn, 
 it is metamorphosed, and becomes a fly similar to that which 
 we saw lay the egg. It pierces the cocoon of the caterpillar, 
 and flies away in search of a male, and after that of a cater- 
 pillar, in which it may deposit its eggs. The males are 
 without the long, sting-looking wimble. 
 
 Among the parasites whom you meet with yonder, as you 
 might have done here, my friend, do you think you shall 
 find any so extraordinary in their manner of living upon the 
 world? 
 
 Each species of ichneumon, of those which lay in cater- 
 pillars, has its favourite caterpillar. There are some so small 
 that they lay in an egg of a butterfly, into which they 
 insinuate their wimble. The worm is born in the egg, and 
 there finds plenty of nourishment until, changed into a fly, 
 it breaks the shell of it to take flight. 
 
 There are in our gardens, and among those who pretend to 
 love them, good sorts of folks, who are a little like you, my 
 friend. Their estimation of a flower rises in proportion with 
 its rarity, and the distance from which it has been brought. 
 I have often met with these curiosity -seekers and amateurs, 
 people who find in possession no other pleasure but that des- 
 picable one of knowing that others do not possess people 
 who have flowers, not for the sake of looking at them, but 
 showing them. Their most cherished flowers those which 
 were shown me with the most ostentation those which 
 served as a pretext for the most disdainful tone towards me 
 were scarce plants, it is true, but of so little brilliancy in 
 themselves, and so completely effaced by other more common 
 plants, that I consider myself, a man good, excellent, and 
 full of mildness and benignity not to have yielded, except 
 in one single instance, to the temptation of saying to their 
 ostentatious owner 
 
 "Is that plant very scarce, sir?" 
 
 " Oh yes, extremely scarce, sir."
 
 RARITY NO BEAUTY FOLDS IN BUDS. 53 
 
 " Well, I am very glad to hear that, however." 
 " Why so, sir?" 
 
 " Do you fancy that you alone possess it, sir!" 
 " Yes, sir, I am satisfied of that ; nobody has one but 
 myself." 
 
 " I am enchanted to hear you say so." 
 " You are polite; but why do you say so, sir?" 
 " Because, sir, it affords me the assurance that I shall not 
 meet with it often." 
 
 Here is a beautiful, rich, and majestic plant: it is the 
 poppy; how finely cut are its sea-green leaves, how straight 
 and flexible is its stalk ; the buds of its flowers incline lan- 
 guishingly towards the earth, but a day or two before they 
 burst, they will raise themselves gradually, and present their 
 beautiful, rich cup to the heavens; we may then say of them, 
 with much more truth than of man, that the sign of its 
 nobility is that it naturally looks towards heaven, which is not 
 true as regards man. The dignity attributed to man by Ovid 
 
 " Os homini sublime dedit, ccelumque tueri 
 Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus ; " 
 
 is in error, he would give up the sublime position instantly. 
 There is a bud which has risen; tear open its green en- 
 velope, and see how its splendid petals are enclosed in it, 
 ragged and without order; you might say it was the carpet- 
 bag of a careless student, setting out for the vacation. How 
 can nature treat such fine, such rich stuff with so little care? 
 Is there not a little affected disdain for the purple in this? I 
 only know the flower of the pomegranate, which is also red, 
 whose petals are as ragged-looking in their envelope as the 
 petals of the poppy. But, make yourself easy; scarcely is 
 the flower blown, when a mild, genial air smooths the petals 
 of both the pomegranate and the poppy, and renders them as 
 even as those of other flowers. 
 
 Different flowers have different manners of arranging them- 
 selves in their buds, in which they are compelled to occupy 
 so small a space.* The petals of roses cover each other by a 
 portion of their sides; the bind weed t is rolled and folded like 
 
 * The folding of floral leaves is technically termed their aestivation ; that of foli:ge- 
 leaves their vernation, sinuu the former is most commonly seen iu summer, the 
 latter in spring. t Convolvulus.
 
 5i A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 fclter-papers. It is the same with leaves in the bud ; those 
 of the lilac are folded long-wise, half upon half; those of 
 the aconite are doubled in their width, from bottom to top, 
 several times over themselves; those of the gooseberry are 
 folded like a fan; those of the apricot are rolled over each 
 other. 
 
 It is a curious sight to see plants issuing from the earth at 
 the commencement of the Spring; many long-lived plants 
 seem to yield to winter and death, they give up their summer 
 leaves to them, and bury themselves deeply in the earth. 
 
 But a soft rain and a mild air warns them that the beau- 
 tiful festival of Spring is about to commence, and every plant 
 must prepare itself to go upon the stage and play its part. 
 Some are quite dead; but, before they died, they confided 
 their seeds to the earth little prolific eggs which the first 
 rays of the SUIT of March hatch and which are eager to 
 burst forth; others have various processes for piercing the 
 earth, hardened over them by cold, drought, and wind; such 
 as have firm and sharp leaves, like those of the hyacinth, the 
 gladiolus, and the narcissus, unite them into close points, and 
 make themselves a passage easily; the narcissus and the 
 gladiolus place two of them one over the other, and come 
 out in a flattened blade ; the hyacinths enclose their flower, 
 already formed, in three sharp leaves, hollowed in grooves, 
 whose union only forms a single point; others, like the 
 peony, envelope their first buds in a sheath, which falls as 
 soon as they get above ground. 
 
 But ^vhat will the anemones do, whose large leaves are 
 deeply cut, and without consistency? They make the tail 
 of each leaf ascend, bent in two in the middle; it is a rounded 
 elbow, which undertakes to break through the earth, and comes 
 out iike the half of a ring; then, whilst one of the sides is 
 retained by the root, the other, to which the folded leaf holds, 
 is drawn up without being rubbed the least in the world; 
 once out, it develops itself, and expands. 
 
 But let us return to our poppy. There are red ones of 
 all shades, white, some streaked white and red, and violet 
 coloured; there are no yellow ones, nor blue ones, nor green 
 ones; I don't even know any that are streaked with white 
 and violet. Notwithstanding the numerous varieties of flowers
 
 TRAVELLING WITHOUT MOVING. 55 
 
 which, are believed to be discovered every day, each has its 
 fixed and impassable limits ; during the last twenty years, 
 forty leagues, perhaps, have been sown with the seeds of 
 dahlias, without one blue one ever being produced, although 
 violet ones are common enough. I will not venture to say what 
 has been done to procure a blue rose. The rose has the . 
 advantage of the poppy, there being many beautiful yellow 
 roses. 
 
 One poppy stem produces more than thirty thousand 
 speds ; they are always contained in the red, the white, and 
 the violet. Many gardeners talk of green roses, produced by 
 grafting the rose upon the holly ; and of black roses made 
 by grafting upon the black currant : these are nothing but 
 absurd tales ; there are no black flowers, and very few green 
 ones, particularly of a bright green : I know scarcely any of 
 them that are really pretty, except the spurge-laurel,* which 
 grows in the woods, and bears charming green sweet-scented 
 flowers, the centre of which is occupied by stamens of a fine 
 orange-yellow; it blossoms in the month of February; the 
 berries of it, when ripe, are a deep purplish-black. 
 
 Now, here is a delightful journey I am taking, my friend, 
 without changing my place. When you are in a boat, it 
 seems that the boat is motionless, and that the two banks 
 fly on each side of you, unrolling, as it were, a panorama of 
 their shores, their poplars, their willows, and the various 
 flowers and the houses which border them ; this is a thing 
 that has been remarked a hundred times ; but people are so 
 determined to see only that which they have read, that 
 I have never seen it set down anywhere that if the banks of 
 the river appear to pass in a contrary direction to that of the 
 boat, this illusion only extends to a certain distance, and that 
 if there are, nearer to the horizon, other trees and other 
 buildings, the latter seem, on the contrary, to take the direc- 
 tion of the boat, and that these two lines of trees and houses 
 cross with a simultaneous passage in opposite diiections. 
 
 It appears to me that I am the sport of an illusion similar 
 to that which we experience in a boat, when I see the flowers 
 appear, each in its turn, around me ; I almost fancy I am 
 travelling ; it would appear, in fact, that I changed my place 
 as often as I see the decorations, the actors, and the scene 
 
 * Daphne Laureola.
 
 56 
 
 A TOUR ROUKD MY GARDEN. 
 
 change, however small or confined it may please me to choose 
 it to be. There is not an actor that appears before his turn ; 
 they seeni every one to issue from the earth, or their en- 
 velope, at a signal, or as an answer given to the signal, Sit 
 down and travel. 
 
 The sharp wind of the winter has swept away the leaves ; 
 the despoiled trunks and branches of the trees present various 
 colours : the wood of the cornel- tree* is of a brilliant red ; that 
 of the golden ash is yellow; the branches of the Spanish 
 broom, are of emerald-green ; the trunk of the birch is white ; 
 the branches which have shot from .the linden-tree during 
 the summer are of violet-red ; there is a raspberry, which 
 the gardeners call blue-wood, and which is of a splendid 
 violet ; some maples have their branches green ; the American 
 walnut is black. But the mosses vegetate and flourish, and 
 at the foot of a tree, the Christmas rose, the black hellebore, f 
 opens its flower?, like simple roses, white or pale rose colour ; 
 the sweet-smelling coltsfoot, the winter heliotrope,! displays 
 from the bosom of its large round foliage its grey and rose- 
 coloured tufts which shed around a sweet vanilla odour. 
 
 But December is gone ; these two actors disappear at the 
 first signal given by the frost ; here is January, covering the 
 earth with snow ; the frost splits the trees ; iu is a new scene : 
 the redbreast comes nearer to our dwelling ; the calycanthus 
 of Japan openc, upon such of its naked branches as are seen 
 through the snow, little pale flowers, yellow and violet, which 
 exhale a sweet perfume, recalling at once the odour of the 
 jasmine and that of the hyacinth. This is a long monologue ; 
 it is the only flower that blows in the open air during severe 
 cold : the flowers soon wither and fall its grey branches 
 remain naked the leaves will not show themselves before 
 spring. 
 
 What is going to appear with the month of February 1 
 The nut-trees suspend their long yellow catkins, and expand 
 their little carmine tips; the daphne-laurel, of which I spoke 
 to you but now, is soon followed by another daphne, || which 
 is called in France, bois gentil, and which bears flowers 
 like its own, but which are lilac, rose-coloured, or white ; the 
 hepatica opens its little double, rose-coloured, or deep blue 
 roses ; this is a sort of first act, an exposition in which the 
 
 * Cornus sanguinta. t Helleborus niger. I Petasites frayrans. 
 Calycanthui jloiidu.s. || Daphne Mezereon.
 
 SUCCESSION OJ 1 FLOWERS. 57 
 
 personages present themselves almost one by one, or at most, 
 two by two. 
 
 But in March, the fruit-trees begin to display their rich 
 clothing ; the almond is covered with flowers of a rosy-white, 
 the apricot with white blossoms, the peach with rose-coloured : 
 near the water, the crowfoot opens its golden tufts; primroses 
 blossom on the banks, and yellow gillyflowers * on the walls ; 
 crocuses spring up in the grass, among the white stars of the 
 early daisy, like little lilies, with their yellow corollas, violet, 
 or striped with violet and white; some few violets peep forth 
 from under the dead leaves which fell from the trees in the 
 autumn: then all this disappears as if by the waving of a 
 wand. 
 
 The bluebell t opens its violet blue spikes of blossoms, and 
 all the flowers that have preceded it recognise the signal and 
 disappear; their part is played they -will come on again 
 next year for a fresh representation. 
 
 Look at them well, admire their various forms, their fresh 
 or brilliant colours, inhale their various perfumes, you will, 
 perhaps, never see them again; if fortunate, you have, at 
 most, twenty or thirty similar lepresentations to behold. 
 
 But you see them depart without regret they are re- 
 placed by so many others. In fact, flowers will soon be so 
 numerous it will be impossible to count them; everything 
 blossoms, or seems to blossom trees, herbs, butterflies ; but 
 each has its day, each has its hour none come before, none 
 exceed the prescribed moment. 
 
 Spring and summer pass away the crowd gets thinner : the 
 queen Marguerites, the true flower of autumn, are replaced by 
 the dahlias, the dahlias by the asters, and the asters themselves 
 fade away at the appearance of the Indian chrysanthemums. 
 There is a variety of chrysanthemums with small yellow 
 flowers, which appears the last of all, and closes the gay 
 procession. 
 
 And with every leaf, with every flower, are born and die 
 the insects which inhabit them, and feed upon them, and 
 likewise those which eat these insects themselves : the flowers 
 sow their seeds, which are their eggs ; the insects lay their 
 eggs, which are their seeds; after which the hellebores and 
 the coltsfoot re-bloom, and hatch the insects which belong to 
 
 * Cheiranthus Cheiri. t Scilla nutans. 
 
 I
 
 58 
 
 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN 
 
 these plants. A flower which is born and dies, is a world 
 with its inhabitants. 
 
 But if you are not willing to wait all the year, or if your 
 memory serves you badly, remain there only one day, and 
 see how everything passes before you; see how everything 
 travels to show you new objects. 
 
 My letter is long. To-morrow I will only make the 
 journey of the day, as I have just made that of the year. 
 
 Chrysopa reticulata, with eggs. See pp. 32, 33.
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 AWAKENING OF CREATION- THE LUPIN NIGHT THK SLEEP OF ORE ATION THE 
 GLOWWORM THE DEATH's-HEAD MOTH RESPIRATION OP PLANTS. 
 
 THE sun is not yet above the horizon, but the shadows of 
 night begin to disperse ; 
 
 " Night folds her robes about her, and departs." 
 
 How many fatiguing and unwholesome pleasures we pur- 
 chase at their weight in gold, when we have it in our power 
 to enjoy the most solemn and magnificent spectacle the 
 creation of the world ! for nothing. 
 
 Night had deprived every object of form and colour; day 
 restores them all. 
 
 In the garden, the yellow and white flowers are the first to 
 receive their colouring. Such as are rose-coloured, red, and 
 blue, are still invisible, and exist not for Ihe eye; the foliage
 
 60 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 begins to show its form ; but it is black. The rose-colours 
 begin to appear, then the red, lastly the blue, all the forms 
 are distinct. Already the hemerocallis, a sort of yellow lily, 
 closed during the night, re-opens its corolla, and begins to 
 spread around a sweet jonquil odour. The dandelion, with 
 its golden flower, had spread forth its numberless rays in the 
 grass, even before the hemerocallis; whilst the Easter-daisies, 
 still shut up, keep their little silver spikes gathered together 
 in close sheaves, of which they only expose the under part, 
 which is of a beautiful rose-colour. 
 
 The birds awaken, and begin their morning song. The 
 heavens assume a rosy tint; the grey clouds become of a 
 clear lilac; the east expands into a luminous yellow; the 
 cherry-trees planted in the west receive upon their grey bark 
 a rosy tint, from the first ray which the sun launches ob- 
 liquely at them. There is the star of day ! the star of life, 
 ascending in all his glory and majesty a vast globe of fire 
 mounting from the horizon. 
 
 All the plants now awake, the acacia, with its leaves 
 folded and placed one over the other. See, they separate, 
 and exhibit their graceful forms. The blue lupin, which has 
 leaves of a dusky green, shaped like hands, had closed its 
 fingers, and let its arms fall against its stalk ; now the leaves 
 spread, and rise to their proper position. 
 
 The lupin has caused many pages to be written by the 
 learned. Virgil has somewhere said, tristis hipinus. Why 
 did Virgil call the lupin sad ? The kind of which we are 
 speaking is of a charming appearance; the flower is of an 
 agreeable shape, and a beautiful colour; other kinds afford a 
 sweet perfume. Why did Virgil say that the lupin was sad ? 
 A vast number of reasons have been assigned by the learned 
 for it; many volumes have been perpetrated, as well by 
 learned botanists as by learned commentators upon this 
 subject, and yet they have never agreed. 
 
 I remember a question which puzzled us at college, and 
 remains as undecided as that of the tristis lupinus. 
 
 " Why," asked one scholar of another " why is the salmon 
 the most hypocritical of fishes'?" His companion reflected 
 for some time, but as he was not a savant by profession, he 
 said, " I don't know." A savant never says, "/ dont know;"
 
 NIGHT. Gl 
 
 lie prefers error to ignorance. "I don't know," said the 
 scholar, looking at the other for the solving word of the 
 enigma. "No more do I," replied the other; "if I had 
 known, I should not have asked you." The only reason, 
 however, for Virgil's calling the lupin sad was, that he stood 
 in need, for the measure of his verse, of two long syllables, 
 which the word tristis sxipplied him with. This is not an 
 uncommon thing with the Latin poets, whom I love to a 
 reasonable extent, but whom I do not choose to raise to the 
 clouds, in order to give a rational colouring to any degree 
 of envy or malice that I may have towards my contem- 
 poraries. 
 
 But let us continue to watch the awakening of the plants. 
 The balsam, which had drooped its leaves towards the earth, 
 now again raises them towards the heavens. The primrose, 
 which, on the contrary, had raised its leaves, and embraced 
 its stalk with them, spreads them abroad, and allows them to 
 hang down a little. 
 
 The insects begin to buzz ; the souci-plumal opens its 
 flower, which is a violet disc surrounded by rays, white at 
 top, and pale violet underneath; the white water-lily, which 
 yesterday evening closed its flowers, blooms afresh; whilst 
 the convolvulus*which climbs in garlands, loaded with flowers, 
 rose, violet, white, and striped, closes its flowers, which have 
 been open during the night. The day-lilies, in their turn, 
 expand their blue and yellow flowers. Each plant blows at 
 the hour that has been appointed for it : the sun, which 
 forces one to expand, obliges another to close; and yet to 
 the eye, there is no difference in them. 
 
 Insects, butterflies, and flies of all kinds and colours, are 
 busy everywhere. 
 
 But the dandelion closes its petals about three o'clock in 
 the afternoon ; the souci-pluvial is not long in following 
 its example, unless the weather be rainy, for then it would 
 have closed much sooner. The daisy, which had spread its 
 little bosom out to the sun, gathers itself together, and 
 becomes pink. Gradually the leaves of the acacia are folded, 
 as are those of the other trees, whose waking we this morning 
 witnessed; the day-lily fcloses; the sun is about to set; the 
 white blossom of the water-lily gathers its petals together, 
 
 * Calystegia. t 3emeroca.llis.
 
 62 
 
 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 and shuts up closely. The birds have ceased to sing, and 
 quarrel for the snuggest places under the leaves; you may 
 see the colours you admired in the morning reappear in the 
 heavens; but they have assumed severer and deeper shades. 
 The rose-colour of the morning is red in the evening; the 
 yellow is orange, the lilac has become violet ; the globe of fire 
 descends, and disappears in a red fog, which looks like the 
 lighted ashes of a volcano. The trees in the east, in their 
 turn, receive the adieu and last look of the sun, as the trees 
 in the west received his "good morning," and his earliest 
 ray. The beetle kind fly heavily about; the horned and 
 rhinoceros beetles issue from the hollows of the oaks, the blue 
 and white stercoraires, more richly clothed than kings, rise 
 from the cow-dung. 
 It is night. 
 
 But the night has its birds, its flowers, and its insects, 
 which sleep during the day, and which awake while the others 
 sleep. 
 
 The moon is their sun. 
 
 The nightshade has opened its little purple, yellow, or 
 white horns. One variety, whose white flower is supported by 
 a long tube, has a centre of a rich violet, and exhales a sweet 
 odour. The evening primrose*expands its beautiful perfumed 
 yellow cups. The convolvulus will wait till the middle of 
 the night. 
 
 The stars glitter forth in the heavens. In the grass the 
 female glowworms-)- begin to shine with a green, phosphoric 
 
 light ; it is only the lower 
 extremity of their body, 
 and the under part, 
 which is so luminous. 
 The glowworm is, in the 
 day time, a flat insect, 
 dragging itself along 
 upon six feeble feet. 
 
 You know the history 
 of Hero and Leander : 
 they were two lovers, 
 Every night Leander 
 
 separated by a branch of the sea. 
 
 * (Enotliera biennit. 
 
 t Lampi-ris noctlluca.ED.
 
 HUMMING-BTRD MOTH. 
 
 swam across this strait, to go and pass a few minutes with 
 Hero. I don't know whether Hero was very beautiful, but 
 with the first comer and a few obstacles, a passion is easily 
 kindled. Ovid says she was "beautiful exceedingly," and I 
 will take Ovid's word. One night a tempest arose, whilst 
 Leander, guided by the torch which his lover lighted every 
 evening, was endeavouring in vain to gain the opposite shore. 
 The poet puts a very touching prayer into his mouth: he 
 implores the tempest not to drown him till his return ; the 
 tempest was deaf, and the unhappy Hero beheld the body of 
 her lover cast by the waves at her feet. 
 
 The glowworm only fires her torch, and takes so much 
 pains to show it, because it may serve as a guide to a crowd of 
 little vagabond Leanders, to whom nature has granted wings. 
 The males of the glowworms are much smaller than the 
 females, and, I should think, much more numerous, for there 
 are seldom less than three or four around one female. They 
 are not luminous. * 
 
 While, following the example of Diogenes, but from another 
 motive, the glowworm bears her lantern, a large moth t 
 passes close to me, its wings 
 making a noise almost as 
 loud as those of a * small 
 bird; in fact, it is much 
 larger than some humming- 
 birds. It passes by the 
 sleeping flowers, it is in 
 search of something ; it 
 knows that in those beau- 
 tiful garnet and topaz cups 
 of the nightshade and oeno- 
 theras, a sweet nectar is prepared for it. There it is over an 
 renothera; it hovers over without touching the flower, its 
 ivings appear motionless, so quickly does it move them. 
 Then it unrolls a trunk coiled beneath its head, which escaped 
 my sight, but which is longer than the whole insect; that 
 trunk separates in two ; each of the two is a perfect trunk, by 
 
 The author is not quite correct here. The male glowworm does give out toiru 
 Sght, but it is very faint. ED. 
 t Sphinx liguatri. E.D. 
 
 HUMMING-BIRD MOTH.
 
 64 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 means of which it sucks from the depths of the flowers the 
 honey they contain. 
 
 We must not believe that because it only flies by night, 
 this butterfly, which naturalists call a sphinx, neglects its 
 dress. Its wings are of a grey, shaded with various browns 
 and blacks; its body is painted with white, rose-coloured, 
 and black rings, separated along its whole length by a grey 
 stripe. 
 
 Here comes another, still more richly clothed; its body 
 and its wings are of two colours rose, and olive-green. 
 
 But what plaintive cry do I hear upon that jasmine? Is 
 it that great sphinx * which has lighted there, and takes it 
 
 DEATH'S-HEAD MOTH. 
 
 into his head to moan thus? If the cry it utters is lament- 
 able, its aspect is not a bit more exhilarating. Its upper 
 wings are shaded with dark colours, the inferior are of pale 
 tarnished orange, with black bands. Its body is striped with 
 black rings, and with that same dull orange; but it is on its 
 corselet that nature has indulged in a singular fancy ; orange 
 and black spots form, in a perfectly distinct manner, the 
 figure of a death's head. 
 
 * Acherontia atropoi. ED.
 
 DEATH'S-HEAD MOTH. 65 
 
 In 1730 there appeared in Brittany a great number of 
 these moths; their cry and their singular appearance spread 
 terror in every mind, Cure's spoke of them in the pulpit, 
 and pronounced their appearance an evident sign of the anger 
 of heaven. Imaginations were affected in the highest degree ; 
 many persons made public confession; one cure wrote a 
 homily upon this subject, which was inserted in " Le Mercure 
 de France." The most in credulous 'said that this prodigy 
 announced a pestilence. M. de Pontchartrain, then Secretary 
 of the Marine, demanded of the Academy if any of these 
 alarms were well founded. The Academy, having answered 
 negatively, was strongly blamed by the Church; the fathers 
 of Trevoux proclaimed in their journal, that it was very 
 wrong to disabuse the people concerning a salutary terror. 
 ' The public," said they, " has always reason to be alarmed, 
 because it is always guilty, and everything which can re- 
 mind it of the anger of an avenging God, is always to be 
 respected." 
 
 The kind of cry which emanates from this sphinx, so 
 justly named Atropos, is produced by the rubbing of its 
 trunk against the partitions which inclose it. It has been 
 a large yellow and green caterpillar. 
 
 The convolvulus does not expand its flowers till the night 
 is pretty far advanced. There is a little ugly enough cater- 
 pillar, which lives upon the convolvulus, and which becomes 
 a very pretty and singular moth;* the caterpillar is of a 
 whitish green, rather velvety. The moth is of a dazzling 
 whiteness : its wings appear as if made of ten little feathers 
 of extreme fineness. Each of the upper wings is divided into 
 two; each of the inferior wings is divided into three cut 
 parts in such a manner, that it is only with the aid of a 
 microscope we can discover they are not real feathers, much 
 more white than those of the swan, much more delicately 
 fringed than those of the ostrich. 
 
 Night is the time in which trees breathe the oxygen which 
 is as necessary for their existence as it is for ours. In the 
 day time they will expire and return to the air much more 
 
 * Plerophorus ptntadactylut. ED. 
 K
 
 66 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 of it than they have taken; the action of the sun decom- 
 posing the carbonic acid gas. 
 
 These two phenomena explain the danger there is in 
 keeping vegetables during the night in a close chamber, for 
 then the vegetables absorb a part of the oxygen, and diminish 
 the quantity of respirable air. This quantity, necessary for 
 every man, is more considerable than is generally imagined. 
 A man consumes per hour at least six cubic metres of air. 
 Most of our pleasures takeil in common, as balls, soirees, 
 theatres, assemblies, begin by considerably diminishing this 
 indispensable ration. It is difficult in a rout or soiree, as they 
 are now-a-days given, for each person to have for his part 
 more than a metre and a half of respirable air. You would 
 riot easily determine to enjoy any of these pleasures if you 
 were obliged to buy them at the price of the privation 
 of two-thirds of your food. The privation of air produces 
 effects less immediate; but it is probable that it engen- 
 ders great part of the diseases peculiar to the inhabitants of 
 cities. 
 
 Besides that, vegetables shut up in a chamber absorb a 
 part of the oxygen, they exhale an equal portion, of carbonic 
 acid gas, which is a mortal poison when mixed in too strong 
 a proportion with the air we breathe, and of which it is 
 nevertheless one of the elements. This equally explains the 
 pleasure we experience in the day time under trees, a happi- 
 ness which is not to be attributed merely to the freshness and 
 shade. 
 
 You see, my friend, that without its being necessary to 
 change our place, it is sufficient to look around us to see 
 new and surprising things pass, without ceasing, before our 
 eyes. Not one of the plants, not one of the insects, of 
 which I have spoken to you in this and the preceding 
 letters, blossoms, shows itself, shuts up, is transformed, or 
 dies, either before or after the epoch, the day, the hour as- 
 signed it. 
 
 The dandelion always open its rays of gold before the daisy 
 displays its rays of silver; the cenothera never develops its 
 corolla before the water-lily has folded up its petals. The 
 blackbird whistles in the morning; the nightingale sings
 
 THE FROG. 
 
 67 
 
 through the night; the grasshopper, in the grass, chirps 
 hoarsely during the burning heat of the sun, a kind of 
 croaking like that of frogs in a marsh, when the sun is 
 sinking. Every moment has its interest, its spectacle, its 
 riches, its splendour !
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 WHAT IS HAPPINESS? RECOLLECTIONS AND REGRETS UNIVERSALITY OP DEATH 
 WHO ARE MAD, AND WHO SANE. 
 
 WHEN I endeavour to remember all the happinesses of my 
 life, I find there is scarcely one I had anticipated that I 
 secured in the end. 
 
 Happinesses are like game : when -we aim at them too far 
 off, we miss them. 
 
 Most of those which recur to my memory have come 
 unexpectedly. For many people, happiness is a gross, 
 imaginary and compact thing, which they wish to find all in 
 a piece ; it is a diamond as large as a house, which they pass 
 their lives in seeking and pursuing at all hazards. 
 
 They are like a horticulturist of my acquaintance, who 
 dreama of nothing but meeting with a blue rose, a rose which 
 1 have sought after a little myself, and which it is more 
 unreasonable to hope for than the diamond of which I spoke
 
 WHAT IS HAPPINESS? 69 
 
 to you just now. Since this fancy seized the poor man's 
 brains, other flowers have had neither splendour nor perfume 
 for him. 
 
 Happiness is not a blue rose, it is the grass of the mea- 
 dows, the bindweed of the fields, the wild rose of the hedges, 
 a word, a song, a no matter what. 
 
 It is not a diamond as large as the house : it is a mosaic of 
 little stones, each one of which often has no separate value 
 of itself. 
 
 This large diamond, this blue rose, this great happiness, 
 this monolith, is a dream. Every happiness I can recal, I 
 neither pursued long, nor sought for ; they have shot up and 
 blossomed under my feet like the daisies on my grassplot. 
 
 I have ever found my greatest happiness in a garden over 
 which I could have jumped in a chamber in which I could 
 not take three paces. That chambetf, I remember it' still ; I 
 have but to shut my eyes to see it ; it appears to me that I 
 see it in my heart. It was furnished with chairs covered 
 with yellow Utrecht velvet, with a table near the chimney, 
 and an old piano between the two windows. One day she 
 endeavoured to teach me to play with one finger, an air which 
 she sometimes sang, and which I passionately admired. Her 
 father was seated in the chimney-corner reading his newspaper. 
 First, she played the air for me, then she bade me try. I 
 could not get over more than the first three notes; she played 
 it more slowly but I succeeded no better. She laughed at 
 my want of skill. Then she took my hand to make me strike 
 the notes with my finger : it was the first time our hands had 
 met. I trembled: she ceased to laugh, and withdrew her 
 hand, and we remained both silent. The day was closing, and 
 mixed a profound meditation with our emotions. Our looks 
 met : it appeared to me that I became her, and that she be- 
 came me ; that our blood mingled in our veins our thoughts 
 in our souls. Two large tears fell from her eyes, and rolled 
 down her cheeks as two shining pearls of dew in the sweet 
 morning on a rose. Then her father, whom, with all the rest 
 of the world, we had forgotten, let the paper fall which he 
 could no longer see to read, and told his daughter to light 
 the lamp. " And you cannot see any more than I can," he 
 added, " for it is some time since I heard the piano."
 
 70 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 Well ! to obtain this happiness and I remember no other 
 so great in my life I had but to descend a flight of about 
 fourteen steps, and come from my own chamber into that 
 of the yellow chairs. And my chamber, so small, so poorly 
 furnished, what joys it has contained! It was there that 
 I made for her ten thousand verses, not one of which she 
 ever saw; it was there I wrote to her so many letters; it 
 was there that I re-read so many times the few letters she 
 ever wrote me, that the Alexandrian library itself could not 
 have supplied me with more reading. 
 
 And that staircase those fourteen steps which separated 
 us how many times have I descended it and ascended it to 
 meet her, to meet her father or their servant, to see her door, 
 to see the bell she had touched, the rush mat upon which she 
 had placed her feet! and all in the hope that she would 
 recognise my step, that she would hear me ascend and 
 descend, that she might say, " There he is!" 
 
 I travelled three hundred leagues on that staircase, my 
 friend, and at each step met with a happiness, or, at least, an 
 emotion. 
 
 How beautiful were the flowers of the spring of our life, 
 and how they have faded! how many things are dead within 
 us. for which we never dream of wearing mourning! so far 
 from that, we mistake our mutilations for useful retrench- 
 ments, we take pride from our losses, we call our infirmities 
 virtues; the stomach no longer digests properly, and we call 
 ourselves sober ; our blood is chilled, and we say we have left 
 off loving, when, actually, love has left us; our hair, our 
 teeth die, and yet we seldom think that we must soon die 
 altogether. We worry, we torment ourselves for a future 
 which everything tells us we shall never see. I knew a man 
 of eighty years of age, who frequently said " Well, I really 
 must set about thinking of my future!" 
 
 And yet we are not without warnings; everything speaks 
 of death. 
 
 This house we live in was built for a man long since dead, 
 by masons who are likewise dead. These trees, under whose 
 shade we indulge in our reveries, were planted by gardeners 
 who are dead. The painters who created the pictures on 
 our walls are dead. Our clothes, our shoes, are made from
 
 WHO ARE MAD, AND WHO SANE. 
 
 71 
 
 the wool and the hides of dead animals. The boat in which 
 we glide between the river's green banks why, it was a dead 
 tree that supplied the planks for it. This fire before which 
 we chat, is fed by the members of carcases of trees. Your 
 joyous festivals, your every day repasts, present to your eyes 
 and your appetites portions of dead animals. This wine, of 
 which you boast the age, reminds you that he who gathered 
 the vintage, he who made the corks, that he who bottled it, 
 and all who were then living, are dead. And in the evening, 
 when you go to the theatre to see Cinna or Mithridates repre- 
 sented, those personages you look upon, are they not the 
 shades of the dead whom you evoke that they may come 
 and gambol before you and amuse you? 
 
 When these thoughts come over me, I am seized with a 
 profound horror for all trouble, anxiety, and agitation ; I only 
 think of living quietly, without a care for the present or the 
 future, and I wonder at the extravagance of all those men 
 who, having but two hours to sleep, pass those two hours in 
 making and turning over their bed. It appears to me that 
 I then see all these people who are elbowing each other, in 
 order to attain I don't know what, to be furious madmen ; 
 and I became of the opinion of that philosopher, who pre- 
 tended to have discovered the true reason for there being, in 
 all great cities, a lunatic asylum : it is, that by shutting up 
 some poor creatures under the name of madmen, strangers 
 might believe that all who are out of that hospital are sane.
 
 LETTER XI. 
 
 DPON MY BACK. 
 
 I AM, at this moment, stretched upon a grassy bank sprinkled 
 with violets, beneath a great oak which shelters me from the 
 sun; I cannot imagine any change sufficiently agreeable to 
 induce me to quit this position. I am upon my back, more 
 than half buried in grass; my two arms, crossed behind my 
 head, elevate it a little ; the thick foliage of the oak forms 
 a green transparent tent over me; between certain branches 
 I catch blue patches of the heavens, I hear a thousand noises 
 in the air, a chaffinch twitters at the summit of the tree, bees 
 buzz around me, some soft puff: of a cooling wind just stir the 
 trees; I listen, and I look around me. Across the blue 
 heavens pass long flocks of silk, whiter than anything we are 
 acquainted with, and which float languidly in the air, sinking 
 and rising; this is what the country people call the Virgin's 
 thread; saying that they are threads escaped from the distaff
 
 LOVE AMONG FLOWERS. 73 
 
 of the Virgin Mary. I love not to have such association;? 
 destroyed, and it was by no means a pleasurable discovery to 
 me, when I one day ascertained that these threads were pro- 
 duced by a species of spider.* A grain of groundsel sur- 
 mounted by a little downy parachute, sails over me through 
 the air, to go and sow itself at a distance ; a seed of the wall- 
 flower, flat and light, is carried by the wind to the top of an 
 old wall, or into the fissures of the tower of the church, to 
 decorate them with its golden stars. There is a bee just gone 
 by, with its feet laden with the yellow dust it has collected 
 from the stamens of flowers; and the wind blows the yellow 
 dust about in all directions. 
 
 I have seen flowers which contain in their corollas both the 
 husband and wife ; I have seen others which bear them sepa- 
 rated, but upon the same plant; there are, however, trees 
 and flowers which only produce separately, males or females, 
 and these are frequently planted by chance at a great distance 
 from each other; there would be no loves, no marriages, no 
 reproduction, but the air takes upon it the charge of bearing 
 the caresses of the husband to his spouse, in the form of 
 those little yellow bags, which contain a fructifying powder. 
 Bees and other insects which fly from flower to flower, are 
 little messengers who carry perfumed kisses from the bride- 
 groom to the bride ; it is thus they repay the hospitality they 
 receive in the rich corollas and nectaries filled with delicious 
 honey, and thus the wife receives in her bosom the message 
 of her absent husband. 
 
 The facility which nature has accorded to plants to corre- 
 spond thus intimately through the track of the air, and by the 
 means of insects, bears with it consequences of which certainly 
 we ought not to complain; but which, nevertheless, in a human 
 point of view, must appear as a means of diseases. I will 
 show you in what its consequences consist. There is a white 
 pink, which, if left to the regular course of nature, would 
 only bear white pinks ; but frequently, by the intervention of 
 bees or other insects, the white pinks become red, or white 
 spotted with red. It is to such errors, if errors they can be 
 called, which produce such beautiful effects, that we owe the 
 numerous varieties of flowers with which our gardens art- 
 ornamented. 
 
 * The gossamer spiders belong to the genera Epeira and Thnmisui. 
 L
 
 74 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 This, besides, has not the same inconveniences as among 
 men ; in the first place, love among flowers is not selfish ; 
 they are happy in loving and blooming, and are perfectly 
 unacquainted with jealousy, that degrading feeling composed 
 of avarice, pride, and angry love. It is not likewise as in 
 the poor human families called rich, in which one child, who 
 happens to come first or be a favourite, is a disinheritor of the 
 others ; the riches which flowers leave to their children are 
 immense and eternal ; they consist of the earth, the sun, the 
 air, the shower and the dew; there is nothing to dread, there 
 will always be plenty for every one. 
 
 Here passes in its turn an ichneumon, similar in form to 
 that which I saw depositing its eggs in the body of a cater- 
 pillar; only this is much larger. It also will deposit its eggs 
 in the body of another insect. This insect is a worm destined 
 to become a tolerably large beetle. This beetle knows that 
 its little ones have enemies; therefore, it is in a place which 
 appears inaccessible that it takes care to conceal its eggs. 
 It deposits them under the bark of trees. Alas ! useless pre- 
 caution, fruitless cares! There is the ichneumon, prowling 
 around the oak beneath which I recline ; it alights and searches 
 the trunk of the tree; it stops. The wimble which it bears 
 at the extremity of its body divides into three parts, of which 
 two form the sheath of the third; it plunges its naked 
 weapon, finer than a hair, into the bark. The task is long 
 and wearisome, but it finishes by succeeding. It remains 
 motionless for some seconds, and slowly withdraws its saw. 
 If I pleased, I could lay hold of it with my fingers ; it is a 
 fortunate thing that no bird surprises it whilst thus engaged. 
 But the wimble is withdrawn and returned to its case. The 
 ichneumon flies away. By an unknown art, by a wonderful 
 instinct, it has been able, through the thick bark of the oak, 
 to ascertain the spot where the beetle had concealed its egg, 
 which is become a worm ; and the ichneumon, in its turn, has 
 deposited its egg in the body of this worm, which will serve 
 it for pasture. 
 
 Butterflies of all colours pass before my eyes, sporting 
 about in the air. I see the Red Admiral,* which is black, and 
 bears upon its wings bands or stripes of a fiery red. When 
 
 Vanessa atalanta. ED.
 
 JEWISH TRADITION. 75 
 
 it was a caterpillar, it was brown, marked with a line of yellow 
 spots on each side, and covered with hairs. It lived then 
 upon the nettle, and delighted in leaves which it no longer 
 cares about, but which it will take care to return to when the 
 time shall come for it to lay its eggs, in order that the little 
 caterpillars which issue from them may find at their birth a 
 home and food that will suit them. 
 
 How is it possible to paint all that I see passing before me, 
 all that moves in the air, and also all that I cannot see ? 
 Through a little space between the leaves of the oak, the sun 
 darts a white, brilliant ray, and myriads of little flying 
 creatures sport in that ray. They are so small that they are 
 no longer visible if a cloud for a moment obscures the sun 
 and extinguishes its beam. 
 
 Myriads of animals have been discovered in a drop of water, 
 by means of the microscope, because a drop of water can be 
 kept steady under the glass of the lens. If we were able, in 
 a similar manner, to isolate a drop of air, it is more than 
 probable we should perceive thousands of insects which escape 
 our sight. There are ichneumons, we have seen them, 
 which lay their egg in the egg of a butterfly. Who can 
 venture to say that the egg of the ichneumon is not pierced 
 in its turn by another insect which we do not see? 
 
 We should have been wrong, before the invention of the 
 microscope, in denying the existence of all the otherwise im- 
 perceptible insects which have been revealed by its means. 
 I would not dare to assert that there are not other tribes 
 which the microscope even cannot show us. Who knows if 
 those maladies which regularly prevail in certain seasons, or 
 which affect us irregularly at distant periods, as plagues and 
 epidemics, are not caused by insects which we respire in the 
 air? 
 
 We find it related in an old collection of Jewish traditions, 
 that Titus boasted of having conquered the God of the Jews, 
 at Jerusalem. Then a terrible voice was heard, which said: 
 " Wretched man, the smallest of my creatures shall triumph 
 over thee." A fly or gnat glided into the nostril of the 
 emperor, and penetrated to his brain. There, during seven 
 years, it fed upon the brain ; no art, no medicine could dislodge 
 it. After horrible sufferings Titus died. His head was
 
 76 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 opened to ascertain what the disease coiild be which had 
 baffled the efforts of all his physicians, and the insect was 
 found, but amazingly enlarged. 
 
 Whilst allowing my eyes to wander amidst the leaves of 
 the oak, I perceive singular fruits and very strange flowers. 
 There are little green apples marked with a rosy tinge on one 
 side, like the red-streak apple. There are upon other leaves 
 little red berries. These fruits have an insect for kernel, the 
 seed of these flowers ai'e the eggs of insects. They are 
 dwellings produced upon the leaves by the puncture of little 
 flies which lay their eggs in the interior of the leaf. This 
 puncture produces the same effects upon the leaf as the sting 
 of certain insects produces upon us; the leaf becomes in- 
 flamed, swells in a round form, and produces a ball, in which 
 the little worm which comes from the egg, and which is to 
 become a fly, grows and feeds up to the moment of its trans- 
 formation. Other flies also sometimes come to lay in the inte- 
 rior of these galls, as these excrescences are called, after they 
 are formed, although their offspring do not feed upon the leaves 
 of the oak. So far from that, they will become carnivorous 
 flies; and it is the first inhabitant, the one for whom the 
 retreat was created, which will serve them for food. After 
 having eaten it, they inherit the house, are then transformed 
 into real flies, as the proprietor would have been, pierce the 
 gall, and go to seek females who, like themselves, have been 
 laid in other galls, have eaten the inhabitants of them, and 
 seek a male in the plains of air. 
 
 Almost all plants give birth to different galls, in which 
 various insects grow, and are transformed, eat or are eaten. 
 Upon the leaves of the viburnum arise galls, from which 
 issues a little beetle of a cinnamon colour. The red-tinted 
 galls of the leaves of the willow contain a sort of caterpillar, 
 which escapes from them at a certain moment, because it is 
 not in the gall that it is to be transformed ; it will bury itself 
 in the earth, until it issues from its shell in the form of a 
 four-winged fly. The wild rose has sometimes a gall covered 
 with a sort of reddish-green hair, of a very singular ap- 
 pearance. If we keep some of these galls shut up, we shall 
 see flies of three or four different species issue from them. 
 We must not, however, believe that they have rights, if equal,
 
 WHAT AKE STARS? 77 
 
 at least not similar ones to the proprietorship of this domicile. 
 Some occupy the gall by right of birth; it was their mother 
 who formed it by a puncture, and who deposited the egg in 
 it, from which proceeds the worm which they have been 
 before they were flies. These are little big-bellied, hump- 
 backed flies ; the male is quite black, the female has a black 
 corslet, and a chestnut-coloured abdomen. These are the 
 legitimate possessors ; the others to a quasi birthright, add the 
 right of conquest. This is the manner in which the thing 
 falls out : two roundish eggs are deposited in the hairy gall of 
 the rose-tree ; a black and chestnut fly, the cynips of the rose, 
 has in the first place laid its egg, and by its puncture causes 
 the gall to grow ; an ichneumon has laid the second ; these 
 two eggs remain for some time together, are hatched, and 
 become two worms. The first eats the interior of the gall, 
 which grows and enlarges in proportion; the second sucks 
 the first, which is renewed as fast as the other eats it, like 
 Prometheus under the vulture, which consumed \is liver, 
 " immortale jecur." In fact, a carnivorous worm would soon 
 die with hunger if he took it into his head to devour the 
 worm which is shut up with him at once. A man would not 
 live long if he had only one sheep to eat. 
 
 J 
 
 But there is the sun declining ; day departs. Absorbed in a 
 sweet reverie, which is increased by the sound of the church 
 clock, announcing the evening hour, I had forgotten to look 
 at objects, or looked vacantly. The first stars appear through 
 the foliage ; what are these stars 1 The most learned astro- 
 nomers tell us at what distance the planets are from our earth ; 
 they know which move, and what route they pursue; but 
 that is the boundary of their science. Suppose we should be 
 told, England is situated under such a degree of latitude, it is 
 an island, we believe we can distinguish the mountains of it. 
 We should not believe we were very well acquainted with 
 England ; but that, nevertheless, is the point to which our 
 astronomical knowledge extends ; and what labours, cares, 
 inventions, watchings, calculations have been necessary in 
 order to attain that. 
 
 These globes of fire, are they worlds like ours? Oh! then, 
 my friend, what a joke is travelling! what does it signify to 
 journey more or less miles in one of the globes, more nume-
 
 78 
 
 A TOUR 110UN1) MY GARDEN. 
 
 rous, perhaps, than the sands of the sea, which gravitate round 
 the sun 1 ? You will be very proud when you have made the 
 tour of our world; and there are above us more worlds than 
 you will in your voyages shake grains of sand from your feet, 
 and all these worlds are unalterable by you ; there are some 
 of these worlds so distant, that each of them forms in our 
 eyes nothing but an impalpable grain of luminous dust. 
 There are probably some so distant from us that their light 
 has not yet reached us since the creation of our world, 
 although light travels four millions of leagues in a minute. 
 
 Now, these are what I call voyages and distances; what 
 signify the two or three thousand leagues you will have 
 travelled when you return? Truly, the advantage is not 
 equal to the trouble and danger. 
 
 These worlds, are they destined to receive the souls of 
 those who die? is death the commencement of immortality? 
 at that awful moment do the wings of our soul develop 
 themselves like the wings of the butterfly which issues from 
 the winding-sheet it has spun for itself when a caterpillar? 
 
 The wind brings me, in soft breathings, delicious odours 
 and distant sounds. From afar I can catch the notes of a 
 horn, almost lost in the rustling of the trees; the air becomes 
 fresh, I will go to my nest. 
 
 Have you, in the course of your day's journey, seen as 
 many singular things as I have perceived, without changing 
 my place, reclining on my back on the grass? 
 
 To-morrow I shall stretch myself on my face.
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 THE learned, who have invented so many words, ought to 
 have imagined some that might give us an exact idea of 
 colours and their shades. I confess that this embarrasses me 
 more than anything else in the account of my journey. 
 There are but very few words to designate colours, and even 
 they are taken at hazard from ideas that are very far removed 
 from each other. This annoys me the more, because colours 
 have for me harmonies as ravishing as those of music, because 
 they awaken in my mind thoughts perfectly strict and indi- 
 vidual, and their influence acts powerfully on my imagination. 
 
 I was once put in prison ; well, the walls themselves were 
 not half so disagreeable to me as a certain chocolate colour 
 with which they were clothed ; I recognised, to a certain 
 point, the right which society has to put a man in prison, 
 but I could not admit the right of surrounding him with this 
 horrible colour. 
 
 One of the things most, disagreeable to me in travelling, 
 is the manner in which the chambers of inns are decorated: 
 yellow curtains and red fringe, chairs with red covers and 
 yellow fringe ; these colours so generally and so barbarously
 
 80 A TOUE EOUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 brought together by upholsterers, produce, with me, the most 
 disagreeable impressions. 
 
 It often happens, even in houses in which I am not very 
 much at home, that I rise in the midst of a conversation to 
 go and separate two inimical colours, which some unlucky 
 chance has brought into conjunction upon one piece of furni- 
 ture. There are, for me, between colours and their shades, 
 discords as strong as those that can possibly exist between 
 certain notes of music. 
 
 There are no false colours except in the nomenclature of our 
 marchandes des modes; but there are assemblages of colours 
 as false as the notes of any one who had never had a bow in 
 his hand, but took up a violin and scraped away at random. 
 I remember two persons who were always disagreeable to me 
 on account of the colours they persisted in weaving : the first 
 was a certain large woman, who always appeared in green 
 dresses and yellow bonnets; the other, a man who decked 
 himself out in staring red waistcoats and bright blue cravats. 
 I endeavoured to. contend against the prejudices inspired by 
 such disfigurements ; I have reason to repent of them : I 
 have since had much to complain of in my relations with 
 these two persons. 
 
 There are at least as many people with a false sight as with 
 a false ear, without speaking of painters, some of whom see 
 yellow, and others blue or grey, as if they looked at objects 
 through spectacles of these colours. 
 
 It is remarkable that country people seem to acknowledge 
 no colour but red, the domain of which, for them, embraces 
 rose-colour and orange, and all the shades comprised within 
 these two colours : yellow, but only certain shades ; when it 
 is pale, they call it white; when deeper, it is red; blue, 
 which begins at amaranth and embraces all the shades of 
 violet, except pure blue, which they sometimes confound with 
 green. They know green pretty well; white is applied to all 
 pale shades, black to all deep shades. 
 
 Being one day on the sea-shore, I w-ilked over a track 
 completely covered with little withered flowers, and so close 
 together, that I thought, if viewed from a distance at the 
 time of their blowing, the entire hill must have appeared of 
 their colour. Well, not a soul in the country could tell mo
 
 COLOURS OF FLOWERS. 81 
 
 what was the colour of this flower; I was not able to procure 
 two answers sufficiently alike to. give me a definite notion of 
 them. Country people in general trouble themselves but 
 little with the poetical side of nature : idylls and eclogues are 
 falsehoods. I only remember two appreciations which I 
 heard made in the same day by two peasants: one concerned 
 a young elm which, planted among older elms, had hastened 
 to attain their height, in order to enjoy its share of the air 
 and the sun. It had a stem straighter and more tapering 
 than that of a poplar; it waved its green luxuriant head at 
 the least wind. " What a misfortune it is," said one of my 
 neighbours, " that you have not another tree like that ! " 
 "Why?" "Because they would make such a superb ladder." 1 
 As in the spring time I was looking at the blossoms of the 
 peach-trees, which began to show their rosy tips, another said 
 to me, "You see the crop begins to promise." 2 
 
 I once heard a gardener ask his master, who was one of 
 my friends, permission to sleep for the future in the stable. 
 " There is no possibility of sleeping in the chamber behind 
 the greenhouse, Sir," said he in support of his request ; 
 " there are nightingales there, which do nothing but guggle 
 and keep up a noise all night." 
 
 Whilst endeavouring to desci'ibe to you the colours of cer- 
 tain flowers or insects, I have remarked that I was likely to 
 make myself better understood by employing, to designate 
 these colours, certain names of precious stones. It is very 
 singular that most people are better acquainted with the 
 stones which inhabit the depths of the earth at a thousand 
 leagues from them, or the pearls and corals which must be 
 fetched from the bottom of the sea, than with the flies which 
 fly against our windows, or with the flowers which spring up 
 under our feet, which surround us on all sides, and are before 
 our eyes from our earliest infancy ; this is because vanity has 
 attached a singular value to precious stones, and has neglected 
 
 (1 ) We doubt the accuracy of this remark, as a ladder is invariably made of a sinp' a 
 tree, the holes for the steps being first bored through the entire substance, and tlie 
 tree then sawn longitudinally. ED. 
 
 (2) Both these instances are excelled by the old English story of the poetical 
 traveller pointing out to his friend the pretty lambs frolicking in a meadow. "Ay," 
 rejoined the other, " only think of a quarter of one of them, with asparagus and mint 
 
 sauce!" 
 
 M
 
 82 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 to notice common i-iches which nature has spread with such 
 profusion over the surface of the earth. Truly, there are 
 some precious stones which are singularly agreeable to my 
 sight, but there is not one whose colours may not be found 
 upon some flower or some insect. Is not the chrysis a living 
 jewel, composed of an emerald and a ruby 1 ? Do you know 
 a sapphire of so pure a blue as the corn-bottle* of the fields, 
 as brilliant as the sage called Salvia patens, as the Delphinium 
 vivace, which flourish in our gardens? Seek then among 
 stones for the scarlet of certain geraniums, and of the little 
 red verbena, which eclipses the geranium itself. Ai - e these 
 emeralds endued with the transparency of the leaves of the 
 oak under which I reclined yesterday, when the sun was 
 above it ? Is there a diamond which has the fire and the 
 colours of drops of dew in the sun ? Is not a garden a 
 living jewel-case, full of jewels which fly, and others that 
 blossom and spread around their perfume? But pi-ecious 
 stones are dear, all the world cannot have them, and that 
 is the reason all the world wishes for them. The matter, 
 besides, is not to see or to have precious stones, the object is 
 to show them. What I tell you is neither a paradox nor 
 a jest. What do you admire in precious stones ? Is it the 
 colour? You have but to look around you; flowers and in- 
 sects have more beautiful colours than they have. Is it 
 their hardness? The sand of your garden is veiy hard, the 
 iron balcony of your window is very hard, and yet you take 
 no pride in them : it must be then the value, it must then 
 be money ! 
 
 Besides, all precious stones are so closely imitated in glass, 
 that few persons can distinguish them. Many women exhibit 
 their real jewels only occasionally, and habitually wear false 
 diamonds mounted in the same manner, to avoid thefts and 
 accidents. Truly, these latter have as much brilliancy, and 
 render the women who wear them as attractive, otherwise, 
 you may be assured that not one of them would resign her- 
 self to such a sacrifice. What then is the use of the others, 
 the true ones, shut up in their case? They have them, 
 others know that they have them, and are acquainted with 
 their value that is all. 
 
 But let us return to colours. Many colours have taken 
 
 * Centaurea cyanus.
 
 DESIGNATIONS. 83 
 
 their denomination from certain precious stones. Well, these 
 denominations have no meaning, because the same stones 
 vary singularly in their shades, and even in their colour. 
 Ask a mineralogist. The ruby is of a brilliant red, or rather 
 softened with violet, but there are rubies which are of an 
 orange red, and rubies of a rose colour. The emerald pos- 
 sesses all the tones of green, from the palest to the darkest. 
 There are likewise white emeralds and yellow emeralds. The 
 topaz you think must be yellow, for want of a word to specify 
 a colour, and of all possible yellows, from that nearly white 
 to a deep orange ; but there are white topazes, green-tinted 
 topazes, and others almost blue. The garnet is of a kind of 
 deep crimson ; inquire again of the mineralogists, and they will 
 tell you that there are also orange garnets, green garnets, and 
 black garnets. 
 
 Now, if there were anything we ought to be perfectly 
 acquainted with, it would be the plants and the flowers upon 
 which we have trodden from our infancy. By their means, 
 then, if men would only deign to look at them sometimes, 
 we should have, for the purpose of designating colours, a 
 complete gamut, which would be wanting in no tone or the 
 fraction of a tone, and a language exact and well arranged, 
 inasmuch as the words would have a fixed meaning, invariable 
 and the same for all. Some names of colours have been 
 borrowed from flowers ; and everybody, when they pronounce 
 them, knows perfectly what they mean : capucine, lilac, violet, 
 amaranth, bouton d'or (buttercup), feuille morte (filemot), 
 rose. The names of colours borrowed from fruits are equally 
 intelligible, orange, lemon, plum, apricot, apple-green; but 
 there is a crowd of these whose denomination is absolutely 
 worth nothing, because it is drawn from objects which we 
 have seldom before our eyes, or which are conventional with- 
 out any existing type, such as Prussian blue, Royal blue, 
 French blue, &c. Naples yellow, Chrome yellow, Gold yellow. 
 In addition to these words, which convey nothing fixed or 
 clear to the mind, there are between the shades of yellow 
 and blue which they designate, more than tifty intermediate 
 shades which there are no means of expressing. It is very 
 plain that blue signifies almost nothing, since an object may 
 have, at least, fifty different manners of being blue. We
 
 84 A TOUll HOUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 have bestowed upon each colour two derai-tones, as we have 
 to each note of music; we say deep blue and clear blue, as 
 we say A sharp, or B flat. I don't know whether musicians 
 are satisfied with these divisions, but, to a certainty, colourists 
 are not. There are thirty different clear blues, and as many 
 deep blues. Besides, how can we hit upon the right note? 
 What, in colours, is the blue natural, the true blue, the 
 natural blue? It becomes clear, then, that colours can only 
 be expressed by comparisons, and the most limited capacity 
 can comprehend that these comparisons ought to be taken 
 from objects which are most familiar to us, and which vary 
 the least. Flowers present us with these two advantages, 
 and, in addition, that of containing in the same order of 
 things and ideas all colours and all possible shades. 
 
 Red strikes man more than any of the other colours; it is 
 admired by children and savages. Some of its different shades 
 have, consequently, been distinguished, and names given to 
 them; there is no other colour for which ordinary language 
 furnishes so many, crimson, scarlet, carmine, purple, carna- 
 tion, vermilion, and several others ; but even these denomi- 
 nations convey a vague idea to the mind, and it is difficult to 
 make three persons agree as to the precise meaning of them. 
 Ask the learned what was the precise shade of the purple of 
 the ancients. 
 
 There are numberless shades that have no names at all. 
 Let us take for example the least common colour among 
 flowers, blue, and let us begin our gamut. Certain hyacinths 
 will first give you a white scarcely tinged with blue; the 
 Parma violet is of an extremely pale lapis blue ; then comes 
 the blue geranium of the meadows, then the Chinese Wistaria, 
 then the blossom of the flax; then come in order of shades 
 the Forget-me-not, Borage, Bugloss, Sage, the Cornflower, 
 the Nemophylla, the Anagallis Morelli, the Plumbago Car- 
 pentse ; the long-leaved Larkspur, with single flowers, and then 
 with double ones, which is of a metallic blue ; and at last, as 
 the deepest shade of dark blue, almost black, the berries of 
 the Laurustinus. 
 
 If these designations were in use, they would give im- 
 mutable ideas of colours, by means of a language for which 
 no word has to be imagined, or a barbarism created : at a
 
 VARIETIES OF COLOURS. 
 
 85 
 
 thousand leagues, at a thousand years' distance, we could 
 speak of these colours with rigid precision, because every 
 one would have his gamut-type before his eyes. 
 
 You have already borrowed frotn flowers the word rose; 
 but you have no words to express the shades of the rose. 
 Well, you may find them at once in the different varieties of 
 roses : the hundi-ed-leaved rose, the rose of the four seasons, 
 the Bengal rose, are not of the same rose colour, and the 
 blossom of the peach-tree and that of the hyacinth have each 
 particular shades. 
 
 And white, now; how can you express the shades of white? 
 Look out of the window, a good way off; there are four trees 
 covered with white blossoms, a cherry-tree, a plum-tree, an 
 apricot, and an almond-tree : I declare to you, that far as 
 I am from them a distance at which their form is invisible 
 and at which their colours alone can be perceived I should 
 never confound thes< four trees with others whose blossoms 
 are white, although of a very different shade. Give me, in 
 the same way, an exact tint of a rose-colour or white, and 
 I will tell you to what flower it belongs; but to do so, it 
 must not be a strange thing to meet with a man who has 
 deigned to pay some attention to the magnificence with which 
 the earth is covered. 
 
 Language is at least equally poor in its attempts to express 
 scents; but there I am at a pause; I am not nearly so well 
 up in sweet smells as in colours. 
 
 Now here, my friend, is a letter which must have been 
 very ennui/ante, for readers to whom nature has not given, 
 with regard to colours, a susceptibility equal to mine
 
 LETTER XII I. 
 
 IN MY PACE. 
 
 CLIMB mountains, my dear friend, cross torrents, descend 
 precipices, be drawn by horses, asses, mules, reindeer, camels, or 
 dogs, according to the country in which you are. Here am 
 I, returned again to my oak, once more reclining on the grass, 
 but this time with my face downwards, some few inches from 
 the ground, and it appears to me not at all unlikely that I 
 shall be as fortunate as you in our common ardour in search 
 of that which is new. 
 
 After we have viewed small things closely and attentively, 
 we gradually lose the feeling of their dimensions ; this green 
 moss appears to me to be trees, and the insects which wander 
 over its velvet surface, assume in my eyes an importance 
 equal to that of the deer and stags of a park. Moss is in- 
 teresting in more than one respect ; in addition to the charm 
 of its wavy, changeable colour, it is one of Nature's important 
 agents. The Great Worker who constructed our abode, has 
 established things in it in such a manner, that everything
 
 VEGETABLE MOULD LICHENS. 8? 
 
 lives, dies, and renews itself; and it seems as if He has 
 arranged everything so completely, as to require Him to take 
 no further heed of it. The life and death of vegetables, like 
 the life and death of men, are but transitions. Death is the 
 nourisher of life. A thing does not perish that it may no 
 longer exist, but that another may exist in its turn ; and when 
 a certain circle is completed, the last production of this circle 
 dies in its turn to resuscitate the first. Look at a naked 
 rock, it is at first covered with rounded yellow patches ; these 
 p itches are already springing into vegetation. 
 
 Mould of all kinds, for which we entertain a great repug- 
 nance, presents to the eye armed with a microscope charming 
 vegetations, little forests which abound in their peculiar 
 animals. 
 
 Mushrooms, which are a species of mould, cover arid spots 
 with their whimsical forms and various colours, which in 
 some kinds are even brilliant. The orange is of a capucin 
 colour; the false orange is of the same colour, spotted with 
 white; the red agaric is carnation, the viscous agaric is 
 orange ; others present all the shades of purple and brown, or 
 are marbled with A'arious colours. 
 
 These first vegetables die, and with their remains leave 
 upon the rock or upon the barren grit a small quantity of 
 a sort of mould, very small, but just large enough to allow 
 certain lichens, which scarcely require any aid, yet cannot dc 
 quite without, to shoot up and vegetate in their turn. The 
 mould which you see upon bread, preserves, &c. bears at the 
 extremity of the filaments, little heads which burst for the 
 escape of a productive dust, by means of which they are i'e- 
 produced. Upon a pot of preserves may be found a great 
 number of species of these small vegetations, differing from 
 each other in form and fructification. 
 
 There is a particular kind of mould which attacks the seed 
 of wheat, which is simply a parasitical plant. 
 
 The lichens die in their turn, and augment with their 
 remains the layer of vegetable earth, in order that, succes- 
 sively, other species of stronger lichens may extend and in- 
 crease that layer of earth on dying. In this manner, plants, 
 to which a multitude of names have been given, succeed each 
 other, until that layer of earth acquires sufficient thickness
 
 88 A. TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 tnd condition to allow mosses to spring up and spread their 
 velvety carpet. 
 
 Ancient medicine used and abused certain lichens greatly, 
 particularly one, which was a lichen that grows upon the skulls 
 3f the dead, and which was called " usiie"e du crane humain," 
 (muscus e crania humano). 
 
 There is a book bearing date 1684, published at Paris, but 
 written by Sir Kenelm Digby, an Englishman of the time of 
 Elizabeth, entitled, " Sovereign Remedies and Secret Ex- 
 periments, by Sir Kenelm Digby, Chancellor of the Queen of 
 England. With many other secrets and curious perfumes 
 for the preservation of the beauty of Ladies." This book, 
 among other curious things, contains secret remedies which 
 were then, as they are now-a-days, heaps of secrets which 
 death teaches the doctors. The true receipt for the making 
 of the Orvietan is among them. I copy it. 
 The true composition of the Orvietan or Antidotary Compo- 
 sition, more excellent than the Theriaca. 
 
 Honey, one pound. 
 
 Syrup of lemon, four drachms. 
 
 Fine sugar, half-a-pound. 
 
 Theriacal water, 1 pound. 
 
 Roots of angelica, one ounce 
 
 Of coral, tormentil, scorsenia, rhaphane, white ditany and pyrethruin, each one 
 junce, except the tormentilla, of which there should only be half an ounce. 
 
 These roots are to be pounded and sifted : twenty-one others which follow, and of 
 which I will spare you the names, are to be pounded, but not sifted. Ten kinds of 
 seeds are then added, with one ounce of the first horn of a stag (frcm the right hand 
 branch); 1 drachm of the heart of a stag, pounded; half an ounce of pounded 
 pearls, a hare's heart dried in an oven; the heart and liver of two vipers; half an 
 ounce of white coral, and of the scrapings of a human skull, only half an ounce. 
 
 I cannot forbear quoting two diffei-ent remedies against 
 epilepsy. The first is excellent, but still not better than 
 most of those the book contains; it is announced without 
 particular recommendation : the patient is only required to 
 swallow as much of the dung of a peacock as will lie on 
 a fifteen-sous piece, and he will be cured. Now here is a 
 consideration which never presented itself to the minds of 
 financiers, who have since that time expelled from the coinage 
 and proscribed fifteen-sous pieces; and now there are no 
 fifteen-sous pieces, how is it possible to ascertain how much 
 of the peacock's dung ought to be swallowed? Happily, at 
 page 89, another still superior receipt presents itself.
 
 MOSSES AND PERNS. 89 
 
 " Remedy for epilepsy or falling sicknesa, tried by M. Digby, 
 which cured the son of a minister at Frankfort in Germany, 
 in the year 1659 : Take of polypode of oak, well dried and 
 reduced to a subtle powder of the moss grown on a human 
 skull of a person who^has suffered a violent death of the 
 parings of human nails of the hands and the feet, of each two 
 drachms ; of the root of dried peony, half an ounce ; and of 
 true oak mistletoe, half an ounce. This last must be gathered 
 in the decline of the moon," &c. 
 
 But let us return to our mosses : the moss perishes in its 
 turn, after having allowed to escape from its little urns a 
 fecundating dust, which it confides to the winds, and which 
 will reproduce it at a distance. We easily recognise the 
 males and females in the mosses, sometimes, and in certain 
 species, united on the same stalk, and separated in other 
 species; the male bears little buds, the female little urns, 
 covered with an operculum or lid, which detaches itself when 
 the seeds are ripe, to allow them to fly away without 
 obstacle. 
 
 Civilization is proscribing in the country a very charming 
 thing : the thatched roofs of cottages covered with moss, and 
 surmounted by the iris, with its sharp leaves and rich violet- 
 coloured flowers. The tiles and slates that flatter the pride 
 of the owners are far from flattering our eyes to an equal 
 degree. 
 
 To the dead mosses succeed ferns. Ferns have large feathery 
 leaves, which have altogether the appearance of the wings of 
 birds. The fructification of the ferns is very singular : under 
 the leaves, or rather on the under side of the leaves, you 
 may see, regularly ranged, several lines of brown-coloured 
 rings ; these rings are formed by the seeds, which are as if 
 glued upon the inferior epidermis of the leaf. In some 
 species, these seeds are enclosed in a membrane which opens. 
 
 The learned have taken possession of the ferns; they call 
 the seeds spores; pray, don't ask me why. The little 
 packets of seeds have received the name of spores; others call 
 them sporanges; the ring which surrounds them, and which 
 very properly has been called simply a ring, in the same 
 manner as they might have called the seeds seeds, and the 
 packets of seeds packets of seeds the ring was first called
 
 90 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 gyrus; but other savants arose, and have decked it with the 
 name of symplokium. The membrane which covers the seeds 
 was at first called cridusium, then involucrum, then tegu- 
 mentum, then perisporangium ; I don't think they ever 
 thought of calling it a membrane. 
 
 There is a species of fern called Ophioglossum, which had the 
 reputation of being a cure for the bite of serpents ; at a later 
 period it was proved to be of no avail against the bite of 
 serpents, but was excellent in promoting the growth of hair; 
 it is in reality good for nothing but to make mattrasses for 
 children, and form, by its decayed parts, earth in which larger 
 vegetables may grow. 
 
 The learned, a long time ago, classed the ophioglosse, and 
 pronounced that it was an Osmond ; but this fern has since 
 been unmasked by other men of science ; it has been turned 
 out from among the Osmonds as an intruder; it is now 
 nothing but a Botrichium. 
 
 Oh, Tund Heaven ! hast thou permitted these learned ones 
 thus to persecute the plants which are spread over the earth, 
 and to annoy and weary those who do really love them to 
 such a degree as almost to make them hateful to them? 
 
 Behold in all parts of the grass, the margeline and the 
 white duckweed, which present to the little birds, all the 
 year round, a well-furnished table; and, in order that they 
 may never want, the chickweed is endowed with a fecundity 
 that no other plant possesses : in the course of one year, the 
 chickweed has time to germinate, to shed its seed, and bear 
 others, seven or eight times. Seven or eight generations of 
 chickweed cover the earth every year : it occupies the field 
 naturally, and invades our gardens; it is almost impossible 
 to destroy it; besides, of all the herbs naturally inhabiting 
 the earth, which dispute the soil with the usurpers we in- 
 troduce, the chickweed is that which injures our cultivation 
 the least; one would say that it wished to be tolerated, it 
 scarcely has any hold on the earth, with its few fine slender 
 roots. 
 
 It is a very curious thing to observe with what promptness 
 autochtonous plants, as the historians say, that is to say, 
 aborigines of the soil, return to the charge in gardens that 
 are neglected.
 
 THE NEGLECTED GARDEN. P. 90.
 
 WEEDS AND BRAMBLES. 91 
 
 Leave your garden, make a journey, and return after a 
 year's absence. 
 
 Certain little running trefoils, dog-grass, nettles, and chick- 
 weed cover the earth in such profusion in a few weeks, that 
 they seem to wish to devour all the substance, in order that 
 there may be none left for the strangers; they starve and 
 smother the low plants; the trees which we have imposed 
 upon the soil appear to brave their efforts, but the ivy climbs 
 slowly from their feet to their summit, embraces them closely, 
 and dominates over them triumphantly with its green gar- 
 lands. From that time the tree is conquered, it must suc- 
 cumb ; there comes a season in which trees have lost their 
 leaves; it is the season in which high winds begin to prevail; 
 in general their naked branches resist, because they afford 
 little hold for the wind, but the close leaves of the ivy form 
 a sail which receives it, makes the tree bend, and frequently 
 breaks it ; lichens have helped it, they have covered the trunk 
 and the branches of the tree with a cuirass that has deprived 
 it of the mild influences of the rain and the sun ; it has lost 
 much of its strength, when the ivy, by means of the winds, 
 brings it down upon the grass. 
 
 Brambles, on their part, armed with sharp points, spring 
 up to the assault of the shrubs. Like that giant, the son of 
 Tellus, who fought with Hercules, and recovered his strength 
 every time he touched the earth, the bramble takes root at 
 every point of its long branches that comes in contact with 
 the soil ; it forms arches and inextricable nets ; it embraces 
 and strangles them. 
 
 This is not all : the revolt is propagated among the plants 
 which we believed to be our allies, or the most faithful and 
 submissive of our slaves. 
 
 The wild rose has caused the king we imposed upon him 
 to die with hunger, and insolently raises his thorny branches 
 around the withered and crownless head of the dethroned 
 monarch. 
 
 The almond-tree upon which we had grafted the peach, has 
 denied his sap to the usurper; the peach branch is dead, but 
 the almond has thrown out numerous shoots, its own children, 
 which it nourishes with the affection of a parent. 
 
 The piece of water is become a marsh filled with frogs :
 
 92 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 the grass has disjointed the marble of the basin; the walks 
 you had traced, covered with gravel, and rolled so many, 
 many times, are now hidden by a thick coat of grass; whilst 
 the grass plats, which you kept so smooth, so free from 
 foreign weeds, these grass plats are invaded by the wild tre- 
 foil, moss, and all sorts of plants and mushrooms. 
 
 Everything is changed, everything is destroyed, the exiles 
 have returned, the slaves have broken their chains, the 
 usurpers and tyrants are destroyed, your garden is more wild 
 than the most neglected field. There is a terrible reaction 
 against man : the indigenous plants are in the effervescence of 
 triumph, they give themselves up to saturnalia, to the orgies 
 of vegetation and liberty.
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 THE VIOLET AN'TS THE POWER OF LOVE MIRACLES. 
 
 MY turf is full of violets of all the known sorts. Now here 
 is another flower that has had great difficulty in triumphing 
 over the insipidities and the common places of the little 
 versifiers who have "babbled" about it upon hearsay, and 
 all one after the other. No one will accuse me of ill-will 
 towards the violet, I who have made an entire plat of it! and 
 see what care I have taken of them, see how I have shaded 
 them with trees in order that the sun's rays may be softened 
 before they reach them ! The black American walnut, the 
 yellow-wooded ash, acacias, with their rose-coloured and white 
 blossoms, the white poplar, whose leaves are lined with silver, 
 the service-tree, with its branches of coral, the ebony with 
 its golden clusters, the red chestnut-tree, with its great rosy 
 thyrses, the beech with its purple foliage, are all only there
 
 94 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 to afford a salutary shade to my violets during the heats of 
 summer. Well! I must unveil the hitherto misunderstood 
 violet ; I love it, but I know that it is the sign of invincible 
 passions ; I cannot be undeceived, since I know it, and I 
 love it as it is. 
 
 All versifiers, all romance writers, poets of the shepherd's 
 pipe or the reed, are about to rise up in insurrection against 
 me, against me who have already taught them that they can- 
 not dance at all upon fern, and with great difficulty under 
 nut-trees, two things under pretext of which there have been 
 three thousand verses made, at least ! 
 
 The violet is not modest ! 
 
 Why did you say that the violet was modest ? because it 
 conceals itself under the grass. The violet does not conceal 
 itself under the grass, it is concealed there by nature. No 
 one is modest from being born in an humble and obscure 
 situation. 
 
 Why don't you say that gold is modest ; gold which con- 
 ceals itself in the bowels of the earth, and which, even when 
 found, frequently disguises itself in some mineral which has 
 very little the air of being gold? 
 
 Why don't you say diamonds are modest ; diamonds that 
 are concealed in the earth even more secretly than gold, and 
 which must be broken and cut to bring out their splendour? 
 
 Why don't you say pearls are modest; pearls which are 
 only found in the depths of the ocean? 
 
 But the violet ! the violet is born in the gi-ass, it is true ; 
 but what stratagems does it employ to get out of it ! besides 
 the colours which it affects, and which make it easily dis- 
 tinguished, does it not exhale that delicious perfume which 
 would reveal it even to a blind man? The modest violet, 
 indeed! do you see to what it has attained? It has covered 
 the heads of the Church, the bishops and the archbishops, 
 with its livery; black is the mourning of all the world, violet 
 has become the black of kings, and the mourning of the 
 purple the modest violet! 
 
 But observe its allurements, its coquetries : hsre it is 
 white, there it is as double as a little rose, white, violet, grey, 
 and rose-coloured ! 
 
 When the world thought proper to mix it up with politics,
 
 TIIE VIOLET. 95 
 
 far from stealing away from the orations that were prepared 
 for it, it had the charlatanism to exhibit itself tri-colour ! 
 Look at this one ; its outward corolla is violet, its internal 
 petals are blue and rose-coloured; disguised thus, the gar- 
 deners call it the "violette de Bruneau." 
 
 The violet modest! it has been proscribed, persecuted, 
 exiled, all which is nothing but so many coquetries. 
 
 The violet modest ! Go to the opera, two hundred women 
 have bouquets of violets in their hands. 
 
 How well it avenges itself for being born in the shade ! 
 
 But I must reveal to you another ruse which it employs 
 to retain our admiration ; other flowers permit their perfumes 
 to be preserved in essences ; perfumers sell us in the winter 
 odour of roses, odour of jasmine, odour of heliotropes, and 
 of a dozen other flowers. The violet alone refuses to separate 
 its odour from itself, it is to be met with nowhere but in its 
 own corolla; perfumers are obliged to make, with the root 
 of the Iris of Florence, a certain false and acrid violet odour, 
 of which every returning spring compels us to acknowledge 
 the insufficiency. 
 
 " You wish to inhale the odour of violets, my sweet, fair 
 friend," says the violet to a lady very fond of its perfume, 
 " wait till I return ; inhale the scent of roses, or of jasmine, 
 there is no need of roses and jasmines to procure you that 
 pleasure, perfumers put their odours into bottles ; but for me, 
 my dear, you must wait." And this is the modest violet! 
 
 The violet is a sort of Ciucinnatus, such as modern times 
 produce, who only retire to their country and turn their 
 hands to the plough, upon condition that they shall be there 
 sought for in order to be made consuls, generals, or dictators. 
 
 The ancient poets pretend that when Jupiter had meta- 
 morphosed lo into a heifer, he gave birth to the violet, in 
 order to present her with herbage worthy of her ; it was this 
 that made me form the idea of having a plat entirely com- 
 posed of violets. 
 
 There often exhales from certain flowers something more 
 and even better than perfumes ; I mean certain circumstances 
 of life with which they were associated, and with which they 
 inseparably dwell in the mind, or rather in the heart, as the 
 hamadryads were not able to quit their oaks ! And may
 
 6 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 there not exist some such cause for my extreme partiality for 
 the violet? Perhaps but no; there are some memories 
 too holy for friendship even we are travelling round a gar- 
 den not laying bare scarcely cicatrised wounds. 
 
 Upon a stalk of groundsel there is a caterpillar formed of 
 black and yellow rings, dining with an apparently good appe- 
 tite ; I will catch it : on putting my finger to it, it falls to the 
 ground rolled up into a ball, and lies quite motionless. It 
 will not be long before it spins a thin cocoon, from which it 
 will not come out in less than a year, in the form of a little 
 moth, as richly clothed as it was in its first shape, but it will 
 be of a very different colour. Its head, its corselet, and its 
 body will be of a beautiful black ; its upper wings will be of 
 a grey black, upon which will be marked a line of a bright 
 carmine, with a spot of the same colour underneath, forming 
 on each wing a kind of point of admiration. The inferior 
 wings, and the under part of the butterfly, will be of this 
 same carmine. It carries its wings in the form of a roof. 1 
 
 Ants are marching through the grass as we would march 
 through a thick forest; there are for them, between these 
 closely growing blades, routes, roads, and foot-paths. 
 
 Many tales have been told about ants, many fables imagined 
 and invented; falsehoods have been heaped upon falsehoods, 
 and yet in the accounts of the false wonders related, the nar- 
 rators have stopped far short of the real marvels. 
 
 Ants have no granaries in which, during summer, they 
 store provisions for the coming winter. 
 
 La Fontaine said so: but La Fontaine was mistaken. 
 La Fontaine had as much wit and bonhommie as any man ; but 
 he was not perfectly acquainted with all the actors he brought 
 upon the stage. A crow could not carry a cheese, nor would 
 a fox covet it, if it could. La Fontaine, in this respect, re- 
 sembles translators, who, although well acquainted with Latin, 
 translate excellent Latin into very bad English. They may 
 be fairly reminded, that, in order to translate, it is not suffi- 
 cient to take something away from one language, they must 
 know how to convey it skilfully into another. La Fontaine 
 was well acquainted with men, but had but little knowledge 
 
 (1) Callimorpha Jacobiea. It is one of the very few Lepidoptera whose wings 
 are alike on both sides. ED.
 
 ANTS. 07 
 
 of the animals under whose forms he wished to represent 
 them. 
 
 Let us watch that ant. Do you remember we have already 
 met with the ant under the leaves of a white rose-tree, when 
 it was tickling the aphides, in order to make them yield a 
 saccharine liquid of which ants are very fond ? Here they 
 are in great numbers ; we must be near the ant-hill. 
 
 Three sorts of ants dwell in this little subterraneous city ; 
 the females, the males, and the people ; the people have no 
 sex, and do the work of the community, the males and 
 females do no labour. 
 
 Their subterraneous abode is constructed with much art ; 
 little galleries terminate, at intervals, in more extensive places, 
 supported by pillars ; all this is done with earth and a sort 
 of slime, by means of which the working ants make a mortar. 
 
 This is the busy period of their lives. Both males and 
 females have wings, for they must leave the earth, as it is in 
 the air their nuptials are accomplished. They soon descend 
 from the clouds, as many other lovers do; the males soon die : 
 but the females have many cares ; in the first place, as they 
 stand in no more need of their wings, they tear th^rn off 
 themselves, if they do not happen to prefer having it done' 
 by the workers, who would not fail to deprive them of them 
 quickly. In fact, the time for frivolous adornments and 
 pleasures is over ; they have entered upon the serious busi- 
 ness of life ; they must remain upon the ground. The females 
 then wander about through their grotto, and let fall, at 
 hazard, their little eggs,* of which nightingales are so fond, 
 the woi'kers pick them up and gather them together in heaps 
 in the places which separate the galleries. The larvse are 
 soon hatched, and are not long before they spin themselves 
 little cocoons : when the moment comes for their issuing from 
 their confinement, the workers tear the cocoons, and thus 
 facilitate the operation ; then they carefully extend and smooth 
 the wings of the males and females. From these eggs are 
 born, in fact, not only ants of both sexes, but the workers 
 also, who have no wings : during several days food is brought 
 to the newly born, and then they are allowed to go out. 
 
 * M. Karr is in error here. The " eggs " which the nightingales eat are really 
 the cocoons in which the pupa attains its perfect state. Eu. 
 
 O
 
 98 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 There are several species of ants which seldom quit their 
 dwelling, but these are like pastoral nations, they dig their 
 ant-hill beneath the roots of certain herbs or grasses much 
 relished by aphides, when they transport thither those little 
 green cows, which find in the roots, laid bare by the ants, 
 a nourishment which they transmit to what may be called 
 the cow-keepers, in the form of a saccharine liquor. 
 
 Whither are those ants going in such close battalion? I will 
 not say with Virgil : nigrum it campis agmen, a black bat- 
 talion marches across the fields. These are of a different 
 species, they are of a red or russet colour, and are on their 
 way to attack a hill of black ants. 
 
 We may fancy we see the Cimbri and the Teutons with 
 their fair hair, invading the countries of the south. 
 
 They have discovered the fort of their enemy, and descend 
 to the assault, spreading death and terror. Becoming im- 
 mediately acquainted with the place, they bear away the eggs 
 and the larvae of the black ants in triumph to their own re- 
 treats. There they will see them born, and bring them up 
 in obedience and in ignorance of their true family. These 
 black ants become the Helots, the slaves, of the red ants, who 
 make them work with them for their own profit. 
 
 If, my friend, you have got rid of the habit of measuring 
 the importance of things by the size of those who perform 
 them, you will readily confess that there is no difference be- 
 tween these insects which live under the grass and men who 
 walk upon it. If the size be of such vast importance, horses, 
 oxen, camels and elephants are much above man. Can you. 
 find me, in the annals of the military glory of man, a battle 
 which can be otherwise described than that of these ants 
 before our eyes? And when we think that the Sovereign 
 Creator and Master of men and ants beholds them from on 
 high, can we convince ourselves that the one can have 
 really so much more importance in His eyes than the others? 
 How many men there are who would smile at seeing us look- 
 ing at ants, and who think that God has his eyes constantly 
 upon them, and passes his eternity in observing what they 
 think of him! 
 
 Have we not, as these ants have, wings which we unfold at 
 the period at which love raises us to the heavens; these
 
 REALITY MORE WONDERFUL THAN FICTION. 99 
 
 wings, are they not, sooner or later, torn from us by the 
 necessities of the human condition, by other people who, 
 strangers to the ravishing poetries of love, bring us back to 
 the flat realities of their existence, and chain us down to the 
 earth among them, to employ ourselves there with vile cal- 
 culations and shameful lucre? 
 
 Seriously, are you not surprised at the wonders which sur- 
 round man, and which he does not take the pains to look at? 
 Are you not ashamed of the distance you may have travelled, 
 of all the fatigues you have undergone, of all the dangers 
 you have encountered, when you compare the accounts you 
 are able to give with those which I describe without leaving 
 my home? It is in vain that you reckon, in order to re- 
 establish the equilibrium, upon the embellishments which 
 every traveller adds to his canvass; I tell you nothing but 
 truths ; but truths that you could not have invented. False- 
 hood is always obliged to submit to the perplexing care of 
 resembling truth; truth holds on its march unimpeded by 
 this mean, embarrassing consideration. 
 
 This reminds me of one of the most amusing fairy tales 
 I ever read : and I have read many, for I loved them dearly 
 in by-gone days. 
 
 Three princes were sent by the king, their father, to bring 
 back wonders from distant countries : the one whose present 
 should be the most extraordinary was to succeed him on the 
 throne. The youngest, whom the tale-teller evidently favours, 
 brought back a walnut, and his brothers smiled disdainfully. 
 The walnut was cracked, and there came out of it a hazel-nut, 
 the hazel-nut contained a pea, the pea a grain of hemp seed, 
 the grain of hemp seed a grain of millet; the grain of millet 
 was opened, and a piece of cloth was drawn from it twenty 
 ells long. 
 
 When I read greedily so many beautiful stories, when I 
 saw so many genii, enchanters, fairies, beautiful princesses- and 
 loving and brave princes, many times was I wont, at the end 
 of the volume, to sit and carry on the vision in my thoughts ; 
 then I awoke, and wept with grief at only living in life, in- 
 stead of living in fairy tales; but I very early discovered 
 that real life contains a hundred times more wonders than 
 these charming fables : and I became reconciled to my fate.
 
 100 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 W-hen in love, I felt myself covered with the enchanted 
 armour which rendered knights invulnerable. My strength 
 appeared to me invincible, and my courage above my strength. 
 The thought of her I loved was a talisman; her name, a 
 magic word which triumphed over obstacles and rendered 
 everything powerless before me. 
 
 One day, I plunged into the water to endeavour to save 
 an unfortunate man who was drowning; he seized me, and 
 clung az-ound me like a serpent ; I was on the point of 
 perishing with him I pronounced the name of Magdeleine, 
 and, animated by a supernatural strength, I regained the 
 surface of the water, bearing the drowning man with one arm, 
 and swimming with the other. 
 
 At another time I wrote to her : 
 
 v They want to marry you ; that happiness which another 
 promises you I will give you. Do you wish for riches, gold? 
 I shall have them; speak, what do you wish for? there is 
 nothing above me or my powers. Do you wish for palaces 
 of marble, or gold, to tread under your feet? Do you wish 
 for honours? Do you wish to be a queen? Magdeleine, 
 everything is yours! everything the world contains; for, I 
 feel it, no one will be able to dispute with me that by which 
 I may attain you. Wait a year, wait a month, wait a day, 
 and I will bestow a crown upon you." . . . 
 
 And I was true ; I felt that I had the power to do all this. 
 Ai\d, another day, when she had told me that she loved me, 
 I left her abode so exalted, so lofty, that I stooped as I went 
 for fear of unhooking some star, or setting fire to my hair; 
 and I endeavoured to avoid running against the persons I 
 met with, for fear of breaking them to shivers like glass. 
 
 The flowers began to talk to me: the white rose had 
 nothing but perfumes for others ; for me it had soft words 
 which it breathed into my heart; the honeysuckle had for 
 my lips sweet kisses, and exhaled for me alone, not its ordi- 
 nary perfume, but the odour of the breath of her I loved. 
 The winds even brought me soft and mysterious voices. 
 
 And then, all at once, I don't know what wicked enchanter 
 intruded himself among so many miracles. Magdeleine be- 
 came a woman very like other women ; and I, I was changed 
 into I don't know what stupid animal. Flowers were nothing
 
 DISENCHANTMENT. 101 
 
 but flowers for me as well as for other people. I could make 
 nothing out of the whisperings of the winds in the tree-tops. 
 The honeysuckle only offered me the same odour which it 
 presented to eveiy vulgar nose. From that time I have dis- 
 covered nothing marvellous in myself; my early years, like 
 prodigal mothers, ruined and disinherited my latter ones. 
 
 But I became a spectator in life, and I looked about me. 
 
 Then, by observing others, I found that I had blossomed 
 as the flowers blossom, that my soul had bloomed, and had 
 exhaled its perfume, which is love ; then my rich corolla had 
 withered and fallen off; that this was all to be so; that I had 
 finished my part, and had acted wisely in sitting down as 
 comfortably as I could, to look on and observe other men. 
 
 From that I proceeded to the observation of nature, and 
 I again met with all the wonders of my beloved fairy tales ; 
 and I happened to recollect the grain of millet and the 
 famous piece of cloth; and I said to myself "Well! what is 
 there so extraordinary in that?" 
 
 In fact, here is a little grain much smaller than that of 
 the millet ; here is the seed of the osnothera. Put it in the 
 earth; there will spring up from it a tall and beautiful plant, 
 with leaves and flowers and a delicious odour, yielding five 
 or six hundred seeds, from which will come five or six hundred 
 plants. This single little grain contains infinite generations 
 of similar plants, with their leaves, their flowers, and their 
 perfumes. 
 
 You put it in the earth to-day : well ! all the men who 
 now cover the globe shall be dead, and there will still continue 
 to issue from it other flowers, and other seeds which will 
 engender other flowers. 
 
 What has become of your false miracle, and your wretched 
 twenty ells of cloth ? 
 
 Why do you put twenty ells of cloth in your grain of 
 millet? It contained much more than that; it contained 
 beautiful stalks with long pendent ears; it contained that 
 which might cover the earth in less than ten years. Who can 
 count the number of birds that might be fed from the pro- 
 duce of that millet seed?
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 THE TULIPS, AND THEIR STORY. 
 
 I KNEW a man who had always been happy until the moment 
 when some one sent him a present of a dozen tulip roots. 
 
 I never saw but one man more embarrassed, and that was 
 a merchant of Marseilles, to whom an African prince sent 
 two tigers and a panther, begging him to keep them for his 
 sake. 
 
 The poor man asked some one if tulips would grow in water 
 on a chimney, as hyacinths do, and was assured they would not. 
 He went to see a friend who was a great amateur of tulips, 
 and offered him his twelve bulbs. His friend answered 
 somewhat haughtily, that he sometimes gave away tulips, but 
 that he never accepted any ; not caring to see his flower-beds 
 dishonoured by any flower without a name or of base extrac- 
 tion ; besides, those which he possessed had been sown and 
 cultivated by himself; it was a sort of family into which he 
 was not willing to admit strangers.
 
 THE TULIPS. 103 
 
 Our friend was a bachelor, and spent not more than an 
 eighth part of his income. "Peter," said he to his servant, 
 "M. Reault will have nothing to do with my tulips; to whom 
 can I give them? " Peter said that the yard in which the dog 
 was allowed to run had originally been a little garden, for 
 two lilacs and an acacia proved it; that they had only to turn 
 up the earth to have a hundred times more room than could 
 be wanted for twelve tulips; and that on the morrow he would 
 set about it. Accordingly, Peter rose early and began to 
 dig. He had bought a spade and a rake for eight francs, and 
 his master began to think the tulips dear, and that it was 
 really a pity M. Reault would not accept them. The follow- 
 ing night the dog, which till that time had been allowed to 
 be loose in the yard, revenged himself for his captivity by 
 frightful bowlings. Next day Peter said to his master '-'Sir, 
 I have turned up earth enough to plant a thousand tulips, 
 but there is one thing that stops me; I don't know at what 
 depth they should be planted." " Oh ! you must take your 
 chance; they are sure to come up some time or other." "But, 
 Sir, I have a cousin who is a gardener, and I have told him 
 to come this morning. Monsieur will only have to pay him 
 for half-a-day's work, and the tulips will be planted properly." 
 
 At a house at which he called in the course of the day, a 
 lady said to him " I am told you are planting a garden." 
 
 " No," said he, " I am simply putting in the earth twelve 
 tulip roots which M. Bernard sent me." 
 
 " Oh, then, they are most likely something beautiful ; he is 
 considered a great amateur; besides, people don't make a 
 present of a dozen tulip roots, unless they are rare and 
 valuable plants." 
 
 " I really know nothing about the matter." 
 
 " How is it that you have not had a garden before this 
 time?" 
 
 " I never thought of it." 
 
 " Mr. Delarue has a charming garden ; I and my sister 
 went to see it the day before yesterday." 
 
 "Ah! if I had a garden, then you would come and see it?" 
 
 " Very probably we might." 
 
 Arnold returned home with his mind very much pre- 
 occupied; he had remarked this lady for some time past,
 
 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 but <^ie disagreeable sensation he had felt upon hearing of her 
 visit to Mr. Delarue, warned him that he took more interest 
 in her than he had been aware of. The gardener was preparing 
 the holes for the tulips, when Arnold stopped him, and said, 
 "Do you think a good garden could be made of this yard?" 
 " Impossible, Sir ; your yard is not larger than my hand." 
 " That is true ; I should like, however, to have a beautiful 
 garden." 
 
 "Give me the ground, Sir, and I will soon provide you 
 with that." 
 
 " I have but this yard." 
 
 " Why, then, Sir, don't you buy that large piece of ground 
 which separates Monsieur's house from that of M. Durut, and 
 which M. Durut wishes to sell 1 It is said it can be bought 
 for a mere nothing." 
 
 " Let us look at the piece of ground." 
 The enclosure was lai'ge; some parts of it even were already 
 planted; a handsome screen of poplars separated it from the 
 garden of M. Durut. Application was made to the notary; 
 the thing was to be sold cheap. Arnold purchased, paid 
 down the money, and the gardener was set to work. The poor 
 dog, which during three nights had not for one minute 
 ceased howling, was reinstated in the yard. 
 
 "Shall I really have a handsome garden?" frequently asked 
 M. Arnold. 
 
 "Certainly, Sir," replied the gardener; "you shall have 
 such things as are seen nowhere else; you shall have greeu 
 roses, black roses, and blue roses." 
 " Indeed." 
 
 " Yes, Sir; I have the receipt to make them, in an old book 
 of my father's." 
 
 " And is it very desirable to have green, blue, and black 
 roses?" ' 
 
 " Yes, Sir ; nobody else has any." 
 
 Arnold never quitted his garden or the" gardener; he planted 
 and took up again ; everything must be ready by the follow- 
 ing spring. M. Durut, the vendor of the enclosure, paid him 
 first one visit, then another; and soon, whenever he perceived 
 M. Arnold in his garden he joined him. " Fortunately," thought 
 Arnold, "when the poplars are in leaf, IK- will not be able to
 
 THE TULIPS. 105 
 
 see I am here." M. Durut was a man of fifty years of age, 
 invariably dressed in an old great-coat and a shabby hat, who 
 was at war with the whole neighbourhood, and was ruining 
 himself with lawsuits, one brought on by another. As he 
 was very much engaged with his lawsuits, he was talking of 
 them incessantly, and adorned the accounts he gave of them 
 with all sorts of invectives and maledictions against his 
 adversaries ; in addition to which disadvantage, he never 
 seemed to remember that he had sold his enclosure. When 
 he spoke of it, he always said my garden, and found fault 
 with everything that was done in it; it was much better 
 managed in his time. " What do you take up this for ? What 
 do you plant that for? You are spoiling everything." Arnold 
 was a mild man, but the annoyance made him savage. One 
 day, when M. Durut had given him a rather stronger dose 
 than common, he said to Peter, "When M. Durut comes 
 again, I will not be at home." 
 
 The next day M. Durut perceived Arnold through the 
 window, and came and rang at his bell. Peter, according 
 to his master's orders, told him he was gone out. " Gone 
 out ! gone out ! why I this moment saw him in my garden 
 and in M. Durut went. Arnold was furious, ar-d could scarcely 
 restrain himself. This time he did not put himself out of 
 the way, and by means of an oratorical precaution, consisting 
 of a "Permit me" he continued to assist the gardener, although 
 the latter had six or seven journeymen round him. When 
 M. Durut was gone, Arnold said to Peter, 
 
 " What did I tell you 1 ? did not I desire you not to let 
 M. Durut in?" 
 
 " Certainly, Sir, but he saw you in the garden, and would 
 come in, in spite of me." 
 
 . " That was one reason the more why he should not have 
 persisted; he ought to understand that I wish to be alone. If 
 you let him in again, I will discharge you." 
 
 " But then, Sir, you must not show yourself in the garden." 
 
 Arnold then broke forth into an eloquent invective. " What 
 the deuce ! did I buy this garden of this old rogue to have no 
 free enjoyment of it? Who could have dreamt that the pro- 
 perty was subject to the intolerable nuisance of his presence? 
 The garden is mine I have paid for it and I will not pay 
 
 P
 
 JOG A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 for it over again, at a thousand times higher price than the 
 first, by enduring the annoyance which this eternal litigator 
 inflicts upon me daily. I did hope to have the patience to 
 wait till the poplars were in leaf; but, do you hear, Peter, 
 I will not see him again." 
 
 M. Durut presented himself the next day. The same answer 
 from Peter; the same persistence on the part of M. Durut. 
 
 " But, Peter, I am sure he is at home ; I only this moment 
 saw him in my garden." 
 
 " Very likely, Sir; but master told me himself that he was 
 not at home." 
 
 " Then, Peter, go and tell him I am here." 
 
 " It's of no use, Sir ; there is nobody at home." 
 
 " Ah, that's all very well, go, I say, and tell him I am 
 here." 
 
 " No, Sir, I shall not go ; master would discharge me." 
 
 M. Durut returned home, and called to Arnold out of his 
 window "Hilloa! neighbour!" Arnold pretended to be 
 very busy, and made no reply; but M. Durut was not dis- 
 couraged by such a trifle as that. "Hilloa! neighbour!' 
 cried he; "Monsieur Arnold!" Arnold could have thrashed 
 him well with all his heart. " Hilloa ! gardener ; tell M. 
 Arnold I am calling him." Arnold left the garden. " The 
 leaves are very backward!" sighed he. 
 
 The next day M. Durut returned to the charge, met with 
 the same repulse from Peter, and went again to his window 
 to call Arnold. The latter for a time affected deafness, but 
 his patience was at length overcome. 
 
 " Well, Sir, I hear you plainly enough !" replied he. 
 
 " That's well," cried M. Durut. '-Why, Peter persisted in 
 saying you were not at home, although I told him I saw you 
 in my garden; he would not admit me!" 
 
 " Peter was right, Sir; I am not at home." 
 
 " How, neighbour? what does that mean?" 
 
 " That means, Sir, that there are moments in which I wish 
 to be alone; and if we are to continue good neighbours, we 
 must not incommode each other." 
 
 " That is to say, Sir, that your door is shut against 
 me." 
 
 " That is only to say, Sir, thac you will do me great plea-
 
 THE TULIPS. 107 
 
 sure by coming to see me occasionally ; but that each of us 
 must be at liberty in his own home." 
 
 " Oh, I understand you, Sir; I will not inconvenience you 
 again ! " 
 
 " That is all I require, Sir." 
 
 " Very well, Sir." 
 
 And M. Durut shut his window violently. Arnold fancied 
 himself happily delivered from annoyance ; but from that day 
 all the stale vegetables, bones of meat, and other refuse from 
 the house of Durut, were thrown over the wall into Arnold's 
 garden. I will not venture to mention all that was done in 
 this way. At first, Arnold had them removed without com- 
 plaining; but one day, when the nuisance had been more 
 serious than iisual, he perceived M. Durut at his window, and 
 called him. M. Durut took no notice. Arnold called a 
 second time ; M. Durut then condescended to hear him, and 
 answered 
 
 " I am not at home, Sir." 
 
 " Come, come, Sir; I am not now disposed to joke." 
 
 " Oh, Sir, every one ought to be at liberty in his own home ! " 
 
 " Certainly, Sir ; but I insist upon your not throwing your 
 refuse, in the manner you do, into my garden." 
 
 "Ta, ta, ta, ta, ta!" 
 
 And M. Durut left the window. Arnold ordered his ser- 
 vants to throw everything back, for the future, that should 
 come over the wall from M. Durut's. M. Durut had a com- 
 plaint before the mayor, that M. Arnold threw refuse over 
 into his garden. The mayor summoned Arnold, and repri- 
 manded him, Arnold replied that he only returned that 
 which had been thrown into his garden. The mayor did not 
 believe him. Arnold grew angry, and, by some hasty expres- 
 sions, prejudiced the mayor against him. Three days after- 
 wards, a summons was brought by an officer to Arnold's house. 
 The king, according to the formula employed by officers, who 
 thus attribute to the king strange words and strange things, 
 commanded Arnold, within twenty-four hours at the utmost, 
 to cut down the poplars which formed a screen between the 
 two properties, the document being embellished with the most 
 formidable threats in the event of its not being obeyed. Arnold 
 was astounded, and went to consult his man of business. The
 
 108 A TOUR HOUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 latter came and looked at the trees, and said, " They must be 
 cut down; the law is precise. The trees must not be less 
 than six feet from the party- wall ; and there are but four feet 
 between them and the wall." 
 
 " But he planted them himself!" 
 
 " No matter ; the two properties were then his own. They 
 must be cut down." 
 
 " And suppose I do not cut them down?" 
 
 " You will be compelled." 
 
 The poplars were magnificent; covered with their young 
 leaves of a transparent green, they made the most beautiful 
 green curtain imaginable. Arnold was in despair. She for 
 whom he had made the garden had promised to come and 
 see it as soon as the tulips should be in bloom, which could 
 not be many days later. If this screen were cut down, the 
 whole effect of his garden would be destroyed. He called the 
 gardener, and asked him if it were possible to remove the 
 poplars to a distance of six feet from the wall. 
 
 " Certainly, Sir." 
 
 " And will they live?" 
 
 " No; because it is not the season for transplanting. A 
 month ago there would have been no difficulty." 
 
 He repaired again to the office of his man of business. 
 
 " Make the matter up as well as you can : I must keep 
 my poplars." 
 
 " That depends upon your neighbour." 
 
 " Go and see him : offer him money." 
 
 The man of business was very ill received, and M. Durut 
 only replied to his proposals by a fresh summons. Arnold 
 carried it to his man of business. 
 
 " Can you, by any chicanery, preserve my poplars for a 
 fortnight?" 
 
 " Yes, by opposing the summons, and by citing your 
 adversary to prove the fact. We, on our part, will maintain 
 before the tribunal, that the trees are -six feet and a half from 
 the wall; the tribunal will appoint proper persons to ascer- 
 tain the truth; these persons will make their report ; and we 
 shall gain by that means a good fortnight. But it will cost 
 you very dear ; you will have all the expenses to pay, and will 
 be obliged to cut down the trees at last."
 
 THE TULIPS. iC9 
 
 " Well, never miud ; they must not be cut down till after 
 a fortnight." 
 
 The man of business carried on the contest, and it fell out 
 exactly as he had foreseen it would : only the weather became 
 colder, the tulips were not open, and the tulips alone were 
 the object of all these cares : he was obliged to cut down the 
 poplars. Some one advised Arnold to have trees painted on 
 the wall ; that was ugly enough, to be sure, but at this season 
 of the year there was no such thing as planting. 
 
 Mademoiselle Aglae was to come two days after, the twelve 
 tulips were fully out, the weather was magnificent, the garden 
 was filled with all the flowers of the season. Arnold went to 
 call upon M. Reault, for Mademoiselle Aglae had said, " We 
 will bring two or three of our friends with us ; but nevertheless 
 have somebody there ; it will be more proper." 
 
 M. Reault, he who had declined the roots, was in company 
 with several others who came to see his tulips. He had a 
 wand in his hand, and exhibited them with an emphasis 
 which none can conceive but those who have seen in this 
 situation an amateur of tulips among his blooming flowers. 
 
 The party was assembled under a tent, between two beds 
 of tulips planted in regular rows. M. R6ault stopped for 
 a moment to see who came in, and when he perceived it was 
 only one of the profane, he bade him " Good morning," with a 
 nod, and, without quitting his serious tone and manner, re- 
 sumed his demonstration ; he was then before a tulip of a 
 white ground, streaked with violet. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said he, " this is Vandael; it is a pearl of 
 the liind; it is not in all its beauty; the month of April was 
 cruel for our plants, and March was perfidious." 
 
 " This is Joseph Deschiens; we know nothing to be com- 
 pared to this superb plant; the ground is white, and the 
 stripes violet." 
 
 " But," interrupted Arnold, " was not that which you de- 
 scribed just now, and which you called Vandael, likewise white 
 and violet?" M. Reault smiled disdainfully, looked at the 
 other spectators, and, without condescending to reply to 
 Arnold, continued, 
 
 " Here is Gluck, white and violet, a magnificent plant of 
 seventh line."
 
 llO A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 " Your pardon !" again interrupted Arnold; " but Vandael 
 and Joseph Deschiens are likewise white and violet." 
 
 This time M. Reault shrugged his shoulders with a move- 
 ment of impatience; one of the spectators replied to him by 
 a nearly similar sign, but which, however, had this particular 
 shade, that it exhorted M. Reault to have pity on the profane, 
 and exercise his patience. This gentleman remained a little 
 behind with Arnold, and said in a low voice, " You are not 
 an amateur, Sir?" 
 
 " Not yet, Sir; I have only twelve tulips." 
 
 " Ah ! that's very few indeed ; there are eighteen hundred 
 here, and all different." 
 
 " But, Sir, I have only yet looked at three, and they ap- 
 peared to me perfectly alike." 
 
 " Ah, Sir ! these three plants are no more alike than day 
 and night; for experienced eyes, there is no resemblance 
 between them." 
 
 " No resemblance ! that appears rather strong, Sir." 
 
 " It is you, Sir, who are not strong upon the subject of 
 tulips. All three are violet and white, it is true; the ground 
 of all three is white, and the streaks are violet; but the violet 
 is not the same." 
 
 " Ah, I perceive ! thank you, Sir." 
 
 " Don't name it, Sir." 
 
 Both rejoined M. Reault; he was pointing with his wand 
 to a white and rose-coloured tulip. 
 
 " Czarteriski, gentlemen, a flower of fifth line ; allow me to 
 point out the whiteness of the onglets; and what a carriage I 
 Gentlemen, what a carriage !" 
 
 And whilst saying these words, M. Reault pressed his 
 wand against the green stalk of the tulip, and appeared to 
 make the greatest efforts to bend it, without, however, suc- 
 ceeding. 
 
 " It is a rod, gentleman ; it is a bar of iron." 
 
 " Sir," said Arnold to him who had already had compassion 
 on him, and afforded him a charitable explanation, " do you 
 believe that M. Re"ault really presses so hard with his wand 
 upon the tulip? and is it also a great advantage that the 
 stalk of such a light flov;er should be a bar of iron, as he says 
 it is?"
 
 THE TULIPS. Ill 
 
 " Yes, certainly, Sir ; that is a condition without which we 
 never admit a tulip into our flower-beds." 
 
 " Napoleon 1st" said M. Re"ault, before a white and rose- 
 coloured tulip ; "that is a plant I strongly recommend to your 
 attention." 
 
 " Well, Sir," said Arnold to the complaisant amateur, " if 
 it were not for what you have told me, I should venture to 
 say a strange thing. The rose colour of these tulips is pro- 
 bably not the same shade of rose colour ; but if I had come 
 here alone, I should have fancied I saw two tulips, each mul- 
 tiplied nine hundx-ed times, the one white and violet, the other 
 white and rose." 
 
 " Zounds ! Sir ; when a person knows nothing " 
 
 The demonstration was here stopt for a moment. The 
 other amateur was seized with admiration, absolutely over- 
 come before the Incomparable Purple. " Ah, Sir," said he 
 to M. R6ault, " permit me to stop here ! Friend," cried he 
 to an under-gardener, "please to bring me a chair." The 
 chair being brought, he sat down, w T ith his two hands placed 
 upon the top of his cane, and his chin upon his two hands; 
 thus he remained without speaking, his eyes fixed and his 
 mouth half open. The other left Arnold, and came to esctacise 
 also behind his companion. As for M. Reault, he stood 
 motionless, with a most ineffable smile playing on his lips. 
 Arnold saw nothing in the Incomparable Purple but a white 
 and red-coloured tulip, the shades of which appeared to him 
 to be exactly repeated in four or five hundred others, before 
 which they had passed in silence, or to which they had only 
 accorded compliments called for by politeness. At length 
 the enthusiast arose, and said 
 
 " Monsieur Reault, I do not wish to trespass on the time 
 of these gentlemen; but I shall request you to grant me 
 permission to come alone, and pass an hour seated before 
 your tulip." 
 
 " Sir, you do it too much honour." 
 
 " Sir, I only pay it the honour it merits." 
 
 " It must be allowed, Sir ; for in such a case I do not pre- 
 tend to any false modesty it is a plant of great merit!" 
 
 " Sir, it is a jewel !" 
 
 " M. Reault," said Arnold, " I request your pardon ; and
 
 112 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 yours likewise, gentlemen. Permit me to say a word to 
 M. Reault, and to leave you ; I am waited for upon an affair 
 of consequence." He took M. Re"ault aside, and said 
 
 " To-morrow some friends mean to do me the honour to 
 come and see my tulips." 
 
 " Your tulips! What do you mean by your tulips?" 
 
 " Faith ! only the twelve roots I offered to you, and which 
 vou refused." 
 
 " Ah ! ah ! " 
 
 " Will you do me the pleasure of coming 1 " 
 
 " What, to see your twelve roots?" 
 
 " To see me, and breakfast with me, with three or four 
 other persons; at the same time, you can tell me if my tulips 
 are good for anything; but I can tell you beforehand, you 
 have not one of the twelve." 
 
 Indeed!" 
 
 " It is true, I assure you." 
 
 " I should like to see that. At what hour?" 
 
 ' : Eleven." 
 
 " I will be punctual." 
 
 " To-morrow?" 
 
 " To-morrow." 
 
 The next day Mademoiselle Aglae" and her sister came a 
 little after eleven o'clock, but Arnold was disagreeably sur- 
 prised to find they were accompanied by M. Dulaurier ; M. 
 Reault entered almost at the same instant. He and 
 M. Dulaurier were acquainted, and made mutual excuses for 
 not having yet been to see each other's tulips. "Ah, Sir!" 
 said the one, "the month of March did me great injury." 
 " Monsieur," said the other, " I must request your indul 7 
 gence; the month of April has treated me sadly." Breakfast 
 was announced ; the ladies were surprised, declared they could 
 eat nothing, and finished by becoming humanised. During 
 breakfast, Arnold visibly lost his spirits : he could not help fan- 
 cying he saw signs of intelligence pass between Mademoiselle 
 Aglae and M. Dulaurier, which rendered him a prey to horrible 
 misgivings ; but the sister of Mademoiselle Aglae removed all 
 doubts, by taking an early opportunity of announcing to him 
 that her sister and M. Dulaurier were to be married ir three 
 weeks. Arnold then became aware that " uncertainty is the
 
 THE TULIPS. 113 
 
 worst of evils, until the moment in which reality comes to 
 make us regret uncertainty " Arnold was stupefied by the 
 blow; sometimes he remained sad and silent; and then he 
 gave himself up to flights of very little probable and ill- 
 sustained gaiety. He was joked about his painted wall, and 
 his trees in oil, and at length they came to the tulips the 
 dozen tulips! They were tulips taken at hazard, and differ- 
 ing widely from each other. One was entirely of a beautiful 
 yellow ; another opened its calyx with so brilliant a red that 
 the eye could not dwell upon it; this had a yellow ground, 
 and upon this yellow ground were spread brown and black 
 stripes ; two of them had a white ground, like thoseof M. Rault, 
 and of these two, one was streaked with violet, and the other 
 with rose colour. M. Reault and M. Dulaurier looked at each 
 other. M. Dukmrier smiled ; but M. Reault, after several ill- 
 repressed efforts, finished by giving vent to most violent 
 explosions of laughter. The two ladies and Arnold looked 
 at each other with some inquietude, fearing that he was seized 
 with an attack of insanity ; but, after five or six minutes, he 
 recovered the power of speaking, although his words were 
 interrupted by fresh peals of laughter, "Ah, my dear Arnold, 
 I am laughing too much, it makes me ill! You call these 2" 
 
 " Parbleu! why, tulips!" 
 
 " Tulips, my dear Sir ! you will choke me, parole cThonneur" 
 and off he went with a fresh fit of laughter. Arnold, who 
 had, for other reasons, so much anger rankling in his heart, 
 was but too happy to have an opportunity of showing ill- 
 humour to some one; he only regretted that this same one 
 was not M. Dulaurier. For want of a better subject, however, 
 he coldly asked M. Reault if he would be kind enough, when 
 his fit was over, to explain to him the subject of it. 
 
 " Oh, my dear Sir, don't be angry with me ; really it is not 
 my fault. I should be vexed beyond measure to offend you ; 
 but really this is too droll ! particularly if you could but have 
 seen yourself, when you told me that you called these tulips." 
 
 " But you, Sir; what name do you give these flowers'?" 
 
 " What name ! my dear Sir ; I don't give them any name ; 
 they do not deserve one. Listen ; Monsieur Dulaurier, speak 
 give your opinion ; for I am anxious that M. Arnold should 
 know that it is not I alone who consider his tulips rather 
 
 Q
 
 114 A TOUR BOUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 droll. Oh ! la, la, la, no more laughing it makes one unwell 
 to laugh in such a manner." 
 
 M. Dulaurier, who was more calm, explained to Arnold that 
 about fifty years ago the amateurs of tulips had only tulips 
 with a yellow ground, streaked with red and brown; that 
 every tulip with a white ground was then rejected from all 
 collections. At this period, as all imaginable follies had been 
 exhausted for tulips with a yellow ground, the amateurs 
 took it into their heads to begin again with an entirely new 
 series of tulips with a white ground. After long debates 
 among the revolutionists and the partisans of the ancient 
 tulips, the white grounds prevailed, and the yellow grounds 
 were expelled with disgrace from flower-beds, and publicly 
 treated in books and pamphlets as disgusting flowers. Such as 
 persisted in letting them bloom in their gardens, acquired the 
 names of fleurichons and curiolets. As regards tulips of a single 
 colour, they have never been admitted by the above-mentioned 
 amateurs either the partisans of the yellow grounds, or those 
 of the white grounds; and as for your two tulips with the white 
 ground, they are absurd, the petals being pointed. 
 
 Then a conversation was commenced between M. Dulaurier 
 and M. Reault. " How singular," said the latter, " was the 
 taste of our fathers ! here is bizarre noir, which our ancestors 
 considered cheap at ten crowns, and which I would not have 
 at any price, even in my poultry-yard, among my hens." 
 
 " But," said M. Dulaurier, " is not this the tulipe de Maes- 
 tricht, which made such a noise in 1811 and 1812?" 
 
 " Yes, it is quite pitiable! Say no more about it." 
 
 At length the visit terminated, to the great joy of the un- 
 fortunate Arnold, who was able, when once alone, to give 
 himself up to his grief and his anger. 
 
 From that day everything went on from bad to worse. 
 Neighbour Durut kept a wound constantly open in his heart, 
 memorem iram. In the space of four months, he brought five 
 actions against Arnold. Under pretence that the party-wall 
 required repairs, he had it pulled down and rebuilt at their 
 joint expense. In the midst of the fine season, he sent the brick - 
 lavers into Arnold's garden, which they demolished. Arnold 
 made a basin to receive rain water. M. Durut found out that 
 the "Customs of Paris," article 217, does not permit sewers
 
 THE TULIPS. 115 
 
 or cesspools to be made within the distance of six feet from 
 the party-wall, and this basin was only five feet and a third 
 removed from it. This time Arnold's man of business did not 
 agree with M. Durut. He answered, " that a basin was not 
 necessarily a cesspool, and that several legislators had made 
 that distinction ; among others, Goupi, who observes, ' that the 
 " Customs of Paris," by prescribing this distance of six feet, has 
 not had it in view to obviate the damage that the filtration of 
 waters might cause, since it does not require it for wells, 
 although the same danger of filtration is encountered with 
 regard to them ; besides, at whatever distance may be the 
 wells and cesspools, he who constructs them is always re- 
 sponsible for the damage which may be caused by filtration. 
 The principal reason,' " says Goupi, as likewise said Arnold's 
 man of business, " ' is only to remove from neighbours' houses 
 the bad odour which certain watery ditches and cesspools ex- 
 hale.' " But, and here Degodets, another lawyer, is in accord 
 with Goupi, the disposition of article 217 of the " Customs of 
 Paris" cannot extend to the draining wells and ditches receiv- 
 ing rain water, which does not exhale a bad odour. The " Cus- 
 toms of Orleans," article 245, equally establishes this distinc- 
 tion, as Pelhier does positively, in his treatise of the " Contract 
 de Soci6te," article 5, upon the community of party-walls. 
 
 M. Durut replied ; the man of business replied to him. The 
 tribunals were appealed to, to judge the question : they 
 granted that the man of business was right in his distinction, 
 which was affirmed in appeal and in cassation. But Durut 
 was not the man to be beaten by trifles ; he commenced a fresh 
 suit. In his new conclusions he admitted the definition and 
 the distinction adopted by the tribunal; he demanded to 
 prove that Arnold's basin merited the name of cesspool, and 
 consequently came within the application of article 217 of the 
 " Customs of Paris," and article 245 of the " Customs of Or- 
 leans." Experienced persons were named to go to the spot and 
 enlighten the tribunal. Now, in the night which preceded 
 the examination, Durut had thrown over the wall so much 
 refuse, with impure water and filth, into the basin, that it was 
 metamorphosed into an infectious pool, and consequently so 
 declared to be by the examiners; which produced a condem- 
 nation with expenses against Arnold, obliging him to destroy
 
 116 A TOUR HOUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 his basin. Another process compelled him to eat his pigeons, 
 which were devouring the house of his neighbour. At length 
 one day, in a fit of passion, he went so far as, I dou't know 
 how, to threaten to shoot M. Durut. The latter commenced 
 a criminal action, which Arnold had no other means of stop- 
 ping, but by purchasing, in a friendly way, and at a third more 
 than its value, the property of M. Durut. In a word, at the 
 end of two years, the twelve tulip roots cost Arnold the sum of 
 300,000 francs ! 
 
 For my part, my friend, I cultivate flowers only for the 
 sake of seeing them, and not for the pride of showing them. 
 I have but about fifty tulips of all colours. I never reject any 
 that will do me the honour to bloom in my garden, not even 
 those according to the hearts of the great amateurs, and 
 I have no neighbour, which reminds me of two remarkable 
 aphorisms of some buffoon or other : 
 
 " Never have any neighbours; if you wish to live at peace 
 with them." 
 
 " Never give anything to your children, if you wish they 
 should entertain gratitude towards you equal to the benefit." 
 
 There are many philosophers who have written large 
 books, without saying anything so reasonable.
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 QUASI MARITIME. 
 
 WE are now on the bank of a rivulet, which crosses the 
 garden at its broadest part, and falls into a pool almost con- 
 cealed by willows and reeds. We passed along the banks of 
 this nameless river, which takes its rise in a hill covered with 
 furze, a little above the old wood house. The rivulet steals 
 along over a pebbly bed, and between verdant banks ; plants 
 delighting in freshness and moisture ornamenting both sides 
 of its passage. The view is bounded by surrounding trees, 
 beneath which a verdant bank arises, now decked with daisies 
 and buttercups. 
 
 On one of the banks is a white poplar, a tree formerly con- 
 secrated to Hercules. 
 
 " Herculea bicolor, cum populus umbra." 
 
 The upper part of its large leaves, as deeply cut as those 
 of a vine, is of a dark shining green, whilst the under part ia
 
 118 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 of a velvety white. The Romans made bucklers of the wood 
 of this tree, on account of its lightness, and covered them with 
 ox-hides. Of this tree Pliny says, populus apta scutis. In 
 certain northern counti-ies, it is said that a white poplar, in 
 good soil, increases a shilling in value every year. They are 
 generally cut down at the age of twenty years, as they are 
 then supposed to have attained their full growth. This cir- 
 cumstance has given birth to a very interesting custom. When 
 a daughter is born in the family of a respectable farmer, the 
 father, as soon as the season will permit, plants a thousand 
 young Ypreaux,* which are to constitute the dowry of the 
 maiden, which grow as she grows, increasing in height and 
 value as her virtues and beauty increase. 
 
 In the stem of the poplar is concealed a nest, the exterior 
 of which is formed of moss and slender roots, and the interior 
 delicately lined with hair and feathers. In it four or five white 
 eggs, striped and spotted with brown, are carefully sat upon 
 by a water-wagtail. Whilst the male bird is in search of game, 
 we may see him walking along the bank of the rivulet, grace- 
 fully balancing his long tail, of ten black and two white 
 feathers, the latter forming the edge or border; the top of 
 his head and the under part of his neck are black; he wears a 
 kind of white half-mask ; the rest of his body is clothed in 
 clouded grey and pearl grey. You may go close to him ; if he 
 flies away, it is only to return almost immediately; but it is 
 more than probable he will only walk away, without disturb- 
 ing his lively and graceful carriage. His purpose is to catch 
 on the wing all sorts of flies, gnats, and tipule,t which have, 
 as I have no doubt we shall soon discover, excellent reasons 
 for flitting about over the surface of rivulets. The little 
 female so sedulously employed at home, only differs from her 
 mate in having a brown head, and in not wearing a plastron 
 above the neck. 
 
 Nearer the water are large tufts of Iris of different sorts, 
 shooting forth, from the bosom of their pointed leaves, stalks 
 loaded with blossoms. Some are yellow ; others violet ; tlie.se 
 entirely white, or white with a blue fringe ; those yellow and 
 brown; others yellow and blue; and a few pale blue. 
 
 * A sort of broad-leafed elm, apparently peculiar to the neighbourhood of Ypres. 
 t A kind of gnat.
 
 NATURAL ARCHITECTURE. 1 1 9 
 
 The Iris delights only in the banks of waters. There is a 
 species of it which is one of the great bounties of God, one of 
 the greatest luxuries He has made for the poor. 
 
 I have seen the Colonnade of the Louvre, my good friend ; 
 I have seen the Palace of Versailles, and three or four other 
 palaces in other countries, to which chance and the weariness 
 of the places I quitted, rather than a wish to see those 
 I visited, have led me. I here declare I have seen nothing so 
 beautiful, nothing so rich as yonder little house, inhabited by 
 poor woodmen, which I can perceive at a distance, through 
 the trees and over the wall of my garden. 
 
 In the front are four magnificent columns, four large beech- 
 trees, whose bark is as smooth as marble ; their living capital 
 is formed of branches and leaves, which yield a shelter from 
 the sun, and delight the eye with colours as rich and more 
 varied than those of the emerald. Birds have established 
 their nests in them, and there sing. Linnets are the ordinary 
 musicians of the poor; they sing to them upon a beautiful 
 stage, amidst splendid decorations, by the light of a magni- 
 ficent rising sun, a music always fresh, always young, which 
 appears to float down from heaven ; and nothing sad is 
 mingled with their song. These charming actors sing because 
 the sun shines, because they are young, because they are 
 beautiful, because they love, because they are happy ; whilst 
 those whom the rich pay so extravagantly, sing because they 
 are envious of each other, because they are avaricious, and 
 because they are paid. 
 
 We must confess that if columns of stone and marble 
 did not cost a great deal of money, they would be far from 
 having the beauty of these columns, which live and which 
 sing, where the capital changes its colour three or four 
 times in every year, and which let fall such melodious 
 sounds. 
 
 Architecture, in its greatest magnificence, invented the 
 Corinthian capital, which is nothing but an imperfect imita- 
 tion of five or six leaves of the acanthus. How is it we pay 
 so dearly for the imitation of that which costs nothing? It 
 is only from the principle I have before named : we only 
 love to possess things, to humiliate those who possess them 
 not. It is this that creates the value of diamonds it extends
 
 320 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 to our ideas of heaven itself, and sullies our hopes of hap- 
 piness it is the secret of the most shameful feelings of 
 man. 
 
 From the foot of one of these beeches springs an ivy, 
 which embraces it like a serpent with its powerful folds, and 
 dominates over its head with its shining leaves and bunches 
 of little green and black fruit, which is such favourite food 
 with the thrush and the blackbird. 
 
 And I did not I one day buy a little table supported by 
 a column of carved wood? That column represented the 
 trunk of a tree, around which turned an ivy : it was beauti- 
 fully done as wood-carving, but the perfection of the arts is 
 disgusting coarseness by the side of nature. Well, I paid ten 
 pounds for this ! ten pounds, painfully gained by writing in 
 obscurity, in my chamber, useless, hate-breeding things, 
 when I might, for nothing, have seen such beautiful ivies 
 ascend real sunlit trees, beneath the bright sky, with a heart 
 full of joy, kindness, and love ! 
 
 Behind these beautiful columns rises, and yet rises but 
 little, a small house, covered with a thatch that extends on 
 both sides considerably over the walls. In summer, a vine 
 spreads its magnificent green, and in autumn, its purple 
 tapestry over the whole front of the house. 
 
 But here is developed a luxury, enough to make the rich 
 and the powerful burst with envy. A velvet, a thousand 
 times more fine, more brilliant, more wavy, more rich, than 
 that which is displayed with so much economy in the interior 
 of palaces, of which such care is taken, lest it be rubbed or 
 spoilt, a green velvet entirely covers the thatch of the 
 house, and that is a true and a beautiful luxury. The owners 
 do not tremble on account of it ; they are neither the slaves 
 nor the victims of it ; they allow it to be exposed to the wind 
 and the rain they cannot spoil it : when this shall no longer 
 be fresh, others will come. This velvet is moss. 
 
 Then along the crest of the roof, from amidst their blade- 
 like leaves, spring bunches of violet-coloured iris, bathing 
 their gay blossoms in the air and the sun. 
 
 And none of these splendours wear out or become thread- 
 bare, as happens to factitious riches. Next year, the moss 
 will be thicker next year the irises will have still more violet
 
 THE FORGET-ME-NOT. 121 
 
 flowers next year the columns before the house will be taller 
 and larger. 
 
 And what is the use of this velvet 1 Of no other use 
 but to preserve from the rain, which glides over its silk, the 
 poor straw of the poor inhabitants of that poor house ! There 
 is a luxury ! Oh, yes ! God loves the poor ! Unfortunately, 
 man is very stupid ; he disdains gratuitous riches, in order to 
 wear out his life in the pursuit of expensive poverties. 
 
 Certainly, the man who would live alone in a desert isle, 
 would not trouble himself about rich clothes or sumptuous 
 furniture. Then it is in order to exhibit them to others that 
 we procure for ourselves, often with so much pain, and some- 
 times with so much infamy, all that can be called luxury. 
 Well, and what effect does this magnificent exhibition pro- 
 duce upon others ? No other but to inspire them with envy 
 and hatred, and set them on the watch for your vices and 
 your follies. 
 
 Let us return to the banks of our rivulet traveller, and at 
 the same time sedentary that I am ! 
 
 With its foot in the water, the forget-me-not presents to us 
 its spikes of little blue flowers. This pretty plant has received 
 pretty names from unknown godfathers and godmothers, 
 from young godfathers, no doubt, from godfathers in love, 
 and from charming and beloved godmothers too. The Ger- 
 mans call it, Vergiss-mein-nicht; the French, Ne m'oublicz 
 pas; and the English, Forget-me-not. 
 
 I have related to you, my friend, a long time ago, that two 
 lovers, who were to be married the next day, were walking at 
 sunset on the banks of the Danube. The maiden perceived a 
 bunch of Vergiss-mein-nicht, and wished to have it, to keep 
 as a memorial of that beautiful and happy evening. The 
 lover, in endeavouring to obtain it, fell into the river, and 
 feeling his strength fail him oppressed, stifled by the water 
 he threw to the bank the bunch of flowers, which he had 
 pulled up in his efforts to save himself; he then sunk beneath 
 the waves for ever. This adieu has been translated into the 
 words which have from that time been the name of the 
 flower, Vergiss-mein-nicht, or Ne rn'oubliez pas. 
 
 Cattle which graze where it grows, are exceedingly fond of it,
 
 122 
 
 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 and eat it down closely; but this injury only serves to make 
 it bloom again in the autumn, which it would not otherwise 
 have done. The learned are worse than the cattle; they dry 
 it, and flatten it down in their herbals, and called it, Myosotis 
 scorpioides Scorpion-shaped mouses ear ! They have been 
 reproached for giving it this name by a brother savant, named 
 Charles Nodier, but who, as well as being leai'ned, was a man 
 of wit and sense.
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 THE METAMORPHOSED RIVULET. 
 
 THE rivulet which passes through my garden, and issues 
 from the side of a hill covered with gorse, has been for a long 
 time a very happy rivulet. It crossed meadows, where all 
 sorts of charming wild-flowers bathed and admired themselves 
 in its tiny waves; then it entered my garden, where I had 
 expected it, and prepared verdant banks for its reception. I 
 planted upon its sides, and in its stream, all the plants which 
 in the whole world blossom in the bosom or on the banks of 
 pure waters. It crossed my garden, singing its melancholy 
 song; and then, all perfumed with my flowers, issued out, 
 crossed another meadow, and precipitated itself into the sea, 
 over the abrupt sides of a rock, which it covers with foam. 
 
 It was a happy rivulet ; it had absolutely nothing to do 
 but what I hove told you to flow, to glide on, to be limpid, 
 to murmur, between flowers and perfumes.
 
 124 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 It led just the life I have chosen, marked out for myself, 
 and which I follow, when the world will have the kindness 
 to let me alone when the wicked, the intriguing, the rogues 
 and the fools, do not force me to return to the combat me, 
 the most pacific and the most irascible man in the world ! 
 
 But heaven and earth are envious of happiness and delicious 
 idleness. 
 
 My dear brother Eugene, and the skilful engineer Sauvage, 
 the inventor of helices, were one day chattering on the banks 
 of this poor rivulet, and spoke very ill of it. " Now is not 
 this," said my brother, "a pretty do-nothing of a rivulet, 
 which goes merrily on, idling without shame, flowing in the 
 sunshine, or creeping among the grass, instead of working, and 
 paying for the ground it occupies, as an honest rivulet ought 
 to do. Could it not grind coffee and pepper?" 
 
 "And sharpen tools?" answered Sauvage. 
 
 "And saw wood?" said my brother. 
 
 And I trembled for the rivulet; and I interrupted the con- 
 versation by crying very loudly, that these envious beings, 
 these tyrants, would in the next place trample down my 
 Vergiss-mein-nicht ! Alas! I was only able to protect it 
 against them. It was not long before a rascal came into the 
 country, whom I frequently saw prowling along its green 
 banks, on the side where it leaps into the sea. This man did 
 not appear to me to have the air of one who came there to 
 seek for rhymes, or awaken sweet .remembrances, or even to 
 let his thoughts fall asleep to the murmur of the water. " My 
 friend," said he to the rivulet, " you glide along, you affect a 
 quiet air, and you sing in a manner to create envy in your 
 hearer, whilst I work and toil beyond my strength. It 
 appears to me you could help me a bit ; it is not a labour you 
 are acquainted with, but I will teach you; you shall soon be 
 in working condition. You must be very tired of leading such 
 an idle life; it will amuse you to make files and sharpen 
 knives." Shortly afterwards a wheel, machinery, and mill- 
 stone, were brought to the rivulet. From that time it works ; 
 it turns a great wheel, which turns a smaller one, which turns 
 the millstone. It sings still, but it is not that same softly 
 monotonous and happily melancholy song it used to sing. 
 There are cries and passion in the song of to-day ; it bounds,
 
 WATER MILL. P. 124.
 
 THE METAMORPHOSED RIVULET. 
 
 125 
 
 it foams, it labours it sharpens knives. It still crosses the 
 meadow and my garden, then the other meadow; but at the 
 end of it the man is thei-e, who waits for it, and makes it 
 work. I have only been able to do one thing for it : I have 
 dug a fresh bed for it in my garden, so that it may wind about 
 longer, and go out later; but it nevertheless finishes b'y 
 going to sharpen knives. Poor rivulet ! thou didst not suf- 
 ficiently conceal thy happiness in the grass; thou hast mur- 
 mured thy sweet song too loudly !
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 THE ANTHROPOPHAGI. 
 
 You would be very vain, my dear friend, if you could, with- 
 out sinning outrageously against truth, entitle one of your 
 letters thus: "The Anthropophagi!" It exalts a traveller 
 much in his own esteem and in the admiration of his con- 
 temporaries, to have seen the spit prepared, upon which it 
 was intended he should be roasted ! 
 
 Our vestments, under the pretence of honest modesty, only 
 conceal ill-made legs, meagre thighs, and other defects. 
 Women, in particular, make a singular abuse of clothing; far 
 from employing it to conceal their shapes, they employ it to 
 exhibit ostentatiously much more of those shapes than they 
 really possess. Thanks to the falsehoods of our clothes, we 
 scarcely know where to stop; and we have become lovers of 
 clothes, to be enchanted by wool, and passionately enamoured 
 of silk. But it is an advantageous attestation to be able to
 
 THE ANTHROPOPHAGI. 127 
 
 establish the fact, that such a nation of epicures has pronounced 
 you fat, plump, and tender has thought you would make ex- 
 cellent food and has decided in privy council that you should 
 not be boiled and seasoned with rice, like an old hen; not 
 cooked en ragout, and your flavour heightened with violent, 
 highly seasoned condiments, like insipid, tasteless meat, but 
 be honourably put upon the spit or the gridiron, and be served 
 up au cresson, or simply in your own gravy. 
 
 I am every day in fear, my dear friend, of receiving a letter 
 from some companion of your travels, which may say : 
 
 " MONSIEUR, 
 
 The 12th of August, 1852, the King of the isle 
 
 of having given a grand dinner on the occasion of his 
 
 nuptials with the Princess , of the isle of , I have 
 
 the grief of announcing to you that our unfortunate friend 
 figured in it as the centime dish. If these details can bring 
 any relief to your sorrow, I may say that the savages found 
 him excellent, as we always found him, alas! before this fatal 
 catastrophe, <fec. &c." 
 
 But there are now scarcely any anthropophagi ; men have 
 given over eating one another. They kill one another, it is 
 true, for a yes or a no, in the form of a duel ; they kill one 
 another without knowing why, as military men, and under 
 the pretext of glory ; they ruin one another, they imprison 
 one another, they deprive one another of bread, air, liberty, 
 &c. From these observations, and a thousand others that 
 could be made, it appears that if they no longer eat each 
 other, it is not from any feeling of charity or neighbourly 
 love, but simply because it is now acknowledged and esta- 
 blished that man is a food, more than mediocre, hard to digest. 
 and of a disagreeable flavour. 
 
 I have no great reason then, my friends, to fear that you 
 should be on the spit at the time I am writing these lines; if 
 you were, I should grieve, both on your account and that of 
 these unhappy savages, to think that unless you have acquired 
 a little embonpoint in your peregrinations, they would make 
 but a bad dinner. 
 
 I am at this moment in the midst of a nation of real
 
 128 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 anthropophagi, who, on account of their size, are not able to 
 eat up a man at a single repast, but who, nevertheless, feed 
 greedily upon his blood. I am in the midst of them, and 
 remain quietly ; I examine them ; I study their manners ; I 
 sacrifice myself for the instruction of other men ! 
 
 I speak of a kind of ferocious beast, which flies and pounces 
 down upon man with the velocity of lightning, seizes and 
 fastens upon his naked flesh, and plunges an instrument into 
 him of which this is the agreeable nature. From an etui, or 
 case situated on his head, there issue five or six weapons, some 
 dentillated and barbed, others pointed or trenchant. When 
 he has sufficiently scarified our flesh with each of these blades, 
 which are all hollow, he proceeds to suck as much of our 
 blood as his intestines can contain, which he takes care, the 
 while, to free from all that could occupy room or cause incon- 
 venience. 
 
 This animal is known under the general name of gnat, and 
 it requires a very strong microscope to see and ascertain the 
 forms of its weapons; but if we consider the injury it does 
 us, not relatively to the pain we suffer, but proportionally 
 to its size, relatively to the manner in which it proceeds, to 
 its voracity, which leads it to expose itself to death, without 
 an effort to shun it, when it has once tasted our blood, and 
 until it can contain no more, until it is swelled like a wine 
 skin, and not to be recognised ; if we consider also the cruel 
 shape of its weapons, which, in addition, are all poisoned, as is 
 proved by the irritation and turnout's which their wounds 
 cause it must be confessed that we do not know in nature 
 any animal so ferocious and sanguinary. 
 
 Reclined upon the grass, and leaning over a part of the 
 rivulet which has overflowed its banks a little upon the turf, 
 and has left a strip of stagnant water, my attention is attracted 
 by some singular little fish; they have something of the 
 shape, and are about the size of a strong pin, of which, with 
 its head, two-thirds of its length have been cut off; or rather 
 tboy are little fish resembling the dolphins of fable, the dol- 
 phins of painters, the dolphins of Arion, but reduced to the 
 size of a large pin's head. They are remarkably vivacious. 
 When in repose, they allow themselves to float on the surface 
 of the water, with their heads downwards, because the con-
 
 THE ANTHROPOPHAGI. 129 
 
 duit through which they breathe is placed at the extremity of 
 the tail. If they are the least disturbed, they roll themselves 
 up, swim with the greatest rapidity, dart down, and disappear. 
 They feed, most probably, upon the imperceptible insects 
 which they find in the water, cr upon certain parts of earth 
 or slime. 
 
 But this is the most important moment of the life of our 
 little dolphins. You may see them change their position; 
 their head is no longer under the water; it floats on the sur- 
 face, it swells, and its brown skin splits and opens. Then 
 from that split issues a head, soon followed by a body; you 
 recognise the gnat, which has accomplished the phases of its 
 first existence, and which is about to enter into a new life. 
 The cast-off dress it has quitted its ancient skin becomes 
 for it a little boat which carries it upon the water ; for this 
 insect, which but now lived in the water, and would have 
 died at the end of two or three seconds if you had taken it 
 out of it, has now nothing so much to fear as water ; it would 
 inevitably perish if it touched it. Then it is placed upright 
 upon its ancient skin, like a rower in his boat. The least 
 breath of air is for it, as you may imagine, a fearful tempest, 
 considering the mortal dangers the water would make it run, 
 and the shallowness of its boat. The boat floats here and 
 there at hazard, whilst it completes its endeavours to extricate 
 itself; then, if it achieves this result without being wetted, it 
 flies away, and carries on its pursuit of man, till the day at 
 which the care for its posterity shall bring it back to the edge 
 of some pool or other stagnant water. There, crouched close 
 upon the verge, it gives to the water little parcels of eggs, 
 which leave the dry ground, and float about upon the surface. 
 At the end of a few days, by an opening in the bottom of the 
 eggs, little dolphins escape, which find themselves thus born 
 in the water, where they are to live till the time of their 
 transformation. 
 
 It is that which just now drew that pretty water-wagtail 
 to the bank of the rivulet, that which made her determine 
 to place her nest at the root of the white poplar, where I dis- 
 covered it. Gnats form the principal food of swallows, and 
 it is probable that they take their migratory flight when there 
 are no more gnats to be found.
 
 130 A TOUR BOUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 In the same strip of water there are some elongated worms, 
 of a beautiful red colour; they pass their lives in making 
 movements so rapid, that they might be pronounced figures 
 of eight. There will come a moment in which they will be 
 metamorphosed into tipulse a sort of innocent gnat, which 
 eats nobody, that I know of, but is confounded with gnats in 
 the same penalty and the same food by birds. These trans- 
 formations are very curious spectacles, and we have only to 
 stoop a little to enjoy them. During the whole summer, from 
 mid-day to four o'clock, we cannot stand over a pool of stag- 
 nant water without seeing, in a quarter of an hour, twenty or 
 thirty dolphins restore captive gnats to the sun and air, 
 absolutely just as the whale cast Jonah upon the shore. 
 
 Nowithstanding our just cause of complaint against gnats, 
 we must acknowledge that they are prettier insects than they 
 at first appear to be. They have in the fore-part of their heads 
 antennae, in rich tufts ; and their eyes, which in certain aspects 
 look like little emeralds, become, when seen in another light, 
 very sparkling rubies. 
 
 I have been stung more than ten times to-day, whilst 
 studying the arms of these anthropophagi, upon which I could 
 now, if I did not pride myself above all things upon being 
 an ignoramus, and preserving the reputation of one, write 
 a special treatise de armis.
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 THE CADDIS ASPECTS OP DEATH FLOWING WATER DRLSS THE 
 LEAP-CUTTER BEE. 
 
 AT the bottom of the rivulet are little morsels of reeds, little 
 sticks of a few lines in length, which have nothing left but 
 the bark. They are houses, in which the phryganes* suffi- 
 ciently ugly greyish cocoons, feed upon aquatic herbs, and 
 await the moment of issuing from the water in the form of 
 little butterflies your pardon, savants! of little noctuellcz, 
 which only fly by night. Previously to this transformation, 
 there comes a moment at which they fall asleep grubs, to 
 awake flies. They know that during the time in which they 
 take no food, they have enemies who have no notion of such 
 abstinence themselves, and to whom, during their sleep, they 
 could oppose no resistance. They know how to spin, and 
 they employ themselves in closing up the two ends of their 
 mansion. 
 
 It has often been said, as an example of an invincible argu- 
 
 * Phryganea grandis, the Caddis-fly. ED.
 
 132 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 ment, that a door must be either open or shut. Our logicians 
 forget that a door may be left ajar. If the phryganea were 
 to close up its dwelling tightly at both ends, it would no 
 longer be in the water; or at least the water, which would be 
 confined with it, being never renewed, would in a short time 
 lose the qualities necessary for supporting life. It spins a 
 little grating at the two extremities of its habitation, aad 
 then a cable, which it fastens to some blades of grass upon 
 the bank ; this dene, it sleeps in tranquillity, awaiting a more 
 happy and a more brilliant life : it falls asleep in the water, 
 to awake in the sunshine and the beautiful blue of the air. 
 
 Here, with its roots almost in the water, is a tussilage, 
 vulgarly called coifs foot, doubtless on account of the form 
 and size of its leaves. Its leaves, which are round and as 
 large as the palm of the hand, will not appear before summer; 
 at present it only shows its blossoms. It is the earliest of 
 aquatic flowers ; * it is a marguerite of a brilliant yellow, the 
 rays of which are as fine and slender as hairs. Ancient 
 medicine, with Hippocrates at its head, for a long time at- 
 tributed to this flower a salutary influence upon the lungs ; 
 its name, tussilage, implies that it would remove cough. It 
 was by its means that coughs and catarrhal affections were 
 treated, till science, never stopping in its progress, discovered 
 that it produced no effect, either upon the lungs or their 
 diseases, and that it was good for nothing but to adorn the 
 banks of rivulets in the spring quite a sufficient merit too. 
 Unfortunately, it was not till the end of about a thousand 
 years that science arrived at a conviction upon this point. 
 Nevertheless we still find, in almost all medical laboratories, 
 a large bottle with a red and gold label, upon which is written 
 TiLSsilago farfara. It is but one bottle the more, and forma 
 part of the decoration of the laboratory. 
 
 Most doctors I say most, in order to except justly some 
 whom I love with all my heart most doctors are like sorcerers, 
 who prefer telling you what is being done at that same 
 moment by the great Mogul in his court, to informing you 
 what it is o'clock by the watch they have in their pockets. 
 
 Physicians cure the plague, of which some deny the exist- 
 ence, and which is unknown in our climates leprosy, which 
 no longer exists but in the East and in books; but they 
 
 * In England the colt's foot is commoner on waste clayey orjchalky ground than 
 near water.
 
 ASPECTS OF DEATH. 133 
 
 seldom cure a corn on your toe, and never a cold in the 
 head. 
 
 But it appears here as if some gnome were launching arrows 
 which spring from the earth, but are held by their feathered 
 extremity. It is the Sagittara, so common on the banks of 
 tranquil waters; the leaves are formed exactly like the iron 
 head of a lance, and are supported by a long, straight, and 
 stiff foot-stalk, which represents the shaft of the arrow. 
 From the bosom of its leaves springs a stalk which bears a 
 spike of white flowers, composed of three rounded petals, the 
 base of which is of reddish-violet colour. The top of the 
 flower is occupied by male blossoms, loaded with yellow 
 stamens, which, with the white and violet of the flower, form 
 a delightful harmony of colours. Underneath are the female 
 blossoms, which have no stamens. The stalks of this plant 
 contain a species of pith of a very agreeable flavour. 
 
 A kind of cress with little round shining leaves, grows 
 along the edge of the water, and even into the water; it is 
 ornamented with little flowers of a beautiful dark blue.* 
 
 But here is the queen of the meadows, f She does not 
 creep ; not she ! Amidst the other plants, she proudly raises 
 her head from a rich and tufted foliage, of deep green above, 
 and inclined to white beneath. This stalk bears triumphantly 
 a beautiful thyrsus of charming little white flowers ; bloom- 
 ing at the bottom of the thyrsus, they present at the top 
 buds, whose form reminds us of the bud of the orange blossom ; 
 its flowers, whose odour is sweet and delicate, mixed with 
 wine, give it the aroma of Malmsey wine, which renders one 
 doubtful as to the following fact : 
 
 It is known that a duke of Clarence, brother of a king of 
 England, when condemned to death, as an only favour, re- 
 quested to be drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. There 
 are moments in a man's life in which he desires death. It is 
 the dying only that is disagreeable; the aspect of death, 
 therefore, changes much, according to circumstances. 
 
 Death is not that great invariable skeleton which is gene- 
 rally presented to us; it lias all sorts of forms and figures, 
 and in the number there are many that seem much less 
 disagreeable than others. 
 
 Contemplate it in war. It is accompanied by the noise of 
 
 Veronisa Btccabunga. t Spircea Ulmaria.
 
 131 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 trumpets and drums, surrounded by smoke and the stupifying 
 smell of powder. Glorious and noble, promising honours, 
 ribbons, rank, with the sweet rewards of love and admiration, 
 it invites you to follow it, and intoxicated man throws himself 
 willingly into its arms. 
 
 Contemplate it in a bed. The wretched being who awaits it 
 does not breathe the exciting odour of powder, but the debi- 
 litating odour of drugs and plasters. He dies in detail; he 
 dies weak, fearful, idiotical, clinging with all his soul to life, 
 and with his nails to the clothes and curtains of his bed, and 
 to the sheets which will serve for his shroud. 
 
 Who can assure us that the wine in which Clarence died 
 was true Malmsey wine 1 Certainly, the man who had chosen 
 this sort of death, must have felt a last and a bitter pang, if 
 he perceived, at the critical moment, that ne nad been de- 
 ceived in the quality of the wine contained in the butt which 
 was to be his coffin. 
 
 Certain little round insects with hard wings, like those of 
 beetles, are amusing themselves on the water in a singular 
 fashion : they form circles with a rapidity that fatigues the 
 eye. This must be a movement that has its charms, since 
 they are not the only people who make a practice of it ; but 
 it is a religious ceremony. The insect is called whirligig * the 
 priests are styled dervishes. 
 
 Another, larger and of an elliptic shape, is an hydrophilus ; 
 it has six feet, the hinder ones of which are formed like oars, 
 and permit it to come to the surface of the water, from which 
 it takes flight, and to descend to the bottom, where it finds 
 its subsistence. It lays its eggs in a silken bag, which it 
 fastens to the under part of the leaf of an aquatic plant, which 
 it closes when they are laid. The larva, that is to say, the 
 insect, which bears a different form, and which will, at a later 
 period, become a hydrophilus, comes out of the water when 
 it is born, goes to bury itself in the earth, a little above the 
 water, in a hole, from which it will come out at a future time 
 a perfect hydrophilus. 
 
 When I was speaking about the cress, I forgot to name 
 a circumstance which, perhaps, you would never guess; it is 
 that, with botanists, the cress of the fountain, which grows hi 
 
 Gjrinus natator. ED.
 
 FLOWING WATER. 135 
 
 the water, which they call Sisymbrium nasturtium, and the 
 yellow gillyflower, which grows on old walls, are, excepting in 
 some very trifling details, one and the same thing : the de- 
 scription they give of the two plants is almost identical. 
 
 There is an indefinable charm in the aspect and the noise 
 of waters. There are people who pretend to be serious, because 
 they go through their follies with a frowning air, and in 
 clothes of certain colours, who pretend exclusively to be 
 grave, because their childishnesses only cause others to laugh. 
 These people consider it a sign of idiocy to look at and watch 
 flowing water. I here declare that it is an occupation that 
 has a singular attraction for me, and is one of those to which 
 I abandon myself with the greatest ardour. Flowing water is 
 at once a picture and a music, which causes to flow at the 
 same time from my brain, like a limpid and murmuring 
 rivulet, sweet thoughts, charming reveries, and melancholy 
 remembrances. 
 
 There are not so many watchers of flowing waters as is 
 generally imagined. Such a one passes an hour with his 
 elbow on the parapet of a bridge, and watches an angler, 
 looks at the horses which draw a barge, or both looks at and 
 listens to the pretty washing-maidens singing. But to recline, 
 buried in deep grass in bloom, under the blue-leafed willows, 
 follow with the eye a river or a rivulet, look at the reeds it 
 bends in its course, and the grass it bears away with it, the 
 green dragon-flies which alight upon the rosy blossoms of the 
 flowering reed,* or on the white or violet flowers of the 
 Sagittarius, or on the little white anemones, blooming over a 
 large carpet of verdure, verdure like the green hair of a 
 naiad, and to see nothing but that ; to listen to the brushing 
 of their gauze wings, and the murmuring of the water against 
 the banks, and the noise of a breathing of wind among the 
 leaves of the willows, and hear nothing but that; to forget 
 everything else, to feel one's heart filled with unspeakable 
 joy, to feel one's soul expand and blossom in the sun, like the 
 little blue flowers of the forget-me-not and the rosy blossoms 
 of the flowering reed; to be sensible of no desire and of no 
 fear but that of seeing a large white cloud, which is rolling 
 up from the horizon, ascend in the heavens and conceal the 
 gun for a time; that is what I call looking at flowing water, 
 
 * Butomus umbellatus.
 
 136 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 that is not a pleasure, it is a happiness, which I reckon 
 among the greatest that it has been given to me to taste in 
 the course of my life. 
 
 I spoke to you just now of the washing-maidens, who sing 
 as they prosecute their classical occupation, without a thought, 
 I dare say, of Homer, on the banks of rivers. I heard one 
 ay, and a pretty one too sing the following song, which I 
 shall never forget : 
 
 " Les hommes sont trompeurs, 
 
 La chose est Men certaine ; 
 
 Sont-ils aupres de vous : 
 
 Mademoiselle, je vous aime ! 
 " Sont-ils aupres de vous, 
 
 Mademoiselle, je vous aime ! 
 
 En sont-ils eloignes, 
 
 Ne disent plus de meme. 
 " En sont-ils eloignes, 
 
 Ne disent plus de meme. 
 
 Rencontrent-ils leurs amis : 
 
 Connais-tu Mamzelle telle ? 
 " Rencontrent-ils leurs amis : 
 
 Connais-tu Mamzelle telle ? 
 
 Elle croit, de bonne foi, 
 
 Que je suis amoureux d'elle. 
 " Elle croit, de bonne foi, 
 
 Que je suis amoureux d'elle. 
 
 Pour lui fair' voir que non, 
 
 J' fais 1'amour pres d' chez elle. 
 " Pour lui fair" voir que non, 
 
 J' fais 1'amour pres d' chez elle. 
 
 Cherchez un autre amant, 
 
 J'ai une autre maitresse. 
 " Cherchez un autre amant, 
 
 J'ai une autre maitresse." 
 
 " Je n'en chercherai pas, 
 
 J'en ai a la douzaine. 
 " Je n'en chercherai pas, 
 
 J'en ai a la douzaine. 
 
 Et de ce que j'aimais, 
 
 Vous faisiez le treizieme." 
 
 As I was seated beneath a large ash, a musk -beetle* fell 
 from it; and, in spite of its odour, which, without being 
 extremely bad, is insupportable on account of its strength, 
 I held it some time in my hand to admire the brilliant 
 green colour, shot with gold, in which it is clothed. Many 
 
 * Cerambyx moschatus. ED.
 
 DRESS. 
 
 137 
 
 insects owe their magnificence to their wings alone, the 
 musk-beetle is all over of the same colour and the same 
 splendour. 
 
 THE MUSK-BEETLE. 
 
 This reminds me of the adornments of which men aro 
 often so proud, and which both sexes so laboriously employ 
 to please and seduce each other. I can easily understand 
 that an insect, which glitters in the sun. with the richest 
 colours, should be proud of its dress, I could pardon the 
 bird, which in the morning shakes itself in the earliest ray of 
 the dawn, and, on finding itself richly clothed, should be 
 a little vain of its plumage, because the wings of the but- 
 terfly and the feathers of the bird belong to them, and are 
 parts of them ; but is there anything that ought to render 
 them more humble than the toilette of a man or a woman 1 
 Is it not, in the first place, a melancholy admission, that our 
 body is a carcase which we can only embellish by concealing 
 it, an object for which we employ means the most violent 
 and extraordinary 1 That ring, now, that ring of gold, set 
 off by a large pearl, worth, perhaps, a thousand crowns, has 
 been dug from the bowels of the earth, and raked from the 
 abyss of the sea ! and its only object is to conceal a very 
 small part of the hand, which appears to you less beautiful 
 than a little metal and the secretion of an oyster ; for women 
 who are quite satisfied with their hands never wear rings. 
 
 And all the rest of your dress is composed of the cast-off
 
 138 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 apparel of animals which browse in the meadows, or of 
 insects that crawl beneath your feet; there is scarcely one 
 from which you do not borrow a portion of its covering. 
 Your grandest and most splendid attire is composed of the 
 shreds you steal from one or another, from sheep and from 
 silk-worms. 
 
 Observe that woman now passing : yesterday she was mild 
 and good, to-day you see she is haughty and insolent. What 
 has created this change in her 1 Nothing, only she has upon 
 her head a feather plucked from the tail of an ostrich ! How 
 proud that ostrich ought to be, which has so many more, and 
 all its own ! 
 
 But it will be even worse to-morrow, when she will envelop 
 herself in a shawl made of the hair of certain goats from 
 Thibet goats which I have seen, and which really do not 
 appear anything like so proud of this hair as the ladies are 
 who borrow it of them. 
 
 And that robe, the great value of which produces such 
 disdainful glances from other women, is nothing but the web 
 in which a large worm, called a silk-worm, enveloped itself a 
 web which it abandoned with disdain as soon as it had become 
 a white and plain moth ! 
 
 It is a singular thing to associate this humility, which leads 
 man to conceal his real figure, and adorn himself with the 
 superfluities of insects and animals, with the superiority which 
 he attributes to himself over all nature. It must be further 
 confessed, that a man who should unite in himself the facul- 
 ties of certain insects, who could, like the hydrophilus, fly in 
 the air, and plunge to the depths of the waters, would only 
 have to pass for a god among other men, by not opposing 
 himself too strongly to the natural servility which is the 
 portion of most men, even of those who talk most loudly 
 about liberty and independence. Read history : a tyrant has 
 never been overthrown, but for the benefit, more cr less 
 immediate, of another tyrant. To-day, when we pride our- 
 selves upon no longer saluting a king, we unharness the horses 
 of dancers, singers, and courtesans harness ourselves in their 
 places and take a pride in dragging their carriage in 
 triumph ! 
 
 We were speaking of insects splendidly clothed. Follow with
 
 LEAF-CUTTER BEE. 139 
 
 your eye that which has just lighted on a red poppy : it is 
 uot richly dressed yellow and brown are the colours of its 
 costume ; but it is in possession of another luxury well worth 
 the luxury of clothes. In the middle of a walk there is a 
 little hole, of the size of the quill of a pen; that is the 
 entrance to the house which that sort of bee makes itself in 
 the earth, by carrying the soil away from its little cavern, 
 grain by grain. It is not chance that leads it to the poppy; 
 it is about to cut a sheet of crimson tapestry, with which to 
 decorate its home. See, it has cut with its teeth, from the 
 edge of one of the petals of the flower, a little piece, which 
 forms very regularly the half of an oval ; it seizes the piece, folds 
 it in its claws, and bears it away to its abode. The entrance 
 is narrow, and nearly three inches deep. The piece of red satin 
 is a little ragged, but it applies it to the partition, and 
 stretches it properly : it will require twenty pieces to cover 
 the chamber. But you will pardon this luxury when I tell 
 you that that apartment, so richly hung, is the cradle of the 
 child it will soon- bring into the world. The tapestry is 
 fitted, and it sets out again. It is not sufficient that the 
 future inhabitant of the pretty cell should be well lodged ; it 
 must have abundance of food provided, for its mother will 
 not be able to bring it any : she will be dead before the egg 
 from which it is to issue shall be hatched. It brings in its 
 feet the dust of the stamens of flowers, which it mingles with 
 honey, and of which it makes a little heap. Then, and not 
 until then, it lays a little egg near the heap, from which, at 
 a later period, will issue a worm destined to become a bee. 
 But this is not all : if the house were left open, some ichneu- 
 mon might come as an enemy, or ants might devour the 
 honey. The bee then takes down the hangings of the peri- 
 style of her house, that is to say, the little quill-shaped con- 
 duit which leads to the apartment, and which, like the rest, 
 was covered with poppy-leaves ; it then pushes this part of 
 the tapestry to the entrance of the chamber, after which it 
 fills the passage with earth so completely, that it is almost im- 
 possible to discover any trace of it. 
 
 Let us return to the banks of my rivulet, from which this 
 little bee has lured us. Here is a shrub whose branches are 
 of a beautiful yellow ; it is the willow, whose young branches
 
 140 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 are known by the name of osiers. These flowers attract a 
 great number of bees. 
 
 A vast deal is said of willows by the ancients. 
 
 The Psalmist relates that the Israelite slaves suspended 
 their musical instruments from the willows of Babylon. 
 Virgil describes Galatea hiding herself behind the willows : 
 
 " Malo me Galatea petit, lasciva puella, 
 Et fugit ad salices et se cupit ante videri." 
 
 He speaks in a hundred places of the bitter willows upon 
 which the goats browse, and of the willows of a blue green, 
 which bees are fond of. 
 
 The satined white stem of the birch shoots up without 
 knots to a great height, and gives to the wind, upon branches 
 of extreme delicacy, its light foliage which trembles at the 
 least breath. It was the birch that had the honour of sup- 
 plying our ancient universities with rods. The Finlanders 
 substitute the leaves of birch for those of the tea-plant; the 
 Swedes extract a syrup from the sap, of which they make a 
 spirituous liquor. In London, they make champagne of it. 
 The most virtuous uses to which it is applied, are brooms and 
 wooden shoes. 
 
 Pliny speaks of the birch and of the rods : 
 
 " Betula, terribilis magistratuum virgis." 
 
 The dwarf-elder spreads in the sun, at about three feet from 
 the ground, its rich umbels of white flowers, each umbel as 
 large as my two hands ; its black berries are full of a violet- 
 coloured juice, with which, according to Virgil, the god Pan 
 had his face smeared, in compliance with a whimsical custom 
 of the ancient Romans, who painted their gods on solemn 
 occasions. 
 
 And here my rivulet disappears under the grass, under the 
 yellow-blossomed Iris, under a crowd of aquatic plants and 
 trees, which love coolness and moisture. It is necessary to 
 make the tour of a group of trees, if we wish to meet with it 
 again at the spot where it throws itself into a sort of large 
 pool, surrounded by willows, reeds, and Iris.
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 FLOWERS, AND THEIR MEMORIES. 
 
 A TOUCHING sentiment has consecrated certain plants and 
 certain trees to those who have departed this life : the cypress, 
 which elevates its black foliage like a pyramid; the weeping 
 willow, which envelopes a tomb with its pendent branches; 
 the honeysuckle, which grows in cemeteries more beautifully 
 and vigorously, than elsewhere, and which spreads a sweet 
 odour, that seems to be the soul of the dead exhaling and 
 ascending to heaven; the periwinkle, with its dark green 
 foliage and blossoms of lapis blue, so fresh and so charm-
 
 142 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 ing, and which the peasantry call the violet of the dead. But 
 there are other flowers which associate themselves with certain 
 joys, and certain dead griefs likewise; for forgetfulness is the 
 death of things which no longer live but in the heart. 
 
 These flowers return every year, at a fixed period, like 
 anniversaries, to repeat to me many recitals of the past, of 
 perished trust and dead hope, of which nothing more remains 
 than that which remains of the beloved dead a tender sad- 
 ness, and a melancholy which softens the heart. 
 
 These ideas come back to me on seeing these forget-me- 
 nots, these pretty little blue flowers, creeping almost into the 
 water. 
 
 Perhaps to all the world but me this large lime-tree is a 
 magnificent tent of transparent green; you see birds hop 
 about in its branches, and butterflies, which love silence and 
 shade, flirt among the leaves like nymphs and fauns, and you 
 inhale the sweet odour of its flowers. But for me, it seems 
 that the wind which agitates these leaves, repeats to me all 
 the things I have said and heard at the foot of another lime- 
 tree, in far bygone times; the shade of the leaves of the tree, 
 and the rays of the sun which they break, form for me images 
 which I can only see there; that odour intoxicates me, 
 troubles my reason, and plunges me into ecstasies and visions. 
 The Pythoness of old saw the future at the moment of inspi- 
 ration ; / behold the past again, but not as past ; I tread over 
 again every one of the steps I have made in life, every- 
 thing lives again for me, with the colours of the vestments, 
 the words that were spoken and the sound of the voice. I do 
 not forget the least circumstance of a single instant; by re- 
 calling a word, I see again a thousand details which I did not 
 know I had remarked; I behold the folds of her robe and 
 the reflection of her hair ; I see how the sun and the shade 
 played upon her countenance, and what flowers blossomed in 
 the grass, and what odours were exhaled in the air, and what 
 distant noise was heard ; I see, I breathe, I hear all this ! 
 
 If my eyes fall upon one of those ravenelles, of those gilly- 
 flowers which blossom on the walls, if I breathe its balsamic 
 perfume, I become the prey of an enchantment. I am twenty 
 years old ; I find myself no longer in this garden ; I ascend 
 a flight of stone steps, green with moss, in the crevices of
 
 FLOWERS, AND THEIR MEMORIES. 143 
 
 which blossom gillyflowers, and my heart beats as if I were 
 about to find her in the garden. That convolvulus, those 
 beautiful violets, white, rose-coloured, streaked bells, which 
 climb up trees and shrubs, tell me on what day it was we 
 sowed some of its seeds together, and at what hour of the 
 day, and what was the form at that instant of the white 
 clouds in the blue heavens, and how, on rising up, as we had 
 stooped to put the seeds in the ground, our hair touched; and 
 my hair again seems to communicate an electric shock to my 
 heart. And, afterwards, how both arose early to see our con- 
 volvulus, whose flowers close and fade as soon as they are 
 touched by the sun. I still know which of the plants bloomed 
 first ; it was a large bell of a beautiful dark blue, passing to 
 violet by insensible gradations as the eye approached the 
 bottom of the flower, which was white. There were some 
 white ones, divided by a rose-coloured, faint blue, or violet 
 cross ; others of a pale rose, with a deeper-coloured cross ; 
 some striped with white, rose, and violet. 
 
 And the large Passe-Roses, with their noble and majestic 
 port, like that of Italian poplars. There were lime-trees in the 
 garden, a tuft of yellow blossoms always filled with bees, 
 black i and orange drones, and large black flies with violet 
 wings. It appears to me when I here see the yellow Passe- 
 Roses, and black flies with violet wings, and bees, and brown 
 and orange drones, it appears to me that these things, like those 
 of another time, draw other circumstances after them, like the 
 beads of a rosary. 
 
 Blossom, blossom ! graceful monuments which I have raised 
 to my beloved dead, to all that I have believed, to all that 
 I have loved, to all that I have hoped, to all that which like 
 thee has blossomed in my heart, to all that has faded, but for 
 ever, whilst every summer ye return with your beauty, your 
 youth, and your perfume !
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 
 MUSIC DRAGON-FLIES THE WATER-LILY AND THE VALL1SXERIA. 
 
 THE alders, willows of different sorts, and poplars of three 
 or four kinds, separate us from a little road, which leads to a 
 pool, surrounded by reeds and rushes. There, through the 
 cool, limpid water, we can plainly discern the shining pebbles, 
 the sand, and the fish. 
 
 There is a vast distance between the reed, one of the first 
 musical instruments of the ancients, and the piano, the flute, 
 the bassoon, the harp, and the violin; and yet it is to be 
 ibserved that the miracles of music are to be referred to the
 
 THE POOL. P. 144.
 
 MUSIC. 1-15 
 
 period at which great musicians piped on straws or reeds, or 
 struck three chords stretched over the shell of a tortoise. 
 
 " Ille ego qui quondam gracili modulatus avena." 
 
 " Orpheus viduos sonora solabatur testudine ainores." 
 
 Music then was able to appease the fury of wild beasts, to 
 persuade stones to collect themselves into a wall, and cleave 
 solidly to one another, and, when breathed through a flute, to 
 lull Argus himself to sleep. 
 
 Now-a-days, when so many instruments have been invented 
 and perfected, now-a-days, when not only the musicians of 
 past ages are despised, but even, and particularly, those of 
 yesterday, now-a-days, so far from building cities, appeasing 
 lions, or saddling dolphins, men are with great difficulty 
 brought together to listen to music at all. At the opera now, 
 to induce people to be present, whilst some instruments are 
 blown through, and others beaten upon, it is found necessary 
 to exhibit to them objects of every description to attract the 
 eye, because they know that many men come rather to see 
 dancers than to hear music. All sorts of means must be 
 had recourse to, all kinds of falsehoods invented, to persuade 
 people that all the world goes there : without that delusion, 
 no one would go at all. 
 
 Are you aware how many degradations the poor fellows 
 who give concerts are reduced to, in order to persuade people 
 to give them a few shillings, under the pretence of hearing 
 pieces which they hear sixty times over every winter ? Do 
 you know what sad baits they must lay, what humiliations 
 they must endure, what follies they must submit to ? 
 
 Midas preferred the flute of Marsyas to the lyre of Apollo. 
 The flute of Marsyas was composed of seven oaten straws, or 
 reeds; the lyre of Apollo was a tortoise-shell, over which 
 three strings were stretched. Apollo was angry, and he was 
 less in the wrong than angry people generally are. In fact, 
 the two instruments must have been equally tiresome to 
 listen to perfectly insupportable; there was no choice to 
 make, and the sentence of superiority of the oaten straws 
 over the tortoise-shell, pronounced by King Midas, must have 
 arisen from malice.
 
 146 A TOUE, ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 Apollo acted then exactly as many pianists would do. if 
 they dared; he skinned his rival, and crowned his judge 
 with ass's ears. 
 
 King Midas concealed his ears as well as he was able, but 
 he was obliged to confide the secret to his barber, who, being 
 unable to keep it, dug a hole in the earth, and when the 
 secret was choking him, he went and relieved his throat by 
 putting his head into the hole, and saying: "Midas King 
 Midas has ass's ears." Some reeds grew in this hole, and when 
 they were agitated by the wind, instead of simply murmur- 
 ing, as others do, and as honest reeds ought to do, they said : 
 " Midas King Midas has ass's ears." 
 
 The reed (calamus) was the first pen invented. Of reeds, 
 arrows and canes were made : 
 
 "Lethalis arundo." VIRG. 
 
 " Equitare in arundine longa." Hon. 
 
 A sort of grub, of a greenish grey colour, crawls out of the 
 mud, leaves the water at the bottom of which it has hitherto 
 lived, and fastens itself to a small reed; it then sticks into 
 the bark of the reed two little very sharp claws which it has 
 on each foot. After a few minutes of immobility, you may 
 perceive its eyes become brilliant, and its back split and 
 open ; then a head appears through the opening ; after this 
 head come the body and wings of a libellule, or demoiselle. 
 The wings are folded and shapeless; the body is soft, and all 
 in a heap. It waits till the air without, and life within, may 
 put all in proper condition; at the end of half-an-hour, it 
 shakes itself, and flies away, light, slender, and richly adorned 
 with the colours of the emerald and the turquoise, and at 
 least as brilliant as either. 
 
 1 now see a crowd of them sporting in the air, or lighted 
 upon the reeds ; some of them dart away, and disappear on 
 the wing, but return a few minutes afterwards. They live on 
 prey, and devour the insects of the air, as they ate those of 
 the water, when in their first shape. 
 
 Among all insects, in these, perhaps, there is the least 
 resemblance between the males and females. Contrary to 
 what is observed in all other insects, the male is at first much 
 larger than the female, and their vestments are quite different.
 
 DRAGON-FLIES. 1 47 
 
 I can see some which are big; they are striped with yellow 
 and green-tinted black. Their males are generally of a slate- 
 colour; some few males, however, are yellow as well as the 
 females. Some are of a dark and shining blue, with black 
 spots at the extremities of the wings; their females are of a 
 beautiful golden green. 
 
 Their manner of making love is singular for insects, al- 
 though by no means uncommon with men. It is by per- 
 severance, and the annoyance they cause by an almost hostile 
 assiduity, that the males succeed in seducing the beauty that 
 has won their hearts, generally from the middle of September 
 till the middle of October. We shall not be long before we 
 see an example, for there is a green and gold female just 
 alighted on a rose-flowered reed. She glitters coquettishly in 
 the sun : a blue male perceives her ; he rushes towards her, 
 seizes her by the throat, and carries her cff through the air, 
 and will not let her go till she has consented to crown 
 his flame. 
 
 The waters and their banks have their trees, their flowers, 
 and their butterflies; the last of which are these libellules. 
 There is another kind of libellule, or demoiselle, which, to 
 you or me, singularly resembles that we have just been 
 looking at, but between which naturalists discover great 
 differences. We shall not meet with them here : they have 
 not lived under water, as the others have done ; on the con- 
 trary, it was in the sand, and beneath the most ardent sun, 
 that they went through their first state. It is more than 
 probable we may fall in with them in the course of our 
 journey. 
 
 Upon the surface of the water are spread some large round 
 and shining leaves, of a sombre green colour; upon these 
 leaves bloom beautiful double white roses. It is the water-lily 
 of our ponds. As long as there is any cold to be dreaded, it 
 keeps its leaves rolled up under the water; but as soon as 
 fine weather seems certain, it elongates the stalks of its leaves, 
 and they rise and spread themselves upon the surface of the 
 water ; the flowers soon spring from the water as buds, and 
 then blow : at night they close their petals, and resume the 
 form of buds. When the flower is fecundated, it no longer 
 requires either air or sun ; it again descends beneath the
 
 148 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 surface, and does not rise again. It is there the fruit is 
 formed and ripened, and the seed it contains will be sown in 
 the earth at the bottom of the pool. 
 
 In another corner is the yellow-blossomed water-lily, whose 
 flower is simple, but whose habits are exactly the same as 
 the other. 
 
 There is another plant which lives equally in the waters, 
 but which is not to be found in our gardens ; it is the vallis- 
 neria. It has not, as the water-lily, the male and female 
 united in the same corolla; they are upon two different 
 flowers, as we have already seen in the case with some other 
 plants ; but here the separation appears more cruel and more 
 invincible. The female flowers are placed upon a long spiral 
 footstalk, by means of which they bloom on the surface, like 
 those of the water-lily; whilst the male flowers are retained 
 
 VALLISNERIA SPIBALIS. 
 
 at the bottom, and at a great depth, by a very short stalk. 
 But at the proper season, the male flower detaches itself, 
 ascends in a state of freedom to the surface, lavishes his 
 caresses, and is carried away by the current. The female 
 flower then returns under water, to mature and sow its seed. 
 
 Here the aponogeton distachion, a white flower, with black 
 stamens, exhales a sweet odour of vanilla from its corolla, 
 which resembles a shell ; whilst tb.3 menyanthes, which lives
 
 PLANTS AND THEIR SEEDS. 1-19 
 
 near it, appears to be made of white feathers ; and the ponte- 
 deria cordata lifts its large leaves and blue flowers high out 
 of the water. 
 
 Let us leave for a moment the edge of my pool, to go and 
 seek in another corner of the garden the cyclamen, which has 
 for its seed, cases analogous to those of the water-lily and the 
 vallisneria. Its root is a large shapeless tubercle, from which 
 first issue the leaves, which are of the consistency and some- 
 what of the shape of those of certain ivies, but are agreeably 
 streaked with white and clear green. These leaves form a, 
 circle in several rows, leaving in the middle of them a round 
 space where the earth is bare; from this space, at a later 
 period, rise buds of flowers upon peduncules, rolled spirally 
 in the form of a corkscrew, which unbend gradually, and 
 bear, at an elevation of some inches, white or purplish flowers, 
 the centre of which is inclined towards the ground, and the 
 under extremity of the petals pointing upwards. When the 
 flower is withered, when the petals are dry, there remains 
 nothing but an ovary enlarged by fecundation, and a little 
 capsule of reddish green, which contains the seed. The 
 cyclamen has not the same confidence in the air that other 
 plants have ; it contracts its spiral again, and brings back its 
 capsule under the ground, where its seeds will ripen and be 
 ready sown. 
 
 In a very different manner we have seen the scorsoneras 
 and the dandelions give to the winds their seeds crowned with 
 an aigrette in the form of a feather, Most plants allow their 
 seeds to fall at their feet. The balsam launches its seed to 
 a distance. You know the balsam, with its beautiful flowers, 
 red, white, flesh-colour, violet, streaked with white and violet, 
 or white and red; when its seeds are ripe, it splits the capsule 
 which contains them, and launches them to a distance of 
 several feet; they thus frequently escape the hands of the 
 gardener who wishes to preserve them.
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 MEMORIES OF THE DEAD. 
 
 WE now arrive at a group of old elms surrounded by ivy, 
 which, meeting at their tops, form a lofty vaulted canopy, 
 and " forbid the sun to enter." Under this thick shade, how- 
 ever, syringas and honeysuckles nourish; syringas, whose 
 white blossoms partake of the odour of those of the orange ; 
 the honeysuckle has taken possession of such of the trees as 
 have been forgotten by the ivy, and springs up with asto- 
 nishingly rapid growth, sending forth in all directions flowers 
 exhaling one of the sweetest perfumes. The honeysuckle is 
 a plant that seems to devote itself to the tomb, the most 
 magnificent of them being found in cemeteries. We all know 
 the effect produced upon the imagination, if not upon the 
 mind, by the burning of incense in churches, whilst the organ 
 fills the vault of the temple with its powerful voice ; but 
 there is something more religious, more powerful, more solemn, 
 than the harmonious voices of the choristers, or the swelling
 
 MEMORIES OF THE DEAD. 151 
 
 peal of the organ : it is the silence of the tombs. There is 
 a perfume more exciting, more religious even than that of 
 incense; it is that of the honeysuckles which grow over 
 tombs upon which grass has sprung up thick and tufted with 
 them, as quickly as forgetfulness has taken possession of the 
 hearts of the survivors. 
 
 In an evening, when the sun has set, when, alone in a 
 cemetery, we begin to shiver at the sound of our own steps, 
 when we breathe this odour of the honeysuckle, it appears 
 that whilst the body is transformed, and become the flowers 
 which cover the tomb, the blue periwinkle (the violet of the 
 dead) and the honeysuckle, it seems as if the immortal soul 
 was escaping, exhaling in celestial perfume, and ascending 
 above the clouds. 
 
 Many poets have spoken of the worms which devour the 
 dead. This is a horrible image, particularly horrible for those 
 who have consigned to the earth the remains of beloved 
 objects. This worm of the tomb has been invented by these 
 poets, and exists nowhere but in their imaginations; the bodies 
 of those we have loved are not exposed to this insult, this 
 profanation. Learned men that is to say, really learned 
 and scientific men will tell you that it is not true that cor- 
 ruption engenders worms; certain flies must have laid eggs 
 from which such worms could issue, and these flies have 
 not the power of penetrating into the earth below a certain 
 depth. 
 
 Life is much changed since the day on which we have 
 deposited in the earth the body of a fondly-loved person. 
 How many things disturb you of which you had not even 
 dreamed ! It is an image that does not remain with you at 
 all times, but which arises before you all at once, at the most 
 unexpected moments, and which comes to freeze you in the 
 midst of pleasure or of festivity, which checks and dissipates 
 a smile which was about to play upon your lips. Nothing 
 more is required to evoke it, and make it appear, than a word 
 which was familiar to the dead, than a sound, than a voice, 
 than an air sung at a distance, and of which the wind brings 
 you a faint note or two ; nothing more is required than the 
 sight or the odour of a flower, instantly to revive before you 
 that sad yet cherished image, and, as with a freshly sharpened
 
 152 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 weapon, inflict upon your heart anew the pangs of the adieux 
 and the eternal separation. 
 
 From that day, there is a portion of ourselves in the tomb ; 
 from that day, we only give ourselves up to the world and its 
 distractions by escaping from ourselves, at the risk of being 
 at every instant reseized, and brought back to the cemetery. 
 In short, we have buried in their tomb all we once loved 
 with them ; flowers cultivated with them, airs sung together, 
 griefs endured together, pleasures enjoyed together, all 
 things which recal the dead, and speak to you of them. 
 
 I had in a solitary corner of my garden three hyacinths, 
 which my father had planted, and which death did not allow 
 him to see bloom. Every year, the period of their flowering 
 was for me a solemnity, a funereal and religious festival ; it 
 was a melancholy remembrance, which revived and reblos- 
 somed every year, and exhaled certain thoughts with its per- 
 fume. The roots are dead now, and nothing lives of this dear 
 association but in my own heart. 
 
 But what a dear, yet sad, privilege man possesses above all 
 created beings, in being thus able, by memory and thought, 
 to follow those whom he has loved to the tomb, and there 
 shut himself up living with the dead ! What a melancholy 
 privilege ! And yet where is there one among us who would 
 lose it 1 Who is he who would willingly forget all ?
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 THE GOLDEN -CHESTED WREN AMATEURS OF FLOWERS THE PEONY. 
 
 THERE is a little bird flitting about under the great elms, 
 which is most likely to place its nest in some angle of a wall, 
 where we shall easily find it : that is a wren, the regulus cris- 
 tatus; not the same as the one that dwells in a corner of my 
 old house. The other is called troglodytes parvulus, or wren. 
 
 This one, which, like the other, could escape through the 
 wires of a cage without rumpling its feathers, is of an olive 
 cast ; but the male bears on his head a little tuft of a brilliant 
 gold : the tuft on the head of the female is of a citron colour. 
 Their nest is lined with moss, spiders' webs, and the down 
 which covers the seeds of certain plants. The hen lays six 
 eggs in it, white, tinged with rose-colour, and about as large 
 as peas; 
 
 But what sweet and enchanting melody appears to flow 
 from the sharply pointed leaves of that bushy holly ! A little 
 linnet, with its brown head, is there sitting upon its five 
 reddish eggs, spotted with chestnut, in a nest of grass and 
 hair, which she has placed upon one of the lowest branches. 
 Upon a bough, a little more elevated, sits her mate, whose 
 head is black, singing, to divert her during the tediousness of 
 incubation. He only breaks off in his song to go and seek 
 
 x
 
 154 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 insects, which he brings to her upon the nest. I will not go 
 near it : the linnet has not so much confidence in man as the 
 wren has; it would abandon its nest and its eggs, if it saw 
 me many times prowling about near the holly. 
 
 Here and there flit butterflies, shaded with fawn-colour, 
 and a yellow like withered leaves; these are sylphs said fauns, 
 which seldom leave the shade. 
 
 In the hollows of oaks, the great stag-beetle, the rhinoceros, 
 and other beetles, await the hour of evening to leave their 
 solitude, and buzz about the world. 
 
 A large black butterfly, with a border of a beautiful yellow 
 at the outward edge of its wings, rises to the very tops of the 
 trees. That is the morio.* 
 
 Here is another, which. attracts attention by its size, and 
 by its magnificent colour of carmine, striped with black. In 
 order to see it nearer, you pursue it, and attempt to catch it ; 
 but it escapes, and you lose sight of it. You believe it has 
 flown to a distance, as the splendour of its costume would 
 betray it if it were near; but you are deceived there it is, 
 close to you, on the trunk of a birch. It is only its under 
 wings that are so splendid; when it is pursued, it conceals 
 them under the upper ones, which are grey, and are easily 
 confounded with the bark of the trees upon which it loves to 
 settle. 
 
 In the grass, and under the thickest shade, primroses, some 
 pale violets, and the lily of the valley, blossom. The flower of 
 the last has the shape and beauty of a pearl, but of a per- 
 fumed pearl. 
 
 Many women prefer lilies of the valley to pearls, but all 
 would prefer having pearls given to them ; very few of them 
 are influenced by avarice in this preference. Women are, 
 I repeat, like the gods, who were most flattered when fat 
 heifers were sacrificed to them, or when offerings were made 
 to them of massive gold : they did not eat the heifers they 
 had no need of the gold ; but these more valuable presents 
 manifested, on the part of those who offered them, a greater 
 and proportionate veneration. 
 
 The cuckoo-pint blossoms likewise in the shade, with its 
 green horn, followed by a spike of scarlet fruit ; and the wood 
 anemone is a pretty white flower, tinged with violet. This is 
 
 * Vanessa. Antiopa. The Caraberwell beauty.
 
 AMATEURS OF FLOWERS. 155 
 
 the original of an anemone which we shall find in another 
 part of the garden; there, its foliage forms a beautiful rich 
 green turf, from which spring simple rose-shaped anemones, 
 red, scarlet, purple, blue, violet, white, or streaked with all 
 these various colours. A bed of these is one of the richest 
 and most magnificent sights imaginable. The anemone is 
 one of the plants called florists' flowers. 
 
 There are people, sober in their pleasures, who concentrate 
 their cares upon a single flower. There are amateurs of tulips ; 
 for them there is no other flower in the world but tulips 
 other flowei's are weeds; and still further, among tulips, there 
 is only the tulip with the white ground, and among tulips 
 with the white ground, there is only the tulip with the 
 rounded petals. The year begins for them on the 15th of 
 May, and finishes on the 28th of the same month. There are 
 amateurs of roses, there are amateurs of auriculas, there are 
 amateurs of pinks, there are amateurs of dahlias, there are 
 amateurs of camellias, there are amateurs of ranunculuses, 
 there are amateurs of anemones: these are the only flowers 
 others are called bouquets; and you should see with what 
 a tone and manner they pronounce the word bouquet ! So 
 with sportsmen, there are some animals that are game, and 
 others that are not. Of all this race, the amateurs of tulips 
 are the most ferocious; not that the others, however, are 
 remarkably mild, or that I advise any one to approach them 
 without due precaution. It sometimes happens that the ama- 
 teurs of anemones cultivate ranunculuses simultaneously, but 
 they expose themselves to being treated as fleurichons, or 
 dabblers, by the more severe amateurs. 
 
 I knew a tulip-fancier, who, at the season for planting his 
 tulips, made every year two composts : one of maiden earth, 
 sand, and leaf mould; the other of clay, pigeons' dung, and 
 animal mould. In the first, which is favourable to tulips, 
 he planted his own roots; in the other, which combined all 
 the contrary conditions, he placed such as he had received 
 as presents, or in exchange. If he thinks his cares insuffi- 
 cient, he waters them with soap-suds. Then, at the period 
 of their blooming, after having made you admire his own 
 plants, he leads you to the others, and tells you, in a delight- 
 fully self-sufficient tone " These are plants which distiu-
 
 130 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 guished amateurs have been kind enough to offer me in 
 exchange for mine ! " 
 
 To return to anemones, they were brought into France 
 from the East Indies, more than two centuries ago, by a 
 Monsieur Bachelier, who was ten years before he would give 
 a single one to anybody. A magistrate went to see him in 
 his robes, and purposely making their folds drag over the 
 anemones in seed, contrived to carry away a few of them, 
 which adhered to the wool of his robe. 
 
 Never speak to an amateur of anemones, of anything else 
 but his anemones ; if you say to him : " I have a beautiful 
 pink," he will ask you what sort of an anemone that is ? 
 But do not imagine that the amateurs of flowers love flowers 
 better than the learned do : the learned do not acknowledge 
 the cultivated anemone, they say that it is a monster, or they 
 dry it, paste it on paper, and write barbarous words under it. 
 Amateurs content themselves with requiring difficult con- 
 ditions of anemones ; thus there is a sort of green calyx, 
 which ought to be placed just at one-third from the flower, 
 and two-thirds from the earth, and without this the anemone 
 may display the richest colours in vain it will be dismissed 
 from the bed, and declared nothing but bouquet I I spare you 
 a dozen more or less singular conditions which are required 
 of these poor flowers. 
 
 Here is a peony, a sort of gigantic rose, of the most beauti- 
 ful red. .There are no amateurs of peonies, unless it be the 
 tree-peony, because that is perhaps less beautiful, more diffi- 
 cult to cultivate, but more scarce. The ordinary peony, red, 
 rose-coloured or white, is held in no esteem. 
 
 But it is so common ! Thanks, Lord, for all that thou 
 has created common ! thanks for the blue heavens, the sun, 
 the stars, murmuring waters, and the shade of embowering 
 oaks, thanks for the corn-flowers of the fields and the gilly- 
 flowers of the walls, thanks for the songs of the linnet and 
 the hymns of the nightingale, thanks for the perfumes of the 
 air and the sighing of the winds among the trees, th'anks 
 for the magnificent clouds gilded by the sun at its setting and 
 rising, thanks for love, the most common sentiment of all. 
 thanks for all the beautiful things thy stupendous bounty has 
 made common !
 
 THE PEONY. 
 
 157 
 
 The peony was formerly, however, much celebrated : it 
 drove away tempests, broke enchantments, defeated witch- 
 craft, and now and then cured epilepsy. Its name, poeonia, 
 carne from Pceon, a celebrated physician, who employed it to 
 cure Pluto, when wounded by Hercules. The root of the 
 peony, therefore, was not taken lightly; it was at a certain 
 hour of the night, and during a certain phase of the moon ; 
 and still further, it was necessary to take care not to be 
 observed by the woodpecker, whilst digging it ; whoever was 
 observed by the woodpecker became blind. 
 
 The peony is no longer anything but a beautiful and 
 splendid flower, despised by amateurs, and seldom seen but in 
 poor gardens.
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 THE POOR TRAVELLERS THE CASTLE OF CHILLON. 
 
 Yc c must not imagine, my friend, that I also have never 
 travelled; there has been a time when I wrote, in a few words, 
 every evening, the result of my impressions of the day. Here 
 are some lines of this Journal. 
 
 " LILLE. I went to the midnight mass; some old women 
 were praying and preparing a supper called a reveillon or 
 medianoche ; from time to time they drew from under their 
 petticoats a small chafing-dish, upon which were cooking two 
 or three herrings ; they turned the herrings, put the chafing- 
 dish back in its place, and resumed their prayers. 
 
 " In Picardy I was treated with tarts made of leeks; which 
 would be horrible, if it were possible to eat them. 
 
 'LAUSANNE. I have been angling here in the Lake of 
 Geneva ; but I have caught no fish ; a circumstance that has 
 happened to me in the various rivers, lakes, and streams, in 
 which I have made a similar experiment. But, here I am in 
 Switzerland, though.
 
 THE POOR TRAVELLERS. 150 
 
 " When I used to say : ' There is a beautiful tree, a limpid 
 stream, a fine sheet of snow, or a lovely greensward,' I was 
 silenced with: 'Bah, you have not been in Switzerland!' 
 ' No.' ' Then never say anything about greensward, snow, 
 limpid waters, trees, or anything else in the world.' 
 
 " One day I set out for Switzerland, not so much for the 
 sake of seeing Switzerland, as to be able to say I had been 
 there, and to be allowed to speak when I pleased, about trees, 
 grass, water, and snow. 
 
 " I set out, then, but my dislike for travelling accompanied 
 me, and exposed me to singular accidents. I had money and 
 time for three weeks, and I discovered, one evening, that I 
 had been fishing eight days for mullets in the little lake of 
 Mantua, believing myself to be in Switzerland ; it was very 
 beautiful, though. I loved that half-circular mountain, 
 crowned with snow; below the snow, firs with their black 
 foliage ; below the firs, fine poplars edged the water, and cast 
 over it the reflection of their lofty tops. 
 
 " One day, as I was looking at the travellers who were 
 stopped at the douane, I found out that I was still in France, 
 and, therefore, immediately passed the frontier. I arrived at 
 Geneva, but whilst travelling thither, I experienced a regret 
 and a remorse, of which the following was the subject : 
 
 "Whilst I was on board the boat which conveyed me by the 
 Saone from Chalons to Lyons, my attention was very much 
 taken up by a woman accompanied by two children; the first 
 was about twelve years of age, she held the second in her arms. 
 There was in the appearance of this woman a mixture of dis- 
 tinction and misfortune which affected me to the highest 
 degree. Her costume was no-t a travelling costume, but a 
 heterogeneous composition of divers pieces of divers toilettes. 
 All was faded, and the more sad from its being plainly to be 
 seen that it had once been rich and elegant. She had a green 
 bonnet, but faded, with torn flowers ; a tartan mantle of red 
 and black check; a torn glove on one hand, the other, uncovered, 
 was white and handsome, her fingers slender, her nails very 
 nice, but not one ring, not even a wedding-ring it was the 
 left hand that was uncovered. I have been poor, and I have 
 preserved a wonderful tact for discerning poverty in others, 
 with a glance, through the noble falsehoods of pride, through
 
 160 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 the touching manoeuvres of shame. The elder of the two 
 children was dressed with all attention to cleanliness ; but his 
 clothes, which had become short and tight, and his hair, that was 
 too long and dry, showed that his mother took all the care 
 possible of him that did not require money. I cannot tell 
 what it was that saddened me when near this woman ; her 
 countenance was handsome, calm, and dignified ; but I sur- 
 prised a look gently raised towards heaven, and then falling 
 back upon her two children, a sort of mute and furtive 
 prayer. A slight, but cold and disagreeable mist was falling. 
 All the women descended successively into the cabins ; some 
 men only remained upon deck ; she was seated between her 
 two children. She folded the plaid over the younger one. 
 I would have given anything in the world to have detained 
 the last woman that descended to the cabin ; for I had seen 
 what it was kept the poor mother on deck. Between her 
 wrist and her glove I had seen the end of a yellow paper, 
 which was the ticket given her in exchange for the price of 
 her passage: mine was red, and designated the first place, 
 she, therefore, had only taken second places ; upon deck this 
 was of no consequence, but if she wanted shelter, she must 
 go down into a cabin in which were assembled all the travellers 
 of the second class, workmen and meanly dressed women. I 
 put up a prayer from the bottom of my heart that the rain 
 might cease. A few minutes afterwards, a ray of sunshine 
 dissipated the clouds ; I believed that I had been heard, and 
 I thanked God as earnestly as I had prayed. 
 
 " As we were leaving Trevoux on the left, all the travellers 
 remarked a terraced garden on the Saone, shaded by a row 
 of beautiful trees ; these were the trees of Judea, whose 
 blossoms, closely clinging to the branches, looked like a thick 
 rose-coloured bower. A ray of the sun illuminated this 
 smiling decoration. The boy directed his mother's attention 
 to it. This drew a smile for her child from the bottom of 
 her heart but the smile faded away, and froze upon her lips. 
 I could not remove my eyes from these three beings, and it 
 appeared to me that a malignant fairy took delight in expos- 
 ing to me, and making me guess, one by one, all the poverties 
 they concealed. Some one asked what o'clock it was ; the 
 boy feit in his pocket, and my heart was oppressed with hope
 
 THE POOR TRAVELLERS. 16) 
 
 and expectation ; I would have given all the money I had to 
 see him pull out a watch. In that moment of uncertainty, a 
 thousand things passed in my mind. Perhaps I am deceived ; 
 she does not wear rings, but many women do not wear them. 
 Perhaps she does not like jewels. I know an extremely rich 
 lady who never will admit one in her dress. Alas ! the boy 
 only pulled out a pocket handkerchief. 
 
 " A man then answered the person who had asked what 
 o'clock it was. He was a short man, rather thick-built than 
 fat. He appeared to be about fifty years old, and wore his 
 own grey hair. He was dressed in a surtout, with a waistcoat 
 and trowsers of black cloth. It was plain that this man 
 attached no idea to any colour, and had no partiality for one 
 more than another ; but that he was rich, and black, he had 
 been told, looked proper on all occasions. His boots were 
 large, the straps of his trowsers were not blacked ; his head 
 was wrapped in a large shirt collar, standing on end with 
 starch; he had cotton in his ears; his ears had been pierced, 
 but he wore no earrings. He displayed a large diamond in 
 his shirt, and another on his finger; his two hands were 
 almost constantly in the pockets of his trowsers ; everything 
 pronounced him a low-minded man become rich. If he 
 answered the man who asked what the hour was, it was 
 only because it gave him a reasonable occasion to pull out 
 a large gold watch, with an immense bunch of seals; the 
 watch being pulled out, he made it strike close to his ear to 
 show it was a repeater. 
 
 " The boy drew near and looked at the watch, whilst he 
 looked at the child, and perceived, as quickly as I had done, 
 his short and tight clothes. ' Well !' said he in a harsh tone, 
 ' you will know me again, shan't you 1 you stare at me 
 enough.' 
 
 " Two other men laughed at this coarse pleasantry. The 
 child became as red as fire. His mother called him with 
 a soft but sad voice ; first she scolded him a little, and then 
 she kissed him. She preferred telling him that he was wrong 
 to telling him he was poor. 
 
 " I walked to the side as if to look at something, and with 
 a shove of the elbow turned the parvenu watch-owner round 
 on his centre. He grumbled a little ; I looked him full in 
 
 Y
 
 162 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 the face, and he crossed over to the other side of the boat. 
 I longed to chat with that woman, but I feared to offend her 
 by addressing her ; perhaps she might fancy I was more bold 
 with her than with others. The boy came and leant upon 
 the side of the boat; I spoke to him, but I found myself 
 absolutely timid with this child of twelve years old ; I could 
 almost have thanked him for having the kindness to answer 
 me. I believed I beheld in this poverty the most respectable 
 thing I had ever contemplated in my life. I should very 
 much have liked to know whether the mother saw me talking 
 with interest with her child, but I did not dare to look 
 towards her. I swear that there was not the least personal 
 thought in all this, for I had at that time in both my heart 
 and my head as much love for another as they could reason- 
 ably contain ; but I had perceived how this woman's feelings 
 had been wounded by the rudeness of that wretched fellow. 
 I hoped to efface this impression by a contrary one. I took 
 pleasure in answering the questions of the boy, who was 
 more bold with me than I was with him ; and I likewise 
 took pleasure in imagining the series of thoughts my attention 
 to the child might create in the bosom of the mother. In 
 the first place, she would perceive that her boy was not 
 destined to be repulsed by everybody because he was poor; 
 then she might think that his questions and language in- 
 terested a man, and she might say to herself, ' He must be 
 intelligent for that gentleman to take such notice of him 
 he will become a clever man some day he will attain to 
 honours.' She beckoned him to her with a sign ; she drew 
 from a kind of flat basket, concealed under her mantle, 
 a piece of bread and two apples, which she gave him. There 
 are whimsical things to be met with, that perhaps very few 
 persons would comprehend. I had never seen this woman, 
 and yet it appeared to me that there existed a mysterious 
 tie between us. I heard within me a voice which said to 
 her, ' Thou art unhappy, I will console thee ; thou art poor, 
 I will work for thee.' As I have proved, it was not love, 
 but it was a warm, pious charity, full of respectful tender- 
 ness, perhaps it was a kind of love; however that might 
 be, if she had deigned to speak to me, I know my heart 
 would have melted with joy.
 
 THE POOR TUAVELLERS. ] 63 
 
 " At length we arrived. The day was declining ; the tra- 
 vellers got together their luggage; she had nothing but a 
 band-box, which she kept close by her side. I conjured up 
 a thousand romances. What can she be going to do at 
 Lyons? Will she be more rich or more happy there? Now 
 the porters called to us from the quays, recommending hotels 
 to us: this tumult, these voices, all awakened me as from 
 a dream. I began to fancy there was a kind of folly in the 
 sentiments that had taken such strong hold of me. It is 
 strange how soon we become reasonable ; that is to say, less 
 great, less noble, less generous, as we draw near to the cities 
 of men. I determined, however, to do one thing. 
 
 " I divided my money into two parts. I put in one as 
 much as would carry me back home again, without con- 
 tinuing my journey, and in the other what remained. My 
 intention was to give it to the boy, in the midst of the con- 
 fusion of leaving the boat, to avoid all possibility of refusal 
 or thanks, to pass the night at an hotel, and return home on 
 the morrow. But I went to look for my little portmanteau 
 when the boat was moored at the quay, and when I returned 
 could find neither mother nor children. I sought for them 
 in the crowd; but I have reproached myself with thinking, 
 that if my search had been as earnest as were my subsequent 
 regrets, I should have found them. This noise, this crowd, 
 these voices, all appeared to dissipate a sort of intoxication ; 
 it was necessary to take care of my portmanteau, and look 
 for an hotel. 
 
 " By what a fine thread are held the few good or great 
 thoughts that a man has in the course of his life, if it is to 
 be broken by such petty shocks, such petty things, and such 
 petty interests ! 
 
 " I continued my route, dissatisfied with all I met with 
 or saw, and what was still worse, dissatisfied with myself. 
 
 " I have retained another impression from this journey, 
 still more unpleasant, perhaps, from being more hateful. As 
 I followed, in fact, the shore of the lake of Geneva, I came to 
 the castle of Chillon, between Clarens and Villeneuve, which 
 is at the extremity of the lake. I was shown a subterranean 
 vault, fifteen feet below the surface of the water, into which 
 only a small quantity of light entered by an aperture that
 
 164 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 has been much enlarged since the place ceased to be a prison. 
 There I saw iron rings attached to the pillars; and, horrible 
 to contemplate ! deeply imprinted in the rock the steps of 
 a prisoner who passed many years in the dungeon. I touched 
 one of the rings, and as it fell back from my hand against 
 the stone pillar it returned a sound so melancholy that it 
 resounded in my heart. I could hear the lake growling over 
 my head ; I could scarcely breathe, and I hastened to re- 
 ascend in order to gain a little fresh air, and remove some 
 of the fearfully oppressive weight from my mind; but all 
 the rest of the day I was a prey to" a sort of delirium I ex- 
 perienced all the sensations of despair and rage. It appeared 
 as if my being was severed in two, and that half of it re- 
 mained in that awful dungeon. 
 
 " I regretted bitterly the childishness which led me to 
 write my name with the point of a knife upon one of the 
 pillars, amidst a hundred other names, in order that the 
 painters who had induced me to visit Switzerland might find 
 a trace of my passage, and a proof that I had been there. 
 I experienced a pain from the recollection that my name was 
 in this horrible place; a false shame restrained me, or else I 
 should have returned and have effaced it. Even now, when 
 this impression has lost much of its strength, I should feel 
 much better satisfied if my name were not there. 
 
 " I remained a few days at Lausanne, when, one morning, 
 perceiving that I was at the end of my time, and likewise 
 of my money, I returned home."
 
 LETTER XXV. 
 
 AN AMATEUR FINDS FAULT WITH AN AURICULA. 
 
 ONE of the pet flowers of amateurs is the Auricula. 
 Happy the flowers which have escaped savants and amateurs : 
 they have not received ridiculous names; they are not 
 tormented, distorted, or subjected to a thousand whimsical 
 exigencies; they blossom in peace. 
 
 The learned require that the auricula should be yellow; if 
 it presents itself clothed in any other colour, it is pronounced 
 a monster, as double roses are. 
 
 Amateurs graut it permission to wear what colours it 
 pleases ; but this is only an appearance of liberty. I once 
 saw an amateur in a state of fury. Some auriculas had been 
 sent to him from I don't know what country: he had culti- 
 vated them with care; he had tormented them after the 
 methods most approved of by amateurs; he had deprived 
 them of water, and more particularly of sun and earth, by 
 placing them in a pot, and as I went into his house he was
 
 166 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 tearing them up, one by one, and trampling them under his 
 feet. I understood, from his broken exclamations, that the 
 auriculas had avenged themselves for the ill treatment they 
 had received, by not fulfilling the conditions he required and 
 had hoped for. 
 
 I, however, ventured a few questions, to assure myself of 
 the fact, and at the same time to learn what horrible offence 
 could have been committed by these poor flowers, which 
 appeared to me to be decked with the richest colours, and to 
 be in perfection. He continued his execution, pronouncing 
 upon every one his motives of judgment and condemnation, 
 before he crushed it under his feet. 
 
 I will place you in a condition to do as I did, and to derive 
 instruction; that is to say, to learn what are the duties of 
 the auricula towards its cultivator, and how it transgresses 
 them. 
 
 He took up one of a beautiful velvety blue. Its stalk is 
 too short, said he, and he crushed it. To this succeeded 
 another of a rich velvet brown, with a white circle which 
 is called the eye ; its stalk is too long crushed. A velvet 
 orange; the flower is not exactly round crushed. A deep 
 purple velvet ; the bouquet has only eight flowers, it ought 
 to have twelve crushed. A velvet olive; the eye slimy 
 (that is to say, it is slightly tinged with the olive colour) 
 crushed. A velvet yellow; the eye does not occupy a 
 third of the circumference of the flower; that is the least 
 it ought possibly to do ; I have a friend who requires half 
 I am more indulgent, but I cannot admit this crushed. A 
 velvet pale violet ; the eye is not exactly round crushed. 
 A deep violet velvet ; eh ! what do you do here 1 your clou 
 exceeds your paillettes, a pretty thing that ! 
 
 Here I stopped the judge and executioner to request an 
 explanation. Auricula fanciers call the pistils the clou, and 
 the stamens the paillettes. The stamens ought to extend 
 beyond the pistils, and appear alone; it is a very serious 
 thing when the contrary happens to be the case. Whatever 
 may be the colour or the splendour of the flower, a true 
 amateur would scorn to keep such a one in his collection. 
 
 A hundred charming flowers were thus sacrificed before 
 my eyes. I in vain endeavoured to save them by begging
 
 AURICULAS. 
 
 167 
 
 that he would make me a present of them , my entreaty was 
 rejected. 
 
 "Not at all, not at all; I will give you some others." 
 "But these please me very much." "Nonsense; you are 
 joking!" "Not at all, I assure you." "I cannot consent that 
 such flowers should come from me; if it were known that I 
 had given them I should subject either my collection or my 
 friendship to animadversion." He was inflexible. 
 
 Do not imagine that I invent or exaggerate ; seek for an 
 amateur of auriculas, and read to him this passage of my 
 letters. I can assure you beforehand that he will not smile, 
 that he will see nothing ridiculous in it, that he will say his 
 brother amateur Was right, perhaps even a little too indul- 
 gent. In addition to the florist's lesson, this is a chapter to 
 add to the rights of man. You now know what are the 
 duties of auriculas, and I hope you will see how to make 
 them perform them.
 
 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 AN OLD WALL 
 
 I DO not dislike walls; it is sometimes a good and con- 
 soling reflection to be in a well-secured enclosure, alone with 
 perfumes, flowers, trees, the heavens, the air, the sun, stars, 
 remembrances and reveries, and to know that nobody can 
 come and distiirb you. I like walls, but I don't like white 
 walls ; I like nothing but old walls. I have one here, along 
 which the course of my journey brings me, and which pleases 
 me exceedingly. It is just as old as it ought to be; if it 
 were a little older it would be given up to the mercies of the 
 bricklayers, who would introduce all sorts of new bricks or 
 white stones. As it is, it is grey and black, and is covered with 
 twenty species of mosses and lichens. In the crevices of its 
 top extends an absolute crown of yellow wallflowers and ferns. 
 At its foot vegetate pellitory and nettles, in all their beautiful 
 green ; little crevices serve as an asylum for the lizards which 
 run over the wall. Among the nettles live many caterpillars, 
 which there spin webs and come forth brilliant butterflies. 
 
 Let us examine the nettles. The flowers of the nettle 
 have the male and female blossom separate. The stamens of 
 the males, in the season, perform an evolution which throws 
 out a little shower of dust upon the female flowers. The 
 hairs which cover nettles have at their base a little gland, 
 in which is formed, by a portion of its sap, a caustic juice;
 
 THE ANT-LION. 169 
 
 it is in the same manner that vipers bite, although peasants 
 persist in saying that they sting. 
 
 There are many persons who eat young nettles cooked 
 like spinach, as we are taught by a verse of Horace^ and 
 another of Persius. It was well worth the trouble to become 
 masters of the world ! 
 
 One of the inhabitants of the nettle is a thorny caterpillar, 
 of a velvety black, marked with three white points. When 
 its time is arrived, it hangs itself by the feet to the leaf of 
 a nettle. At a later period it becomes a magnificent butterfly, 
 black and red-brown, with an eye upon each wing; in which 
 blue, violet, red, white and yellow, emulate the splendour of 
 the eyes in the feathers of the tail of a peacock; whence this 
 butterfly is called the peacock butterfly. 
 
 The atalanta*with which we have already met as a cater- 
 pillar, lived upon the nettle. The butterfly called the tor- 
 toiseshell has been previously a green and brown striped 
 caterpillar iipon the nettle, and then a striped chrysalis. 
 The painted-lady is also a guest of the nettle. 
 
 There is a time at which the old wall changes its appear- 
 ance. Then it is green and rose-coloured. Bengal rose-trees 
 hang like a tapestry over it up to the very top, so as to con- 
 ceal it entirely. The roses are as numerous as the leaves; 
 that palisade of ten paces in length does not exhibit less 
 than from a thousand to twelve hundred roses in bloom at 
 once. A painter would not dare to put so many on his rose 
 trees; the arts stand in need of an appearance of truth 
 truth easily does without it. Here is a wall of pink or rose- 
 coloured roses; at another corner extends a turf or bed of 
 red roses. A hundred Bengal roses, with purple flowers, have 
 been trained upon the ground, and cover it with leaves and 
 flowers. But let us go back to the foot of the old wall. 
 
 The soil is there sandy and hot, the grass is thin, there 
 are no flowera to be seen : it is not, however, a desert ; here, 
 in the sand, is a little tunnel of two inches in width and 
 nine in depth, dug spirally, it is a trap made by a sports- 
 man ; but see, here he comes to finish his snare. The ant- 
 lion lives on prey ; it is a sort of yellowish worm, which 
 appears grey on account of the labours to which it gives 
 itself up, and which cover it with sand and dust ; its head is 
 
 .' Red-admiral. 
 Z
 
 170 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 large and flattened, and terminated by two boras, which have 
 in some degree the form of those of the great stag-beetle. 
 
 The prey which supplies its food is nimble ; it consists of 
 flies, ants, woodlice, and spiders, and as it is only able to take 
 a few steps at a time, and that backwards, it does not think 
 of running down its game, but employs stratagem. There it 
 is, working a spiral pit which begins at the surface, and is 
 to attain a depth of several lines : at each step which it 
 makes backward it stops, and with one of its feet loads its 
 flattened head : the head being loaded like a shovel, it gives 
 it a shake, and throws out of the hole the few grains of earth 
 it carried. This is a long and fatiguing operation ; never- 
 theless, a quarter of an hour suffices for the performance of 
 it. There is the trap completed ; the sportsman places himself 
 at the bottom, burying himself in the sand, leaving out only 
 his eyes, which are twelve in number, and two horns, which 
 he stretches as far from each otiier as possible. 
 
 Think how ancient travellers have been obliged to lie, in 
 order to make people believe they had seen Cyclops, that is 
 to say, people who have but one eye; what a distance they 
 were obliged to go to, to venture to say that they had seen 
 men who ordinarily were called one-eyed in the country in 
 which they lived. Well, for my part, without going from 
 home, I have Mien in with a hunter with twelve eyes ! 
 
 The ant-lion does not stir, it might be believed to be 
 dead or asleep; its horns do not betray the least motion. 
 Ah ! there is some game ! An ant, going rather too close to 
 the hole, made a grain of sand slip in, and fell with it into 
 the trap to the depth of half a line. It climbs up again, but 
 the precipice is steep, and the grains of sand give way beneath 
 its feet; it loses ground, it is at least six grains of sand 
 lower than it was. One effort, however, has recovered it; it 
 gets up again. Then the ant-lion, charging its head -vith 
 sand, launches with violence a shower of dust at the ant, 
 which makes it lose its equilibrium, and slip down; but it 
 clings to the side, and endeavours to reascend. A second 
 shower of sand falls upon it, and makes it lose the little 
 ground it had regained. Then the hunter precipitates its 
 blows, and soon the unfortunate ant, brought down at last by
 
 THE ANT-LION. 171 
 
 the moveable soil which rolls away under its feet, and by the 
 projectiles which are launched at it without intermission, 
 ends by falling to the bottom of the tunnel, between the 
 expanded horns of its enemy ; the two horns close and pierce 
 it, whilst seizing it, through and through; and then the 
 hunter becomes motionless : its two horns are trunks through 
 which it sucks its prey. In a short time nothing remains of 
 the ant but the skin and the head. The ant-lion does not eat 
 the heads of its prey, the head is not to its taste ; it places 
 the relics upon the catapulta which serves him for a head, 
 and throws them out of the hole. Then it covers itself up in 
 the sand again, and resumes the position it was in before the 
 arrival of the ant. 
 
 The place is well chosen ! Here comes a wood-louse, which 
 the heat of the sun incommodes, and which abandons the 
 wall to find elsewhere some cool and moist crack in which it 
 may conceal itself. There it is upon the very edge of the 
 trap : it slips, the ant-lion plays off its artillery ; the wood- 
 louse gets up again. In vain the hunter redoubles its blows ; 
 the wood-louse escapes. 
 
 A gnat, in its turn, contrives to fall into the snare ; but it 
 expands its wings and escapes, in spite of the shower of sand 
 which its enemy launches at it. The wood-louse, in escaping, 
 made great chasms in the tunnel ; and this, no doubt, together 
 with the ill-success of the last two hunts, determines the ant- 
 lion to go and lay his ambushes elsewhere. He reascends his 
 pit, and goes away, always travelling backwards, to seek 
 a spot more favourable to his views. 
 
 But stop, you stupid creature ! take heed ! It has no 
 longer time : it has fallen heavily into the hole, at the bottom 
 of which another hunter another ant-lion is in ambuscade.- 
 The latter seizes it, still stupified with its fall, fixes it between 
 its two horns, sucks it, and makes an excellent repast of it. 
 
 Is it excess of hunger, or anger at seeing another hunter 
 thus fall into its ambush and spoil it, that urges it to this act 
 of ferocity 1 or do ant-lions see nothing in their own species 
 but a variety of game and a tempting food ? 
 
 The ant-lion is not condemned to keep thus upon the earth 
 always; some evening in June, after having enjoyed a good 
 dinner, it will bury itself deeper in the sand than usual, with'
 
 172 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 out leaving its horns out. There it shuts itself up in a ball, 
 made of grains of earth stuck upon a web or cocoon of silk, 
 the inside of which is whiter and finer than the most beau- 
 tiful satin. It soon becomes a sort of dragon-fly, which cuts 
 with its teeth the cocoon which incloses it. This fly, which has 
 at first the appearance of those dragon-flies that we have met 
 with, and whose larva lives in the mud of water, differs from 
 them in several points. In the first place, it has not the 
 same degree of magnificence in its dress; it is grey, with 
 a little yellow border on each wing : besides, its broader wings 
 are also longer than those of the dragon-flies of the meadows, 
 and, when at rest, are placed over its body, which they 
 entirely cover, in the form of a roof, whilst the other keeps 
 them spread. I only speak of the differences which present 
 themselves to the eye of an ignorant person ; the learned see 
 many others that exist, and more still that do not exist. 
 
 There is another insect which, as well as the ant-lion, lays 
 traps in the sand, in which to catch the game upon which it 
 lives ; that is the tiger-beetle, a pretty beetle, dressed in green 
 velvet, spotted with white, which, when touched, emits the 
 smell both of the rose and of musk. Its flight is a leap of six 
 feet, for which it makes use of its wings. Before its trans- 
 formation, in its first form, the tiger-beetle lives likewise upon 
 insects, but it is not constructed so as to enable it to pursue 
 them : it is therefore obliged to catch in traps a prey which, 
 at a later period, it will know how to seize, by pouncing upon 
 it like a carnivorous bird. It digs, in a sandy soil, a narrow 
 hole, sometimes a foot deep : it reascends to the earth by the 
 same means that chimney-sweepers employ. When there, it 
 bends its head, and makes a bridge of it, upon which the 
 abyss of two lines in width which it has dug may be passed. 
 When an insect passes over this bridge, the bridge becomes 
 a trap, sinks beneath its steps, and precipitates it to the 
 bottom of the hole, where it is devoured. 
 
 Many poets and philosophers have reproached man severely 
 with being the only animal that is the enemy of its own 
 species. Poets and philosophers are wrong: all animals de- 
 stroy each other, and eat each othei. 
 
 I can with more justice reproach man on another account,
 
 THE TIGER-BEETLE. 
 
 17 
 
 which is, that his is the only species in which the individual 
 is his own enemy. Man deprives himself of sleep, feeds him- 
 self with aliments that abridge life. Women lace themselves 
 :so tightly iu their corsets as to embarrass the play of the 
 organs, and even displace their ribs. Men, not content with 
 two or three real wants which nature has imposed upon them, 
 create for themselves fresh ones every day, and exhaust all 
 their genius in inventing new means of rendering themselves 
 pour and miserable.
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 THE CHILDISH THEFT RETRIBUTION. 
 
 ONE day, a child came into my garden; he surrounded 
 a space of about a foot square with sticks; then he gathered 
 some roses, and planted them, by sticking the stalks in the 
 ground. He did the same by a very fine pink. 
 
 When I retm-ned, I felt a sensation of impatience, and if 
 the child had been there, it is probable that I should have 
 scolded him severely; but he was gone, happily for him, 
 because I should have frightened him, and happily for myself, 
 because I should have certainly said many foolish things. 
 
 Not seeing him, I reflected a little, and remembered two 
 things. The first is, that I do exactly what this child has 
 done. Before I had a garden of my own, I walked freely in 
 the woods, on the banks of rivers, on the shores of the sea. 
 One day I bought myself a large plot of ground, which I sur- 
 rounded with stones in the form of a wall; and I planted in
 
 THE CHILD'S GARDEN. 175 
 
 it trees and flowers brought from all sorts of soils. The child 
 had liberty to walk in all my garden, to see and inhale all 
 the flowers ; he preferred enclosing a little square patch, and 
 to stick in it two or three of these same flowers, exactly as 
 I had done, only it cost him nothing but the time in which 
 he did it, and I have spent much money. Then, when his 
 garden was made, he left it, went to amuse himself with 
 something else, and forgot it; whilst I, with this plot of 
 ground, have purchased a thousand cares. 
 
 Formerly, if the wind in its fury blew down a tree, that 
 was a spectacle for me; to-day, it breaks one of my trees, and 
 that is a fear beforehand, a regret and a loss afterwards. I 
 like old ruined walls falling into dust, and creating retreats 
 for the lizards ; now-a-days, I feel a great inclination to have 
 my wall repaired, some of the stones being detached. 
 
 The second thing I recollected was, that I formerly did, 
 when I was a child, exactly the same thing in the garden of 
 another person, that this child did in mine. 
 
 My brother and I were then quite little fellows, and we 
 were sent in the morning to a sort of school, not, I suppose, 
 that we might learn anything not that we might be at 
 school but that we might not be at home ; where, probably, 
 we made more noise than was agreeable. 
 
 The master of the school, or of the academy, I don't 
 know which title he claimed for himself, was like others; 
 he was an honest restaurateur, who made up for the butter 
 he did not put into the soup of his pupils by instruction 
 which he was supposed to impart to them. The plan of 
 these houses, in which it is always announced that the heart 
 and the mind of youth is formed, is always invariably esta- 
 blished on this problem : to find a means of selling soup in 
 the most advantageous way possible. The problem is resolved 
 in the manner of the possessors of cafes, who propose one 
 nearly analogous : viz. to find the means of selling for fifteen 
 or twenty sous that which people would have better at home, 
 and without inconvenience, for four or five sous. The cafes 
 have the journals; the schoolmasters, those other public- 
 house keepers, have Latin. 
 
 This worthy, who was named M. Roncin, was the largest 
 man I ever saw; this was his only means of obtaining con-
 
 176 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 sideration. Madame Roncin presided in the kitchen, with 
 the help of a female servant. The other cookery, the Latin, 
 was carried on by two or three poor fellows, ill fed and ill 
 paid. They must have cost the establishment much less 
 than the butter would have cost that ought to have been added 
 to the soup, if a cook of another kind had been in question. 
 
 To tell the truth, it was the servant that was the real 
 mistress of the house. M. Roncin was a sort of cipher; and 
 Madame Roncin, who directed everything, never decided 
 upon anything without consulting with Marianne before the 
 stove. 
 
 We being among the number of the smallest, were shut 
 up during six hours of the day in what was called the 
 French class. We passed the time in the best way we could ; 
 we made birds and boats with paper, we played odd or 
 even with marbles. When the master caught us, he confis- 
 cated our marbles, threw away our birds and boats, and 
 placed us on our knees in a corner of the room; then he 
 made us learn and repeat by heart something which began 
 in this manner: "Grammar is the art of speaking and writing 
 correctly," &c., of which we comprehended nothing, and he 
 very little. He was a poor, old, thin man, who went through 
 it all with the most serious countenance imaginable. 
 
 There were nearly two hours of the day consecrated to 
 what was called recreation. During these two hours they 
 let us loose in a large court, in which were three or four 
 old trees that had stood out against both time and the 
 school-boys. What joy, and what cries, and what a tumult! 
 How we used to run and jump how happy we used to be! 
 It happened one day that one of us, I don't know which, 
 took it into his head to make a garden : he dug up with his 
 knife, in a corner, a square about the size of a table, he 
 traced walks of four inches in width, put sand on his walks, 
 and planted some small branches torn from the large trees 
 in the flower beds, and also a stalk cut from a gillyflower, 
 which had blossomed of itself in the wall. Gardens became 
 the fashion. Those who, like us, were day boys, that is to 
 say, only came in the morning and went away at night, 
 brought every day branches of cut flowers and seeds of alj 
 sorts. The flowers were faded by the end of an hour, and
 
 A PARALLEL TO ST. AUGUSTINE. 177 
 
 the seeds were forgotten and replaced by others a fortnight 
 before they could have germinated. 
 
 My brother and I went in the morning, with a little basket, 
 in which were put the provisions for the day slices of bread- 
 and-butter and some fruit, destined for a meal while the 
 other boys were at dinner. We were humiliated by the 
 neighbourhood of a garden that quite eclipsed ours. The 
 possessor of this garden had, as we had done in ours, sown 
 some peas. His were much handsomer than ours. Perhaps 
 he had taken them up less frequently to see if they had 
 germinated. 
 
 One day we were inspired . with the means of putting an 
 end to our envy, and at the same time of awakening it in our 
 comrades. My father had a neighbour ; each possessed the half 
 of a large garden, which was divided only by a walk. This 
 neighbour had some magnificent hyacinths, and was very 
 proud of them. We took it into our heads to transfer these 
 hyacinths to our school-garden. In the evening I stole quietly 
 from the house, and went straight to the bed of hyacinths; 
 I trembled a little, but I seized one by the stalk. I pulled 
 it in order to break it, but the root followed the stalk. I 
 did not want the root there was nothing pretty in that, 
 and I saw no use in it. Nevertheless, I deferred separating 
 it till I could safely throw it away ; but I had not the time. 
 I took a second hyacinth, then a third; I concealed them 
 in the cellar. I went into the house again, and my brother, 
 in his turn, attacked the hyacinth bed. Nisus and Euryalus 
 did not commit greater havoc among the Rutulians. When 
 morning came, never had we been up so early, or so ready 
 to go to school. We laid eiijht or ten roots at the bottom 
 of our basket, and three or four, the flower stalks of which 
 we had gathered without the root; and then we placed our 
 bread-and-butter at the top. 
 
 These are but bad recollections, you will say, my friend ; 
 and yet I can assure you, that neither my brother nor 1 
 acquired from this boy's trick any propensity for stealing. 
 The same thing happened to St. Augustine, who, when a 
 child, was a thief, as we were, and relates the circumstance 
 in his Confessions with a sort of witty, half-roguish con- 
 trition. 
 
 A A
 
 178 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 " There was," says he, "a pear-tree near our vine loaded 
 with fruit ; one night, after having, as usual, rambled about 
 the streets, we went, a troop of young rogues, and I, to 
 gather these pears; which we did, and if we tasted one it 
 was simply for the pleasure of doing what we were forbidden 
 to do." 
 
 I had not, as St. Augustine had, the consolation of being 
 punished for my crime by the crime itself. If his pears were 
 aot sweet, I must confess that the hyacinths were beautiful. 
 My punishment arrived late; it did not arrive until yes- 
 terday, but it did arrive. 
 
 The hyacinths were beautiful, and we enjoyed beforehand 
 the admiration and envy they would create at playtime. 
 We went straight to school, under the care of the gardener, 
 without stopping as usual to gape into the shop windows. 
 When arrived, as we knew the hyacinths would stand a chance 
 of being stolen, we would not place our basket in the corner 
 where the baskets were usually deposited; we kept ours, 
 and concealed it under the form between our legs. It ap- 
 peared to us that this interminable class would never be over, 
 or the moment arrive at which we could go and plant our 
 hyacinths. All at once the door was opened, and Madame 
 Roncin entered. She called us both in one of her blandest 
 tones : " I am told you have brought some beautiful flowers 
 for your garden. Let me see them." 
 
 Then we were like La Fontaine's raven; we took our 
 basket and gave it up to the admiration of Madame Roncin. 
 In the first place, Madame took out the slices of bread-and- 
 butter and placed them on the table of old father Poquet; 
 then she took out the hyacinths, one by one, and ranged them 
 near the bread-and-butter. At this moment I raised my 
 eyes and saw, close against the windows of the school-room 
 door, two faces ! two formidable faces ! that of the owner of 
 the hyacinths, and that of the gardener, whom my father had 
 sent to fetch us home to expiate our fault. 1 will not inflict 
 upon you the detail of the reproaches we received, or of the 
 punishment reserved for us till our return to school the next 
 day. We were ordered to carry our basket to the kitchen, 
 where Madame Roncin and her servant were at breakfast. 
 Both saluted us with the title of little thieves. At first we
 
 RETRIBUTION. 179 
 
 cried a little; but my brother whispered, "I say, Stephen, 
 did you see anything?" "Yes; didn't you?" And that 
 which we had seen was, that on one of the stoves were two 
 of the finest hyacinths in pots, which Madame Koncin had 
 contrived, by some means, to appropriate to herself. 
 
 I soon forgot both the hyacinths and our offence, but 
 I could not help, yesterday, remembering both the one and 
 the other. My beautiful roses, that I had looked forward to 
 during ten mouths ! my own diamonds ! my dear flowers ! 
 I went every morning, from the day of their blooming, to 
 salute them, the first thing on entering my garden; I ex- 
 amined them to see if anything had injured them, to see if 
 any insect were gnawing the buds. I gazed at them, I 
 breathed their perfume, and I felt myself rich and almost 
 insolent. And this confounded child inhumanly tore them 
 from their boughs, and stuck them in his garden, where the} 
 died in a few hours ! And my pink ! a beautiful Flemish 
 pink, white with violet bands ; a pink which I had, only the 
 evening before, obstinately refused to a lady who requested it 
 of me ! Then, and not till then, was I aware of all the grief 
 I had caused our poor neighbour, the man of the hyacinths. 
 
 It appeared to me that I underwent one of those ven- 
 geances that Dido announces to the perjured JLneas : 
 
 " Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor." 
 
 That child was not then born who now forces from me suca 
 just reflections. 
 
 In fact, it is our children who will repay us the pains and 
 anxieties that we have cost our parents. At the same time, 
 let us not require from them the tenderness we feel for them : 
 it is not to us that they owe it or will pay it, it is to the 
 children they will themselves have, and of whom they will 
 complain unjustly, then, as we complain of them, and as our 
 fathers complained of us. 
 
 " We only remember the respect and gratitude we owe to 
 our parents to require it of our children."
 
 LETTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE PIPE AND THE SNUFF-BOX. 
 
 THEKE exists a family of venomous plants, among which 
 are the Henbane, Datura stramonium, and Tobacco. Tobacco 
 is, perhaps, less venomous than the Datura, but it is more so 
 than the Henbane, which is a violent poison. 
 
 Here is a tobacco-plant, which is as fine a plant as we 
 could wish to see ; it is six feet high, and from the bosom of 
 large leaves of a beautiful green, throws out bunches of pink 
 flowers, of a graceful, elegant form. 
 
 For a length of time tobacco flourished solitary and un- 
 known in some corners of America. Savages, whom the 
 smoke of tobacco intoxicated, on great occasions gave us 
 tobacco in exchange for brandy. It was by such a friendly 
 exchange of poisons that the relations between the two worlds 
 commenced. 
 
 The first who thought proper to introduce the powder of 
 tobacco into their noses were laughed at ; afterwards they
 
 TOBACCO. 181 
 
 wore subjected to a slight persecution. James I. king of 
 England, wrote a book, called " Miso-capnos," against those 
 who took snuff. A few years afterward Pope Urban VIII. 
 excommunicated those who used tobacco or snuff in churches. 
 The Empress Elizabeth thought fit to add to the penalty of 
 excommunication against such as crammed their noses with 
 this black powder during divine service ; she authorized the 
 jeadles to confiscate the snuff-boxes to their own profit. 
 Amurath IV. forbade the use of snuff under the penalty of 
 having the nose cut off. 
 
 A useful plant could not have resisted such attacks. 
 
 Suppose, before this discovery or invention, a man had 
 been found who would have said, " Let us seek for a means 
 of bringing into the coffers of the state a voluntary impost of 
 several millions of francs per annum ; this can be done by 
 selling people a thing which everybody may use, a thing 
 which, when once enjoyed, they will not do without. There 
 is in America an essentially venomous plant; if you distil 
 an empyreumatic oil from its leaves, a single drop would 
 suffice to make an animal expire in horrible convulsions. Let 
 us offer this plant for sale, chopped up into pieces or reduced 
 to powder: we will sell it very dear: we will direct people to 
 cram this powder up their noses." 
 
 " What ! would you force them to do so by law ? " 
 
 " Not at all ; I told you it was to be a voluntary tax. As 
 for that which was chopped up. we would tell them to inhale 
 it, and swallow a little of the smoke." 
 
 " But they will die ! " 
 
 " Oh no, they will not : they will become rather pale ; 
 they will have pains in the stomach, vertigoes, sometimes 
 cholics, vomitings of blood, and occasionally pains in the 
 chest, that's all. Besides, look you, it has been said that 
 use is second nature; and then not enough has been said: 
 man is like this knife, which has successively had three new 
 blades and two new handles; the natural man no longer 
 exists, he is nothing but a bundle of habits. Besides, people 
 will do as Mithridates, king of Pontus, did; he accustomed 
 himself to take poison till it lost all effect upon him. 
 
 " The first time the people smoke tobacco, they will have 
 pains of the heart, nausea, vertigoes, cholics, and cold sweats ;
 
 182 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 but all that will go off a little; and, with time, they will be- 
 come so accustomed to it as only to experience these accidents 
 now and then, only when they smoke bad or too strong to- 
 bacco, or when the stomach shall be out of order, or in five 
 or six other cases. 
 
 " Those who take it in powder will sneeze, will feel slightly 
 unwell at first, will lose their fine sense of smell, and will 
 establish in their noses a sort of perpetual vesicatory." 
 
 " Ah ! then I suppose it smells very nice ? " 
 
 " No ! on the contrary, it smells very disagreeably. My 
 plan is, that we sell this very dear, and reserve the monopoly 
 of it." 
 
 " My good friend," the man senseless enough to hold such 
 language would have been answered, " nobody will dispute 
 the privilege with you of selling a thing of which there will 
 be no buyers. You would have a much better chance if you 
 would open a shop, and write over it 
 
 KICKS ARE SOLD HERE! 
 
 Or,- 
 
 HOHSEWHIPPINGS SOLD HERE, WHOLESALE AND RETAIL. 
 
 You would find more customers than for your venomous 
 herb." 
 
 Well, you see it was the second speaker who would have 
 been in the wrong ; the tobacco speculation has perfectly 
 succeeded. The kings of France did not write satires against 
 tobacco, they did not cut off people's noses, they did not con- 
 fiscate snuff-boxes. Far from that; they sold tobacco, they 
 established a tax upon noses, and made presents to poets of 
 snuff-boxes, with their portraits on the lids and diamonds all 
 around them. This little trade brings them in I don't know 
 how many millions every year. 
 
 Fragon, the physician of Louis XIV., was to maintain a 
 thesis against snuff in the schools ; being ill, his place wan 
 supplied bv * brother medicus, who read the thesis taking 
 enormous quantities of snuff all the while ! 
 
 Th&poet Sauteuil died almost suddenly, after having drunk 
 a glass of wine, into which some snuff had been put. 
 
 Potatoes had much more difficulty in establishing them- 
 selves than tobacco had, and still have adversaries.
 
 TOBACCO. 183 
 
 " My good friend," you will here say, " you are a strange 
 preacher ! I would almost venture to bet, that you have 
 smoked to-day in that long cherry pipe ornamented with 
 such a large amber mouth-piece, and which is hung so osten- 
 tatiously on the wall of your study." 
 
 I must confess I smoke, my friend. I acquired the habit 
 among fishermen and sailors, and practised it for another 
 reason. I formerly frequently fell in with people who wearied 
 and annoyed me. I was willing to be with them while they 
 were talking, but I had a great objection to talking too ; 
 I had absolutely nothing to say to them ; I found it polite 
 and convenient to make them smoke and smoke myself; 
 they spoke less, and I did not speak at all. Now, although 
 1 do smoke sometimes, I am likewise sometimes whole months 
 without taking down my pipe : I never smoke in my garden ; 
 I am not willing to mingle the odour of tobacco with the 
 perfume of my flowers. 
 
 What charming travellers are all these flowers assembled 
 together from all parts of the world ! Tobacco comes from 
 America ; the Queen Marguerite comes from China ; the helio- 
 trope, from Peru; the day lily, from Portugal; the rose- 
 laurel, from Greece ; the azaleas are originally from India ; 
 the tulip is from Asia. 
 
 I could write a capital history of the voyages I have failed 
 to make. I was very nearly going to Greece, to see the wild 
 uncultivated rose-laurels blow, with their roots in the waters 
 of the Eurotas. I learnt that quite as good were to be seen 
 in the south of France, so I did not go. 
 
 There are things which we do all at once, or else never do 
 at all. The excess of the thing gives you an excess of reso- 
 lution; and in making the tour of the world, to have de- 
 scended your own staircase is to have performed a quarter of 
 the undertaking.
 
 LETTER XXIX. 
 
 QUASI APIARIAN. 
 
 A SINGULAR dictionary might be made, by taking, one after 
 the other, every word in the language, and describing for 
 what infamies, basenesses, crimes, and follies it has furnished 
 man with a pretext. The most sacred and the most respected 
 words, without doubt, would produce the longest articles. 
 
 The name of the Almighty would make many volumes: 
 that of liberty, likewise, would not be very concise. 
 
 There is not a word, however insignificant it may appear 
 at first sight, which, if it has succeeded, thanks to its want of
 
 THE MISANTHROPICAL DICTIONARY. 185 
 
 sound, in not being the cause of a great crime or a great 
 folly, may not have been used in promulgating some absur- 
 dity or other; savants and grammarians are at hand to fill 
 up the voids. 
 
 By searching thoroughly, we shall find that every letter- 
 even, has isolately served as a subject of some impertinences 
 at least ; every one knows the history of the two school- 
 masters, whose ears a king caused to be cut off, becaiise they 
 refused to adopt two letters added to the alphabet by this 
 prince, who was as cruel as they were silly. We know that 
 there have been two hundred volumes written, several coun- 
 cils held, long persecutions made and undergone, with deaths 
 and tortures, for a diphthong added to or cut off from the 
 Credo. We likewise know the disputes and hatreds raised 
 regarding the real pronunciation of the letter K. 
 
 The letter A, which commences all dictionaries, is it not, in 
 French, the third person of the verb avoir, to have; is not 
 avoir the root of avarice 1 ? How many volumes would it 
 require to describe the baseness and crimes committed for 
 avoir, to have 1 
 
 By following up the words, one by one, you will not be 
 long before you arrive at the word abeille (bee). A large 
 volume might be made of nothing but the silly things men 
 have said on the subject of bees. It was thinking of bees 
 that brought to my mind the idea of this dictionary, which 
 may be entitled, The Misanthropical Dictionary, or the 
 History, in an alphabetical order, of the follies and wicked- 
 nesses of Man. 
 
 There is however one thing to be observed; many of the 
 silly things said about bees have not been said by the 
 moderns, because the ancients abused their position to say 
 them first. The moderns have only been able to repeat then; 
 and teach them in their colleges, as they do to the present 
 day. You have, my friend, passed ten years, as I did, as 
 everybody has, in learning Latin. During five or six, Virgil 
 was your principal subject of thought and study; and you 
 always esteemed him with an admh-ation without bounds and 
 without restriction during six years, that is to say, according 
 to the usages of colleges, during six professors. Never did 
 one professor think it worth his while to remark, that the 
 
 B B
 
 180 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 Bucolics are thickly sprinkled with base and ridiculous adula- 
 tions ; that the Georgics are stained with false ideas and 
 erroneous opinions. That was not the question ! Ideas, 
 sentiments, words, were the things necessary to be learnt. 
 
 There called on me the other day a man apparently as 
 happy as possible. You know, my friend, what respect I have 
 for all kinds of happiness ; you have seen me step out of my 
 way, for fear of disturbing a bird that was picking up a grain 
 of corn, or a peasant that was sleeping under a tree. I lis- 
 tened to the account of the happiness of this man. He is 
 having a good education as it is called given to his son ; not 
 an education that may teach him to be satisfied with a little, 
 to be firm and courageous, to be strong and independent. 
 No ; he has him taught Latin. " I make many sacrifices," 
 said he to me, "but I am largely recompensed; my boy 
 is surprising for his age. I wish you would see him." 
 I did not dare to refuse, and he sent the little fellow to 
 me. 
 
 On his entrance he saluted me with an ease and confidence 
 that I have never been able to acquire in all my. life, except 
 when I find myself face to face with people who are hostile 
 to me, because then my timidity dies for fear of degenerating 
 into cowardice. 
 
 I found him thin and pale ; he has neither the petulance 
 nor the peach-like bloom of boyhood ; nothing is in blossom 
 with him, neither his mind nor his cheeks : he is but thirteen 
 years old; and I at first really thought him surprising for 
 his age. 
 
 I was in the garden : I continued to walk about with him. 
 As we passed through a spot where the grass is divided by 
 a rivulet of little more than two feet wide, he left me, to go 
 to a small bridge to pass over it ; I was almost ashamed of 
 having jumped over it. As we came near to the violet turf, 
 upon which is a hive, " Ah ! ah ! " said he, 
 
 " Aerii mellis coelestia dona." 
 
 " Yes." replied I, " it is a hive. Are you acquainted with 
 bees ? It is a very interesting .study." 
 
 " Oh, certainly, I am acquainted with them," answered he ; 
 
 " Mores et studia, et populos, et praelia dicam."
 
 VIRGIL'S BEES. 187 
 
 " True. Well, I am not so far advanced as you; there are 
 many things upon this subject which I am still anxious to 
 learn, without too confidently hoping to succeed." 
 
 " Have you not read Virgil ? " 
 
 " Yes, my young friend ; but a long time ago." 
 
 " Well ! it was from Virgil I learnt to be acquainted with 
 bees; and we are at this very time translating the fourth 
 book of the Georgics." 
 
 " Impart to me a portion of that which you know, if you 
 please ; perhaps it will throw a light upon some points which 
 I find doubtful " 
 
 " Willingly, Sir. The bees are governed by a king. Many 
 pretenders generally dispute their suffrages ; but the one who 
 is the true sovereign is easily recognised by certain signs. 
 The one is handsome and majestic,* covered with a golden 
 cuirass ; t the other, who is but a usurper and a tyrant, is 
 horrible to behold. He is cowardly and idle, and has a great 
 belly ; in a word, he merits death. He is killed by the par- 
 tisans of the true king." 
 
 I listened attentively to these very false notions, recited 
 with admirable confidence by the young savant. 
 
 " I remember having read that, in the Georgics of Virgil ; 
 but I am sorry I have not the book here, I would have had re- 
 course to it for a circumstance which embarrasses me : I have 
 lost a part of my bees, and I think I recollect that Virgil 
 points out a sure way of recalling them." 
 
 " Nothing is more simple, Sir. You take a young bull,J 
 a bull of two years old, you kill it, and leave the carcase 
 enclosed in a hut to corrupt. In the following spring, as soon 
 as the meadows are enamelled with their earliest flowers, you 
 will find that from this corruption worms will be born, which 
 will very shortly become bees." 
 
 * " Alter erit maculis auro squalentibus ardens, 
 
 Hie melior insignis et sere, 
 Et nitidis elarus squammis." VIRO. 
 
 1 " Ille horridus alter, 
 
 Desidiam lataraque trahens inglorius alvum." VIRG. 
 
 t " Turn vitulus bina curvans jam cornua fronte 
 Quajritur." 
 
 " Plagisque perempto 
 Tunsa per integram solvuntur viscera pellem," &c. VIRG. Georg. lib iv.
 
 188 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 '' Indeed ! well, that's very convenient ! " 
 
 " This is not the way, besides, that bees are naturally 
 born." 
 
 " J can very well believe so." 
 
 " They are not subjected to the pains of giving birth." * 
 
 " So much the better for them." 
 
 " They find their young upon flowers and odoriferous 
 shrubs." f 
 
 " Which, for instance 1 " 
 
 " It is upon the Cerintha, in particular, that the kings are 
 born." 
 
 " What is the Cerintha 1 " 
 
 " A substantive of the first declension." 
 
 '' Is it nothing but that ? " 
 
 ' It is probably a tree or a plant." 
 
 " Has it never been pointed out to you ? " 
 
 " No. How do you think it possible that plants should be 
 shown to us in class 1 " 
 
 " Well, then, I will show it to you. The name of Cerintha, 
 or Cerinthe, is composed of two Greek words, and means 
 wax-flower. It is yonder pretty plant, with thick sea-green 
 foliage, covered with little spikes of yellow flowers ; it is called 
 in French Melinet, that is to say, honey-flowers." 
 
 " Sir, I am exceedingly obliged to you." 
 
 " You have reason to be so, my young friend, for it is the 
 only truth that has been taught you with respect to bees." 
 
 " What, Sir, all that I have just told you? " 
 
 " All that you have just now said, or rather recited, is a 
 tissue of lies, so much the more ridiculous from being far less 
 wonderful than the truth itself." 
 
 At this moment the father entered. I informed him ot 
 the error into which his son had been led, and said to him : 
 " Your son is intelligent, but he is ill-directed. It is all very 
 well to be able to speak well and fluently; but style is but 
 a vestment, there should be a body beneath it. At the same 
 time that children are taught to read the harmonious verses 
 of Virgil, the false ideas which those verses so magnificently 
 
 " Non foetus nixibus edunt." 
 t " \erum ipsse foliis natos et suavibus heibi 
 Ore legunt."
 
 FAULTS OF EDUCATION. 
 
 189 
 
 embellish, ought to be corrected. You ought, on your part, 
 to make your son read some good work upon bees ; it would 
 interest him greatly, and prevent his taking the fourth book 
 of Virgil's Georgics as a true history." 
 
 " Sir," replied the father, " I cannot think of interrupting 
 his studies ! " 
 
 Fine studies these ; to learn words, always words, nothing 
 but words; to talk of things, without being acquainted with 
 things ; to repeat nonsense correctly ! Such is the employ- 
 ment of our youth !
 
 LETTER XXX. 
 
 WHILST we are upon this subject, my friend, I will relate 
 to you such of the established absurdities concerning bees as 
 recur to my memory. 
 
 Aristotle mentions that the bee adopts one flower, and 
 never collects its honey but from flowers of the same kind. 
 
 The same Aristotle : That when it is windy, the bee keeps 
 itself steady in its flight, by carrying grains of sand between 
 its feet. 
 
 The same Aristotle : That bees without a king only make 
 wax and not honey. That they drive from the hive the most 
 greedy, the most idle, &c. &c. 
 
 Pliny adds, probably after a more profound study of the 
 penal code of the bees, that in cases of relapse or obstinacy 
 in the above-mentioned vices, they are punished in divers 
 ways, and even with death in certain circumstances. 
 
 Both of these celebrated writers have made long eulogiums, 
 copied a hundred times over by the moderns, upon their 
 justice, their bravery, their modesty, their loyalty, their poli- 
 tical science, and their skill in government. 
 
 They were not content with Virgil's bull. It was advised
 
 TTTE QUEEN BEE. 101 
 
 that a lion should take the place of the rotten bull, because 
 then the bees are stronger and more courageous. Even 
 in 1735, the fathers of Trevoux took up warmly against 
 Reaumur the defence of two Jesuits, who persisted in teach- 
 ing that insects came from putrefaction. After having said 
 that bees found their young ready-made iipon flowers and 
 leaves, they changed about a little, and asserted that young 
 bees were born from the corruption of honey. 
 
 It was pretended that the queen of the bees* (obstinately 
 called the king) had no sting. Many devices were made from 
 this belief. Louis XII., on entering into Genoa, appeared in 
 a white dress, sown over with golden bees, with these words 
 as his device : Rex non utitur aculeo (the king has no sting). 
 Pope Urban VIII. placed bees in his coat of arms, with this 
 Latin verse under them : 
 
 " Gallis mella dabunt, Hispanis spicula figent." 
 (The honey for France, the sting for Spain.) 
 
 A Spaniard replied : 
 
 " Spicula si figent, emorientur apes." 
 (When the hee stings, it dies.) 
 
 The Pope caused the following distich to be circulated: 
 
 " Cunctis mella dabunt, nulli sua spicula figent, 
 Spicula nam princeps figere nescit apum." 
 
 (They will have honey for all, and wounds for nobody, for 
 the king of the bees has no sting.) 
 
 It was well worth while, before Pliny, for the philosopher 
 Aristomachus to pass fifty-eight years in studying bees ; and 
 for another philosopher, Hyliscus, to retire into a desert, for 
 the sole purpose of contemplating bee-hives ! 
 
 It has been said, and it is still believed in many places, 
 that bees do not sting wool, and that with woollen gloves 
 they may be handled with impunity ; which is all very true, 
 when the woollen gloves are thicker than the stir.g of the bee 
 is long : under similar conditions you may make use of what 
 stuff you please. It has been asserted that bees hatch their 
 ^ajgs as hens do. 
 
 Even to the present day in the country, if any one dies 
 ui a house, crape is placed upon the hives, vHhout which 
 
 * See the upper figure of the cut in p. 190.
 
 192 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 the bees would be angry at a want of respect, which would 
 lead them to believe they were considered as strangers, and 
 not as part of the family. And you may have repeated to 
 you, as long as you are willing to listen, instances in which 
 such and such a one has lost all his bees, from failing in thib 
 act of politeness towards the bees, who refused to live with 
 such ill-bred people, and flew away. Still further; you must, 
 on no account, swear when you are near bees. If you buy 
 a swarm, you must not haggle about the price ; bees hate 
 meanness, and will not stay with you if you do. They have 
 an antipathy to thieves; I believe it is a question, however, 
 whether this extends beyond the plunderers of honey. These 
 virtuous flies love virtuous men, know how to distinguish 
 them, and entertain a strong hatred for vice and the vicious. 
 It is not safe to go near them with any crime upon your con- 
 science. 
 
 It is very evident, that if these flies were more numerous 
 and larger, they would suffice for making virtue reign upon 
 earth, and would very advantageously fill the places of 
 judges, policemen, and gaolers. 
 
 All these simple tales, I repeat, are particularly contemp- 
 tible, in this respect ; they have only been imagined in order 
 to attribute to bees something marvellous, which is really far 
 beneath the truth. 
 
 We will content ourselves, in the journey we are about to 
 make round my hive, with the things we shall see with our 
 two eyes. 
 
 What a concourse at the opening of the hive ! Never was 
 the public square of a great city witness of such agitation ! 
 Some bees are issuing in great haste, and flying away to a 
 distance in search of provisions, whilst others are returning 
 loaded with them. We must, in the first place, ascertain 
 what the bees thus go to seek in the neighbouring country : 
 the first thing is a sort of resin, called propolis, which they 
 find upon certain trees firs, yews, birches, &c. ; next, pollen, 
 or the fecundating powder of flowers, of which they make 
 bee-bread ; and then they plunder the nectaries of flowers for 
 a juice which becomes honey. 
 
 Here is one bringing materials : after having rolled itself 
 in the pollen of flowers, it has, with its hind feet made spooa-
 
 WORKER BEES. llKi 
 
 fashion, and armed with hairs as rough as those of a brush, 
 gathered together in little pellets the grains of pollen which 
 have remained about the hairs with which its body is covered. 
 There are five or six bees whose baskets are well laden. Some 
 have collected their burden from a single flower ; and it is 
 easy to ascertain from what flower, however far it may grow 
 from the hive. The powder this one bears is white ; the bee 
 lias been wallowing, if we may use such a word, in a mallow, 
 whilst his companion, covered with brown powder, has been 
 plundering the tulips. That yellow pollen comes from the 
 blossom of a melon, <fec. <fec. Some of those who arrive enter 
 the door; others deliver up their provisions to other bees who 
 receive them at the door, and as soon as they have got rid of 
 their burden they resume their flight. They are not at all less 
 busy inside of the hive than without : these make with wax 
 hexagonal cells, in which others come and disgorge honey 
 Other cells are kept empty : these are the nests destined for 
 the young bees. 
 
 The hive is peopled by three sorts of bees : first one 
 female, that is the queen ; males, called drones, to the number 
 of nearly two thousand ; and eight or ten thousand workers, 
 without sex, which consequently do not multiply, having besides 
 plenty to do, and no time to spare for amusement. The queen, 
 with her harem of drones, suffices for the reproduction of the 
 race she lays at least six thousand eggs in a year ! Of these 
 eggs, some will produce females like herself; others, males; 
 and the remainder, in still greater numbers, workers without 
 sex. Whilst the queen is engaged in the duties of providing 
 another generation, all the workers are busy with the cradles 
 and the food of the numerous family which she will soon 
 bring into the world. 
 
 There arrives a period when the workers have a great 
 operation to perform. The queen has no more time to waste 
 in love, she has other imperative tasks in view ; the males 
 have completed their destiny, and being from that time use- 
 less and an incumbrance, the workers make a general massacre 
 of them, and cast their carcases out of the colony. The 
 queen begins to lay : followed by a train of working bees, she 
 commences her progress over the cells. When, after examin- 
 ing the interior of one of these cells, she finds it to her mind, 
 c c
 
 l'J4 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 ihe deposits an egg in it, and resumes her march. During 
 all this time, the workers which surround her lick her, clean 
 her, and offer her honey with their little trunks. All the 
 cells are not of the same size ; some, of similar form to the 
 ordinary cells destined to contain provisions, and to serve as 
 nests for the eggs which are to produce common bees, are 
 larger by a ninth than these ; they will be the cradles of the 
 males. Others of a different form, of a rounded and oblong 
 figure, are destined to contain the eggs which will become 
 females like the queen. 
 
 Bees employ admirable economy in the use of their wax. 
 Several learned geometricians have endeavoured to prove 
 what should be the form of cells that would require the least 
 possible wax, and, as the result of their problem, have arrived 
 at the conclusion that it is exactly that which is adopted by 
 the bees. Well, but when the object is to build a royal cell, 
 they renounce this economy altogether : a single one of 
 these cells requires as much wax as a hundred and fifty ordi- 
 nary cells. According to the time of year, the queen chooses, 
 for depositing her eggs, one of these three sorts of cells. Such 
 of the cells as contain the provision of honey are hermeti- 
 cally sealed with lids of wax; those in which the eggs are 
 placed are left uncovered : these eggs are of a bluish white. 
 Two days afterwards, from this egg issues a worm; several 
 times in the course of the day a working bee brings it food. 
 A bee often passes over several cells without stopping; the 
 reason of which is that it finds the worms sufficiently pro- 
 visioned. In proportion with the growth of the worms, their 
 food, a kind of pap which they give them, becomes more sub- 
 stantial and is otherwise composed. A paste quite different 
 in taste is given to the worms which are to become fruitful 
 queens. At the end of six days the worms are about to 
 be transformed, and no more food is brought to them; the 
 workers fasten them into their cells by placing lids of wax 
 over them. The worm thus shut up lines its dwelling with 
 a hanging of extremely fine silk, and then undergoes two 
 transformations. At the second, it is a perfect bee. 
 
 The bee opens the lid with its teeth, and comes out of the 
 cell. During this time other bees clean out the cell that has 
 just been abandoned, taking away the cast-off vestments of the
 
 BIRTll OF A BEE SWARMING. 195 
 
 worm, and carrying them out of the hive; with equal care 
 they remove the little pailicles of wax which may have fallen 
 into the cell when the lid was pierced. Other bees tear away 
 all that remains of this lid. In a word, they restore the 
 cells to a condition to receive a fresh egg, or to become a 
 magazine for honey. The young bee enters at once upon its 
 functions; two hours after its birth, you could not recognise 
 it but by its colour, which is rather grey, whilst the others 
 become reddish as they grow old. As soon as its wings are 
 smooth and shining, it goes out, flies away, and does not 
 return till laden. But not only one bee at a time is thus 
 born, more than a hundred issue from their cells, on the 
 same day; so that, at the end of a few weeks, the hive is 
 over-peopled. 
 
 One morning, you observe a kind of revolution. The 
 activity which reigned round the hive has suddenly disap- 
 peared. A few bees only come ou* and return, lightly laden. 
 A. colony is about to separate itself from the parent hive, and 
 go and seek other penates. About ten o'clock in the morning, 
 when the sun shines brightly, a great buzzing is heard in the 
 hive ; some bees fly out in a tumultuous state they precede 
 the old queen. She soon appears ; she is much longer and 
 larger than the woi-king bees ; her wings scarcely extend over 
 half the length of her body ; her hind-feet are not hollowed 
 into the shape of a spoon ; she has no necessity for travelling 
 far, and brings home no burdens. She is not destined to 
 work. Her particular part is to be, literally, the mother of 
 her people. 
 
 At no great distance, the first bees that come out go and 
 heap themselves up in large clusters around the branch of 
 some tree ; the queen comes amongst them : then all the bees, 
 before spread about in the air, come and cling around her. 
 Most of these are young workers, who follow the fortunes of 
 their royal mother; some old ones, however, of a restless 
 character, come out with the colony and abandon the metro- 
 polis. There they remain assembled for more than a quarter 
 of an hour, and sometimes much longer; then they resume 
 their flight in search of a more convenient establishment. 
 It is during these moments of hesitation and immobility, thai- 
 the swarni is easily swept entire into a hive in which, finding
 
 11)0 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN 
 
 themsexves comfortably installed, they remain willingly, and 
 on the morrow commence their labours. If, by chance, a 
 part only of the swarm has been taken, and the qjieen is not 
 among the captives, none of the bees will work ; there will be 
 neither wax nor honey made in the hive. The motive which 
 gives such ardour to the workers, is the certainty of having 
 among them a fruitful mother, whose young family it is their 
 duty to feed and bring up. 
 
 In general, the drones have remained, if not all, almost all, 
 in the old hive. The other queens are massacred, and their 
 bodies dragged out. It sometimes happens that at the 
 moment of the coming out of the swarm, two young mothers 
 at once pretend to the sovereignty of the new colony. In 
 fact, sometimes twenty of them are born in a single hive. If 
 two queens come out at the same time, the swarm divides, 
 but unequally; each of the two queens establishes herself 
 and her partisans upon a different branch. 
 
 Our young laureate told us, according to Virgil, what was 
 formerly thought of these two kings. If one were the model 
 of all the virtues, the other was but a brazen-faced scoundrel. 
 The first was covered with gold; the second, shabbily drest, 
 and had a great belly. 
 
 Another more modern author who has written npon bees, 
 in French, expresses himself in analogous terms. He calls 
 the false king the tyrant. 
 
 " His dismal colour, his great belly, his rough legs, and his 
 languid gestures, are signs of envy, avarice, ambition, glut- 
 tony, cowardice, idleness," &c. &c. 
 
 Certainly, never was monarch so ill-treated ; the tyrants of 
 tragedy are, beyond contradiction, the most patient and the 
 most meek of men. Every character in the piece spouts his 
 two hundred verses of invectives against them without inter- 
 ruption ; and if one of the tyrants stops them by crying out. 
 "Hola! my guards!" it, is not till the other has exhausted 
 his vocabulary, without cutting off one hemistich or misplacing 
 one rhyme. This poor tyrant of the bees is not much better 
 dealt with. It is a fortunate thing for him that the writer 
 did not know that Beelzebub means king of the flies ; he 
 certainly would not have spared him that name. But this is 
 not all: "The tyrant comes out of the hive, and gets awav
 
 CHOICE OF A MONARCH. 167 
 
 from the legitimate king like a traitor; a part of the people 
 revolt, and go and branch with him, whore they would be lost, 
 were it not that, perceiving their error, they themselves efface 
 it by going to range themselves round the true king. The 
 tyrant, finding himself abandoned, goes and joins the general 
 swarm. But these virtuous insects, who pique themselves 
 upon all that concerns the honour of their king, conspire the 
 ruin of this turbulent fellow; they rush upon him, tear hirn 
 to pieces, trample him under foot, so that on the morrow he 
 is found dead, strangled under the hive, with some of his 
 accomplices." 
 
 It is evident that when two young mothers leave the old 
 hive at the same time, the bees must make a choice; but it is 
 difficult to ascertain what determines that choice. I cannot 
 think it can be precisely the gold which poets have discovered 
 on her person, and which humble prose must translate into 
 a russet brown. There is nothing to prove that bees attach 
 the same value to gold that we do. 
 
 The cock of La Fontaine preferred the smallest grain of 
 millet to a pearl which he had found. I do not know why 
 La Fontaine seems to blame him by the introduction of the 
 second apologue. 
 
 I do not perceive that yellow birds enjoy greater considera- 
 tion among other birds. The golden-crested regulus, so called 
 by men because it has on its head a tuft of orange-coloured 
 feathers, does not appear to have succeeded in getting its 
 royalty acknowledged among the other inhabitants of the air. 
 But nevertheless the poets and others have only been deceived 
 in the explanation they have given of the preference of the 
 swarm for one of the two young queens. It is true, that in 
 general the young bees, in this case, decide in favour of the 
 redder of the two mother bees. It is true that the one that 
 is first abandoned, and then put to death, is of a darker 
 colour ; but there is no necessity for attributing these two so 
 different fates to the various virtues of the first, or the 
 hideous vices of the second, nor even to her having a great 
 belly. I mentioned, not far back, that young bees are brown, 
 and that they become red as they grow old. I have likewise 
 told you, that at their birth their bellies were larger than 
 they would be afterwards. The preference of the bees is
 
 198 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 simply for that one of the two queens which is the elder, and 
 who, consequently, has become in a state to prove a mother 
 before her departure from the hive, because she alone promises 
 them with certainty that which is the sole cause of their 
 labours, the sole motives of their zeal. The crimes of the 
 queen are simply her youth and her maiden condition. 
 
 "Ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere." 
 
 If she is killed, if all those born at the same time are mas- 
 sacred in the old hive, it is because bees are not progressive, 
 and have not yet imagined a constitutional government and 
 the balance of power, which, if it were not achieved, would 
 only arrive in its highest point of perfection in immobility. 
 
 The government of the bees, I must admit, has with reason 
 been represented as a model of the best monarchy that can 
 possibly exist ; but it was very wrong to give them laws and 
 a code, judges, advocates, and gend'armes. 
 
 What constitutes the excellence of this government is, that 
 the bees have none of these, and that they don't want their;, 
 because every one has its part to play, and never dreams of 
 playing another; because workers never think of becoming 
 drones, and drones never intrigue to be above queens. 
 
 Whilst human societies are constantly full of pertur- 
 bations and misery, they form a concert, in which each instru- 
 ment wishes to make itself heard above the rest, and in which 
 no one will confine himself to his own part, which must pro- 
 duce, and does in fact produce, a glorious charivari.
 
 LETTER XXXf. 
 
 VIRGIL AGAIN THE HYACINTH THE LABKSPOR. 
 
 iT is unfortunate that I have not my young savant here. 
 
 There are, in one of the Eclogues of Virgil the third, if I 
 nm not mistaken some enigmas which two shepherds propose 
 co each other : 
 
 " Die quibus in terris . . . 
 Tres pateat coeli spatium non amplius ulnas." 
 
 To which the other replies, without guessing the enigma : 
 
 " Die quibus in terris inscripti nomina regurn 
 Nascuntur Cores." 
 
 " Say, in what country do flowers grow with the names of 
 kings written upon them." 
 
 The commentators of Virgil, and the professors after them,
 
 "200 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 take upon themselves to explain these two enigmas. The 
 answer to the first, they say, is a well, in the bottom of which 
 we may behold the reflection of the heavens. 
 
 " Tres non amplius ulnas." 
 
 This is quite as likely to be a loophole or a chimney, 
 particularly when we remember how the chimneys of the 
 ancients were built; but the commentators and professors 
 have decided that it is a well. As regards the second, these 
 said commentators and professors are not all of one mind. 
 Some say that it is the hyacinth. But let them speak for 
 themselves : 
 
 " Ajax, the son of Telamon and Hesione, after Achilles, the 
 most valiant captain of the Greeks, being one day engaged 
 in combat with the renowned Hector, night alone separated 
 them, when they exchanged presents, which proved unfortu- 
 nate to both; for Hector, when dead, was dragged round Troy 
 by Achilles, by the baldrick which Ajax had given him, and 
 Ajax killed himself with the sword presented to him by 
 Hector ; because, when disputing with Ulysses the arms of the 
 deceased Achilles, the Prince of Ithaca obtained them by the 
 decision of the Greeks; and the policy and good counsels of 
 Ulysses were preferred to the courage of the other, which 
 threw Ajax into such a fury, that he vented it by killing all 
 the cattle he met with, imagining them to be the Greek 
 princes and Ulysses. But perceiving his error, he plunged 
 his sword into his own body, the blood of which gave birth 
 to this flower, previously stained with that of Hyacinthus, 
 and which still bears ai, the first two letters of his name, 
 imprinted on its leaves." 
 
 But Ovid says, that the hyacinth sprang from the blood of 
 a young man beloved by Apollo, whom the god killed by 
 accident, whilst playing with him at quoits; and that the 
 flower bare the epitaph of the young man, IA; that is to say, 
 Hyacinthus, or AI, which is Alas! 
 
 I declare that, with the best will possible that is to say, 
 I am quite ready to admit that ia means " hyacinthus," or ai 
 means "alas ! " I have never been able to find these two letters 
 upon any hyacinth in my life. I must likewise add, that I 
 have been equally unsuccessful in my endeavours to find
 
 THE MYSTIC A I A. 201 
 
 AIA; indeed, I was less likely to make out that inscription, 
 as there is one letter more, and I never could find any at all. 
 That, then, is not the flower upon which the names of kings 
 are written; and besides, if there were IA, or AI, or even 
 A i A, it would not be Ajax; since the flower, before him, be- 
 longed to Hyacinthus, and really I don't think there is room 
 for both on one flower. 
 
 Other commentators say, that it was not into a hyacinth 
 that the blood of Ajax was changed; but into a Larkspur, 
 Delphinium, a flower upon which, say they, we may read the 
 letters AIA, and which the botanists consequently term Del- 
 phinium Ajacis. 
 
 Now, errors cannot be too soon corrected, or, violated 
 truth too promptly reestablished. It is evident, there are no 
 letters upon the hyacinth. Let us examine then the flowers of 
 the delphinium. I declare again that, being disposed to trans- 
 late AIA in any way, by the son of Telamon, if agreeable to the 
 commentators, I have sought anxiously and closely in the 
 flowers of the larkspur of several varieties, and I have never 
 been able to trace a single one of the three letters named, 
 read, and announced by the learned. 
 
 I remember with admiration, that one day a professor 
 dressed in a black robe, from his lofty desk, and with one of 
 those knitted brows upon which Pedant is more plainly 
 written than Ajax upon the delphinium, explained to us 
 these idle stories with his most grave and majestic air ; and 
 that I was severely punished for being caught making little 
 ducks of paper under which I placed flies, and so set them 
 going, which was treated as a childish and futile amusement, 
 in comparison with the important matters which were being 
 taught to the class; that is to say, the enigma of the Well and 
 the Larkspur. Now, I to this day maintain that my little ducks 
 were much more ingenious playthings than the professor's ; 
 and that, as regards futilities, those that amuse have an 
 immense advantage over the others, with whatever seriousness 
 and pretension they may be put forth. 
 
 I can easily pardon the larkspurs this deficiency, out of gra- 
 titude for the magnificent shade of blue which some varieties 
 of these flowers display. 
 
 The larkspur with simple flowers, but still better tha* 
 D D
 
 202 
 
 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 with double blossoms, is of the most beautiful blue that 
 can be beheld, and the more beautiful, because we cannot 
 imagine it without seeing it. 
 
 To the delphiniums has likewise been attributed the quality 
 of closing wounds : it is doubtless to the same delphinium 
 that was formerly Ajax, that this virtue must be assigned. 
 The others have it not in any way ; but, for my part. 
 I should never think of requiring anything else of a flower 
 which is of such a beautiful blue. 
 
 Silkworm on the Mulberry.
 
 LETTER XXX11. 
 
 FALSE GODS. 
 
 WHEN I admire certain flowers produced by bulbs, and 
 when I reflect upon the things which men of all times and all 
 countries have worshipped and still do worship, I really have 
 not the courage to think the Egyptians very unreasonable in 
 their adoration of flowers. 
 
 Here is a god I have just had sent to me ; it is a 
 piece of chipped wood it is an Indian god. I cannot think 
 it gains much in comparison with a hyacinth or a tulip. 
 
 But without speaking of wooden gods or stone gods, with- 
 out speaking of amulets worn to avert destinies, and a thou- 
 sand similar childish superstitions, don't we see all the world 
 worshipping money] And let it not be objected, that it is 
 not money that is worshipped, but the pleasures of which it 
 is the representative ; all that can be procured in exchange 
 for it. I answer, that there is nobody who is not acquainted
 
 ^Oi A TOUll BOUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 with some rich, insolent, ugly, stupid, avaricious man, to 
 whom everybody listens when it pleases him to utter a 
 stupidity ; who is warmly welcomed in every house which 
 he honours with his presence, whose opinion is never contra- 
 dicted, except with the greatest caution, and all sorts of 
 excuses. Why, there is not even the pretence of avarice or 
 cupidity in the homages rendered to this man ; he has been 
 tried, and every one knows nothing is to be hoped for from 
 him he never gives away anything. No, it is his money, to 
 which he is a kind of saddle-bag, that they admire, that 
 they adore, and to which all these homages, or rather these 
 basenesses are offered up. 
 
 We worship glory, particularly military glory, which con- 
 sists in killing without hating, without a motive, the greatest 
 possible number of men barn under another sky, and that 
 under such singular conditions, that if to-morrow this country 
 yields, after having been sufficiently ravaged, it becomes 
 a crime punishable by law, by honour, and by universal con- 
 tempt, to kill a single one of its inhabitants whom it was 
 so glorious to massacre yesterday. 
 
 Places ! You see people rich enough to live in abundance, 
 in quiet and even in enjoyment, eagerly seeking a sort of 
 domesticity, a certain rank, called place ; and believe them- 
 selves happy and indebted to heaven in fervent thanks, 
 if they are sufficiently favoured to succeed in obtaining one 
 of these places, which requires of them a compulsory costume, 
 a forced residence, necessary occupations, indispensable cares, 
 subjection at all hours, and an incessant responsibility in 
 exchange for sweet liberty ! 
 
 Besides these you have titles ! The man who has obtained 
 a legal right to place three or four certain letters before 
 his name, instantly becomes a sort of idol which is adored, 
 and which ardently adores itself. 
 
 And red ; the love of red, the adoration of red, the red 
 so much beloved by savages and children ; that gaudy colour 
 what will a man not do to have the right of wearing in his 
 coat a piece of red ribbon ; particularly if, after having for 
 some time tied it in a simple knot, the heads of the state 
 authorize him to wear it in the form of a rosette ! He feels 
 himself another man; he is a god, and believes in himself!
 
 POETIC FABLES. 20o 
 
 Oh ! my beautiful hyacinth roots, my beautiful tulip 
 bulbs, my beautiful tuberose and jonquil roots! my beauti- 
 ful squill and pancratium bulbs my beautiful crocus and 
 saffron bulbs ! oh, my beautiful bulbs of tiger-lilies, gladiolus 
 and amaryllis ! my beautiful bulbs of soft or brilliant colours, 
 pure or harmonious my beautiful bulbs of sweet and intoxi- 
 cating perfumes ! My beautiful bulbs ; what amends do you 
 make me for the want of all this, and how much greater gods 
 are you than all these idols ! Have pity on them. 
 
 The flower of the narcissus was formerly, say the ancient 
 poets, a young man, the sou of the river Cephisus, who pined 
 away to death from love of his own attractions. Now, I 
 never found the least charm in these fables which force man 
 iuto everything. I love women under trees, but I don't like 
 them in trees, like the hamadryades. All these metamor- 
 phoses of men and women into trees and flowers, are in 
 my eyes cold and insipid fancies. Trees and flowers have, 
 their own particular existence, their own particular charms; 
 one of which frequently not the least is to fly to the midst 
 of them and forget men. 
 
 Lucian complains of these fables. " When," says he, " I 
 heard in my youth, that on the banks of the Eridanus grew 
 trees from which amber flowed, and that this amber was the 
 tears of the sisters of Phaeton, who had been changed into 
 poplars, and still wept his misfortune, I had a great desire to 
 see all this; but, as I was afterwards sailing on this river, 
 seeing none of these trees on the shore, I asked the sailors 
 when we should come to those places which are so famous 
 among the poets, and they began to laugh at my ignorance, 
 and were astonished that such falsehoods should be promul- 
 gated; they were acquainted with neither Phaeton nor his 
 sisters, and told me that if there were in this country any 
 trees that produced a resin as precious as amber, they would 
 not amuse themselves in hauling ropes or tugging at oars. This 
 rendered me ashamed of having been imposed upon by the 
 poets and I regretted these things as if I had lost them. 
 
 " I also expected to hear the swans of this river sing, 
 having learnt that the King of Liguria, a friend of Phaeton, 
 and changed into a swan at his death, had preserved a melo- 
 dious voice; but this proved to be not less false than the rest.
 
 20G A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 And when I inquired of the same people, they told me that 
 swans were sometimes met with upon the Eridanus; but 
 that their song, or rather cry, was not more agreeable than 
 that of other aquatic birds." But, let us return to the Nar- 
 cissus. Every one is agreed, we must understand him who 
 was formerly son of the river Cephisus, to be Narcissus of the 
 poets. This narcissus is white, with a little exterior yellow 
 and red crown or circle, producing a charming effect. 
 Virgil says the narcissus is red : 
 
 " Pro purpureo Narcisso." 
 
 But Ovid, who describes the metamorphosis, says it is yellow 
 surrounded with white leaves, which is not dissimilar to the 
 narcissus we are acquainted with. 
 
 " Croceum florem 
 
 Foliis medium cingeitibus albis." 
 
 Crowns of narcissus were twined in honour of the infernal 
 gods, and placed upon the heads of the dead. 
 
 A long time before this narcissus, the yellow narcissus 
 blooms in the still shadeless woods, at about the same time 
 with the earliest violets, or rather a little before them. 
 
 A sort of fly, very much resembling a drone, burrows in 
 the earth, at a certain period of the year, at the foot of a tuft 
 of narcissus ; when, by a subterranean gallery, it has reached 
 the bulb, it deposits an egg in it by means of its wimble ; 
 after which it comes out again from the gallery, and resumes 
 its flight. From this egg will issue a worm, which will feed 
 upon the bulb till it shall become a fly similar to that which 
 has just laid it. 
 
 I don't know whether the Egyptians were acquainted with 
 this fly, or if they held in sufficient horror so impious an in- 
 sect, which at the same time eats a god and makes a retreat 
 and an asylum of him.
 
 LETTER XXXIII. 
 
 THE MANTIS THE ORCHIS THE GALL INSECT COCHINEAL 
 VALUE OF SCARLET. 
 
 WE have seen an insect, which we took for a little parcel of 
 dried leaves; it is the mantis, or the leaf insect, which resembles 
 a branch with two green leaves. There is a little plant which 
 springs up in the grass to a height of five or six inches; 
 its stalk is surmounted by a pink flower. But what insect is 
 that, with its head buried in the nectary of the flower, and 
 which appears to be feasting with such perseverance that it is 
 quite motionless? 
 
 Don't be afraid of frightening it, it won't fly away; it 
 won't go away, unless it be in a month, in which it fades ; for 
 that insect is a flower ; for it is but the under part of these 
 three lilac petals which surmount it. The form, the colour, 
 everything is perfectly imitated, it is the same mixture of 
 yellow and brown. You would not dare to touch it, for fear 
 of being stung by it. 
 
 This flower, which is almost a fly this insect, which 
 blooms and comes from a seed instead of issuing from an egg 
 this flower, which we may fancy we hear buzz, and upon 
 which bees will not light, believing it to be occupied by a fly ; 
 this flv is called Bee Orctrs.
 
 L'08 A TOUR ROUND 'MY GARDEN. 
 
 We find upon the branch of a peach-tree a sort of tube- 
 rosity which appears to be a gall of the tree produced by the 
 puncture of some insect. It is an insect perfectly alive. At 
 first it was like a flat roundish spot which progressed over 
 the leaves. The branches would then have been too difficult 
 of digestion for it: it fell with the leaves in the autumn. 
 Then it had a long voyage to make, for till that period it? 
 journeys over the leaves had been confined during five months 
 to a surface about the size of a sixpence. 
 
 Now that it has acquired strength, and is as large as a grain 
 of millet seed, it must quit the dry and fallen leaf, and ascend 
 the tree till it meets with a branch of the preceding year's 
 growth. It has five months to perform this journey in ; it 
 may be done, but it must not stop to amuse itself on the 
 road. 
 
 The journey once completed, it will repose after it for the 
 rest of its life ; it will fasten itself to a young branch, and 
 not only will it never leave it again, but still further, it will 
 never quit the point of the branch upon which it has esta- 
 blished itself. It grows that is its mission, that is its duty. 
 When it has become as large as a pea, there comes a most 
 singular little fly, of a deep red, with two wings twice as 
 long as its body; these wings are of an opaque white, 
 ornamented on the outward side by a rich carmine band. 
 These little flies are the males of the animated tubero- 
 sities. 
 
 Among these insects may be seen that which the Romans 
 required of women, carried to the highest degree : 
 
 " Lanam fecit, domum servavit." 
 
 " She spun her wool, and kept her house." 
 
 Whilst the male, small, rakish, richly clothed i-n purple, 
 flies about at hazard, the female, scarcely living, taken for a 
 gall of the tree, for a swelling of a leaf or of a branch, re- 
 mains motionless, and waits for her husband. The male, who is 
 singularly small in comparison with the gall-insect, walks 
 over her, surveys her all over, for she is for him a sufficiently 
 large track ; he examines her from north to south, from east 
 to west, and it is not till he is fatigued with running about 
 over his beloved object that he risks the aA'owal of his flame,
 
 LANAM FECIT; DOMUM SERVAYIT. 209 
 
 after which, flying once or twice round his beloved, he de- 
 parts. The wife, from that moment, thinks of nothing but 
 the numerous family she has to bring into the world about 
 two thousand children. She begins to lay, and her eggs all 
 come enveloped in a sort of cotton : Lanam fecit She has spun 
 her wool. 
 
 Then the gall-insect changes its form; its belly flattens, 
 and becomes so thin that it joins the back; which forms 
 a hollow space under it, in which are its eggs. Its back 
 hardens, the belly and the back are quite confounded, the 
 gall-insect withers, dies, and becomes a dwelling-place for its 
 young ones. This is better than the domum servavit; she does 
 not remain in the house, she becomes the house itself. 
 
 At the end of twelve days the young insects, as well those 
 which are to become round spots as those that will be little 
 brown flies, feel a desire to quit home and their mother, 
 which are for them one and the same thing. The little gall- 
 insects, which the eye cannot then distinguish without the 
 assistance of a microscope, wish to come out from that chamber 
 which has been their mother; nature has foreseen this want, 
 and has left a window in this mother by which the young 
 insects escape, and go to fix themselves upon leaves, as we 
 found them at the commencement of our account. 
 
 Many savants for a long time took these insects for galls, 
 that is to say, for excrescences formed by the puncture in 
 which certain insects lay their eggs in the thickness of certain 
 leaves and certain branches. 
 
 Some insects seem to partake the error of the savants. 
 Ichneumons lay their eggs in the body of that insect, and 
 the young ichneumons come out later, but not as the proper 
 young ones do; they bore holes through this motionless 
 mother, and are born by violence. 
 
 The scarlet-grain of Poland, kermes and cochineal, which 
 ftre used for dyeing red, are insects of this kind. 
 
 I burn, my friend, to know what account you will oppose 
 to this, you who have travelled so far ; I defy you even to 
 venture a falsehood so extraordinary as this truth which I 
 have just exhibited to you. I in vain recal to my mind all 
 the voyages I have read ; I find in them always the same 
 custom as we see here. The women place rings in their noses 
 E E
 
 210 
 
 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 instead of their ears as ours do ; they adorn their heads with 
 the feathers of the parroquet instead of those of the ostrich. 
 They are rather naked below, which appears indecent to 
 European ladies, who only expose the upper half of their 
 persons. 
 
 The men are proud of one or two cloves which they are 
 allowed to wear on account of their great actions. We laugh 
 heartily at this, we Europeans do. Cloves! to have their 
 arms and their legs broken for two or three cloves ! Really, 
 savages are droll creatures! Well now, we, when we expose 
 ourselves to fire and sword, we know what we are about, we 
 who are white, we who are enlightened and civilized. Well ! 
 let them offer us cloves, would they be well received? No, 
 no, we are allowed to wear in a button-hole of our coat a 
 little bit of red riband; at a later period, perhaps, we may 
 tie it in a rosette, but everybody does not attain that honour. 
 
 Still further, my friend, there is a great difference which 
 I have observed between the men of the different countries 
 of which I have read accounts in voyages. In France, for 
 instance, most men are ready to do anything for gold, for 
 louis. With these round pieces you can buy anything, even 
 that which ought not to be bought or sold. In England this 
 is not so ; see what it is to travel ! everything is to be bought 
 with guineas and sovereigns. In Spain, on the contrary, it is 
 with i-eals; in Italy, with ducats; in certain isles of America, 
 the same things are sold to you, but in return for certain 
 shells, whilst on the coast of Africa it is for gold-dust. It is 
 true that it is in all cases for money, and that the provisions 
 that are sold are the same, since money, in whatever snapa 
 is every thing, without exception.
 
 LETTER XXXIV. 
 
 THE IITT1.E CAUSES OF GREAT EVENTS THE FH AX I NF.LLA THE MfiKLI.A 
 PINKS. 
 
 I DON'T know whether you have observed, as I have, the 
 useful power which small things derive from their littleness 
 itself; perhaps you have not on so many occasions been over- 
 come by them as I have. 
 
 In order to become acquainted with his strength, a man 
 should have to contend with something almost impossible to 
 be conquered. 
 
 Little things do everything and undo everything; they pasa 
 across every thing and over everything; no one is on his guard 
 against them, and they always end by hitting you.
 
 212 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 People who write history strive in vain to find great causes 
 for events, and to prove the premeditation of the tiles which 
 fall upon the head of the world. There is a crowd of small 
 habits against which we struggle at an immense disadvantage, 
 and over which I have never seen a victory obtained. The 
 Cardinal de Retz, great-grand-uncle of the Coadjutor, kept 
 during three years his horses, his hounds, and his hunting 
 appointments at Noisy, near Versailles, saying every day, 1 
 will go there to-morrow. And he never went there. 
 
 There is a deep pool very near us, in which it is said there 
 are eels; do you remember that during a month we said 
 every evening, Well, we will go to-morrow, and lay some 
 lines in that pool ? We passed before it four times a-day, and 
 yet you know that you went away without carrying our pur- 
 pose into effect, and I have never thought of it since. 
 
 It is fifteen years ago since I failed in making a curious 
 experiment, of which you, perhaps, have heard : it was with 
 the Fraxinella. 
 
 The fraxinella is a beautiful plant which I met with in a 
 corner of my garden ; from the centre of a tufted and shining 
 foliage, it throws out a large spike of flowers, rose-coloured or 
 white, according to the variety. 
 
 I have frequently heard it said that from the vesicles which 
 cover it there escapes a sort of gas or volatile oil, that this 
 gas produces a kind of inflammable atmosphere, which takes 
 tire if a taper be brought near it in hot weather, and forms 
 around the plant a luminous glory not at all injurious to it. 
 
 I have frequently determined to satisfy myself with my 
 own eyes of the truth of this assertion, but have hitherto let 
 all opportunities slip ; I will try to think of it this evening. 
 
 The Nigella of Damascus is a flower of a beautiful pale 
 blue, which blooms all enveloped in a green foliage, cut as 
 finely as hairs, which has procured it the name of Venus 's 
 hairs; it is a charming plant, and multiplies itself to a great 
 extent in gardens where it is once introduced. The Orientals 
 make great use of its seeds for all sorts of seasoning. 
 
 When the regular period arrives, the bride, surrounded by 
 more than a dozen bridegrooms, would appear to you to be a 
 little embarrassed between those beautiful curtains of blue 
 silk and green gauze; she is taller than they are ; it scarcely
 
 THE NIGELLA. 213 
 
 seems possible for their caresses to reach her. Melancholy 
 grandeur! annoying elevation! 
 
 The blossoms of the rue are in nearly the same position ; 
 but they have only one difficulty to triumph over; the sta- 
 mens, the lovers, are only bent down to a distance from the 
 object of their love; they have the power of raising them- 
 selves up towards her, and afterwards drop again. The little 
 nymph who dwells in the Nigella has less dignity. Besides, 
 she might always wait, and see her lovers fade away and die, 
 without their having been able to evince anything more than 
 a respectful attention : it is not their position, but their 
 stature, which prevents their reaching her. 
 
 This nymph is like other nymphs; she flies, but she is 
 desirous of being seen to fly, and has no great objection to be 
 pursued. 
 
 She would wait patiently if they could come, but she 
 knows that this haughty indifference would be taken as 
 earnest. 
 
 At court, princesses invite the men to dance, whilst the 
 latter invite other ladies. Queens and princesses who indulge 
 in lovers are obliged to descend the few steps from the throne 
 which love would not dare to mount. 
 
 Now this is exactly what the nymph of the nigella does. 
 
 Her eager lovers in vain attempt to reach her; they only 
 arrive within two-thirds of the five points which terminate 
 her. At first she appears to take no notice of their efforts : 
 she knows that the moment is not come. The anthers, those 
 little masses which bear the pollen, change from green, as 
 they were, to a pale yellow. We have reason to suppose she 
 then finds them more handsome or more touching, for at that 
 moment she lowers her five arms towards her lovers. 
 
 Then her rich blue vestment fades and falls, and her lovers 
 disappear at the same time. Left alone amidst its green hair, 
 the ovary grows, swells, and becomes a sort of capsule, of a 
 brownish-green, in which are contained the seeds which are to 
 reproduce the plant. 
 
 At the top of a high stalk, which springs from a foliage like- 
 wise very much cut, a long spike of flowers, in the form of a 
 helmet, balances itself. It is the Aconite, which sprang, 
 they say, from the foam of Cerberus. This was a poison
 
 214 A TOUR ROUND MI GARDEN. 
 
 much used by the ancients : arrows were poisoned with it, 
 and wives and husbands, tired of each other's company, intro- 
 duced it into little delicate tempting dishes of all sorts. 
 
 It appears, however, that it was but a vulgar poison, and 
 was seldom or never used by persons of rank; something 
 like what arsenic is now; arsenic, which, for years past, has 
 been a substitute for divorce. When the object was to make 
 the Emperor Claudius exchange his earthly crown for an 
 apotheosis, he was poisoned with mushrooms, which caused 
 them to be called at Rome, a dish for the gods. 
 
 We were just now speaking of that disagreeably smelling 
 plant, rue; it is recalled to my mind by speaking of poison. 
 Rue was for a long time considered a very powerful antidote, 
 and it is asserted that the famous counter-poison of Mithri- 
 dates, King of Pontus, was composed of nothing but twenty 
 leaves of rue pounded with two dried walnuts, two figs, and a 
 little salt. 
 
 Rue entered into the composition of the famous vinegar of 
 the four thieves. It is said that four tfoieves, at the time of 
 the Plague of Marseilles, invented this anti-pestilential vine- 
 gar, by means of which they entered infected houses without 
 danger, and took away all property worth the conveyance. 
 Perhaps the four thieves did nothing in this case but invent 
 a story which enabled them to sell their vinegar at a high 
 price. 
 
 A vinegar for the plague was likewise made of pinks, but 
 whatever may be the efficacy attributed to it, I fancy it would 
 be better to leave the pink out of the composition than to 
 leave out the vinegar. 
 
 The pink is one of the flowers deemed worthy to be called 
 flowers by the amateurs. I have read in an old book a mag- 
 nificent eulogy of the pink: it was there I found the receipt 
 for pink vinegar against the plague. 
 
 In this book, the pink is praised for not having thorns like 
 the rose. " The water distilled from pinks," adds the author, 
 "is an excellent remedy against epilepsy; but if a conserve 
 be composed of it, it is the life and delight of the human 
 race." The author gives receipts in his book for making 
 pinks bloom blue or green, a thing which is not seen now, 
 and is not practicable.
 
 THE PINK. 215 
 
 He makes a magnificent picture of the manner in which he 
 cultivates his pinks ; he does not put them into earthen pots ; 
 he does not support their branches with osier twigs or strips 
 of deal ; he puts them into ivory boxes, and fastens their 
 stalks to black wands by means of silver rings. 
 
 The amateurs whose collections I have seen are far from 
 surrounding their pinks with similar luxury. Upon each of 
 the little osier sticks that serve as tutors to the pinks, they 
 place old broken pipes and lobsters' claws. I assure you that 
 at the first glance a collection of pinks is not a pretty sight. 
 These old pipes and lobsters' claws are not placed there solely 
 for ornament ; perhaps even no idea of elegance or adornment 
 formed part of the reason for using them. The great enemy 
 of pinks is the forficula auricularia, better known by the 
 name of earwig. The pipes and the claws are the traps, the 
 harbours offered to it, and in which it is surprised without 
 any suspicion of danger.
 
 LETTER XXXV. 
 
 THE ENRICHED WOODMAN. 
 
 FOR some short time past, a circumstance that appeared 
 strange has attracted my attention. I dare say you remember 
 my speaking to you of a house covered with thatch, of the 
 thatch covered with moss, of the ridge of the roof crowned 
 with iris, which was to be seen from a certain point in my 
 garden. Well, for several days I perceived the house was 
 shut up, and I asked my servant, " Does not the woodman 
 live up yonder now ] " 
 
 " No, Sir, he has been gone nearly two months. He is 
 become rich; he has inherited a property of 600 livres a 
 year ; and he is gone to live in town." 
 
 He is become rich ! 
 
 That is to say, that with his 600 livres a-year, he is gone to 
 live in a little apartment in the city, without air and without 
 sun, where he can neither see the heavens, nor the trees, nor 
 the verdure, where he will breathe unwholesome air, where
 
 THE ENRICHED WOODMAN. 
 
 217 
 
 his prospect will be confined to a paper of a dirty yellow, 
 embellished with chocolate arabesques. 
 
 He is become rich ! 
 
 He is become rich ! that is to say, he is not allowed to keep 
 his dog which he has had so long, because it annoyed the 
 other lodgers of the house. 
 
 He lodges in a sort of square box ; he has people on the 
 right hand and on the left, above him and below him. 
 
 He has left his beautiful cottage and his beautiful trees, 
 and his sun, and his grass carpet so green, and the song of the 
 birds and the odour of the oaks. He is become rich! 
 
 He is become rich ! Poor man ! 
 
 F F
 
 LETTER XXXVI. 
 
 FENNEL THE EXCROACHINfi VISITOR. 
 
 FENNEL grows to the height of six feet, -with branches of 
 bright green, and leaves so minute and numerous as to make 
 it resemble an ostrich feather. 
 
 Pliny pretends that serpents are particularly partial to 
 this plant, and that they have good reasons for being so. It 
 restores them to youth, and recovers their dimmed sight, 
 which is for them a matter of great importance, if we are to 
 believe, as certain naturalists assert, that the serpent fascinates 
 various reptiles and even birds with its look, and forces them 
 to come to it by an invincible magnetic power. 
 
 Physicians, for a long time, applied the roots of fennel 
 pounded with honey to the bites of mad dogs. At the end 
 of three or four hundred years it was discovered that. this had 
 never cured anybody. 
 
 As handsome in its appearance and yielding a much more 
 agreeable odour, the Angelica grows on the banks of rivulets. 
 The Angelica serves as an asylum and as food for the cater- 
 pillar of the beautiful butterfly, called Machaon.* 
 
 * Papilio Machaon. The swallow-tail.
 
 THE ARRIVAL. 219 
 
 The sun has disappeared behind the high trees some minutes 
 since, so that I should not have recognised the fennel and the 
 Angelica if I had not been pretty well acquainted with them. 
 The weather is hot and close : this is a capital opportunity 
 for testing the phenomenon of the fraxinella. 
 
 " Vara'i, bring me a taper." 
 
 " Monsieur, there is somebody knocking at the garden-gate." 
 
 " Give me the taper then, and go and open it." 
 
 " Monsieur, I have lit the taper twice, and twice the wind 
 has extinguished it. Only hear how they are knocking !" 
 
 In fact, somebody did knock almost enough to break 
 the gate down. 
 
 " Vara'i, go and open it, pray." A man presents himself, 
 whom at first I did not recognise. 
 
 " Well, Stephen, my good fellow, what a while it is since I 
 
 have seen thee ! I am going to , and I could not 
 
 pass so near thy hermitage without passing a few days with 
 thee." 
 
 Only at this moment I recognised Edmond. You know, 
 my dear friend, or else you do not know, what Edmond I 
 mean. Perhaps, like me, it would be necessary for you to 
 have him before your eyes to remember that he exists. He 
 had never taken the liberty to tutoyer me in his life.* I 
 remember that he once borrowed a few livres of me, of which 
 he never said anything since. Nevertheless, he gave his 
 valise to my servant, and said, "Thingummy! What's your 
 name ? Pay the coachman,, and give him something to 
 drink. Ah ! by-the-bye, Stephen, I can't think why thou 
 dost not get the road put to rights that leads hither, that is, 
 if thou canst call it a road ; it's enough to break one's back. 
 Fortunately, I have not my horses here. I have left them 
 at the top of the hill. Hast thou dined?" 
 
 I had been for some time endeavouring to recover from the 
 stupor into which this arrival or rather this invasion had 
 plunged me, and I racked my invention for a sentence iu 
 which there should be neither a thou nor a you, not. being 
 
 We scarcely need remind our readers that the French reserve thee and thnu for 
 relatives, intimate friends, or persons they highly value. It is so completely a 
 national custom, that in translating this scene it is impossible to find a substitute 
 or an e^aivalent for it. TKASS.
 
 220 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 willing that the said Edmond should force me to tutoyer him, 
 and being equally unwilling to offend him by not thee and 
 thouing him after he had made use of that mode of speaking 
 towards me, which would have appeared to me equivalent to 
 withholding your hand from a person who stretches out his 
 to you, an insult that can only be caused by a deep resent- 
 ment. I thought I had discovered a sentence. 
 
 " Yes, but I have not supped." 
 
 "Ah ! thou suppest, dost thou? Well, come, that is not 
 too savage ; I shall find thee better than thou art reputed to 
 be. I am dying with hunger." 
 
 I made a signal to Varal to get supper ready, and we went 
 into the dining room. The cloth was soon laid. Edmond 
 poured himself out two glasses of wine successively. "What 
 wine is this ? Bordeaux ] Dost thou like Bordeaux ? Hast 
 thou no Burgundy ? " 
 
 Shall I confess, my friend, that I felt myself blush whilst 
 humbly stammering that I had but one sort of wine 1 And I 
 must tell you all, I was very near making an excuse, by 
 saying that my wine-merchants had disappointed me, or some 
 other such subterfuge as is employed by people in my 
 situation. 
 
 " Why didst thou have thy dining-room of this dark- 
 coloured wood 1 I have a charming one ; it is all in white 
 stucco." 
 
 " That must be very handsome." 
 
 " It is magnificent. Upon a mahogany sideboard are Bo- 
 hemian crystals of the greatest richness." 
 
 At this moment I heard in the garden a noise like that 
 made by a wild deer followed by her fawn, when roused 
 from a thicket. 
 
 : What can that be in the garden ? " 
 1 Ah ! cried Edmond, I'll lay a wager it is Phanor." 
 What is Phanor 1 " 
 ' A superb pointer, an English dog." 
 ' But he is ruining my garden ! " 
 
 I rose in haste. Edmond followed me after finishing what 
 was in his plate, saying, partly to himself, " It's very astonish- 
 ing ! he generally keeps to the walks." When we gained the 
 garden, we could hear a wild chase across the masses of
 
 TRAINING THE DOG. 221 
 
 flowers; a cat appeared first, followed by a great dog, which 
 Edmond called to in vain; the cat dashed into another clump 
 of flowers, and Phanor followed closely at her heels. 
 
 " Ah ! I'm not astonished at it now; he can't bear cats. 
 Phanor ! Phanor ! here, Sir ! " 
 
 The cat jumped over a wall. Phanor sat, eagerly looking 
 after her, at the bottom of it. At length he obeyed the voice 
 of his master; but as he found he had a good chance of being 
 beaten, he slunk back, and ran away. 
 
 " In the name of heaven, Edmond, lay hold of your dog, 
 he will break my best rose-trees." 
 
 " Phanor ! come here ! " 
 
 " But if you show him your cane, he will not come." 
 
 " Ay, but he must be made to come. Phanor, here ! 
 Phanor, here!" 
 
 " Don't threaten him call him." 
 
 " I must correct him here on the spot. Come here, 
 Phanor!" 
 
 "Well, but correct him when you have got hold of 
 him." 
 
 " No, no ; he must come in obedience to the cane. Oh, I 
 never let dogs have their own way. Phanor ! Phanor, here ! " 
 
 The dog took a few steps towards his master, but on seeing 
 the cane, again set off. Edmond, in a rage, threw his cane at 
 the dog, which missed him, but knocked off the head of a 
 lily in bloom. Edmond now pursued the dog exactly as 
 the dog pursued the cat some minutes before ; both trampling 
 as if in emulation of each other, upon my most beautiful 
 plants. At length, Varai seized the dog in his passage and 
 held him fast. Edmond rushed towards a tree and tore off a 
 large branch. 
 
 " Oh, my Toussaint cherry-tree, which ripens its cherries in 
 October ! " 
 
 He beat his dog with the finest branch of my cherry-tree. 
 
 " Ah, master Phanor ! I'll teach you to destroy gardens ! " 
 
 The evil was done and was irreparable ; I demanded grace 
 for Phanor, if it were only for the sake of not hearing him 
 cry. Besides, the branch of the cherry-tree was broken on 
 Phanor's back, and I did not know what tree Edmond would 
 apply to next for a weapon. " Come, come, Edmond, don't
 
 222 A TOUR HOUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 beat him any more, the evil is done; besides, it may not be 
 so serious as you imagine." 
 
 " Oh ! it's not for the few nonsensical bunches of flowers he 
 may have destroyed, my dear Stephen ; it is because he dis- 
 obeyed me that I correct him." 
 
 " Well, then, I beg you, Edmond, do not flog him any 
 more ! " 
 
 " Let him alone, let him alone ; I want to see if he will 
 obey me now." 
 
 " I ask it as a favour, that you will not make the experi- 
 ment." 
 
 " Phauor, here ! Thou shalt see that he will obey now. 
 Here, Phanor ! Why, here ! Phauor! here! here! here!" 
 
 Phanor takes to flight once more, Edmond pursues him 
 afresh, and the chase becomes as warm as ever through my 
 shrubs and flowers. 
 
 Vara'i picked up the gentleman's cane, and held it ready 
 to give to him when he wanted to beat his dog, for fear he 
 should borrow another from one of my trees. But Vara'i 
 was more ingenious than I was ; he opened the garden-gate, 
 and Phanor, as he passed near it, closely pursued by his 
 master, perceived the chance, made a bolt, and disappeared. 
 Edmond and I returned to the dining-room. 
 
 " It is astounding," said he, " a dog who obeys at the least 
 sign ! Well, come, we must make the best of it; let us resume 
 our supper. Thou shalt see how I will make up for lost time. 
 But, shouldst thou not send some one to look for Phanor? I 
 am afraid he will be lost in this country of wolves, where he 
 has never been before." 
 
 " Edmond, Vara'i is the only servant I have, and if he goes 
 to look for Phauor, we shall have no supper. We will think 
 of him presently." 
 
 " Ah ! but I hope he won't be lost though ! " 
 
 We resumed our repast. After Vara'i had, as usual, handed 
 me some wine and water, he offered some to Edmond. " No, 
 thank you ! no, thank you, my man of colour, I never drink 
 water. 
 
 " ' All the wicked are drinkers of water, 
 As is well proved by the deluge.' 
 
 Give me a little of that omelette. Hum! this is an
 
 EDMOND MAKES HIMSELF COMFORTABLE. 223 
 
 omelette aux herbes ! Now, dost thou know how / like an 
 omelette 1 The one that is good, really good, is an omelette 
 aux truffes ! that's what I call an omelette ! The table ser- 
 vice is not bad : I made myself a present the other day of a 
 pretty service in vermeil; one cannot have anything but 
 vermeil, now porters cat out of silver." 
 
 All the supper-time this was the nature of his talk ; and, 
 to my great joy, as soon as the meal was over, he complained 
 of being fatigued, and requested to be conducted to his 
 chamber. Vara'i was soon back; Mr. Edmond wanted another 
 candle, being accustomed to leave one burning ; he could not 
 endure darkness. Then Edmond wanted his bed warmed ; 
 then he must have some eau sucree, in case of feeling thirsty 
 in the night ; then another blanket and an additional pillow ; 
 and the chimney must be stopped up, to keep out the air. 
 At length he got into bed, and I quickly sought mine, for fear 
 Vara'i should ask me any questions about this gentleman, as 
 that would only have increased my ill-humour. 
 
 He is come to pass a few days. What does he mean by a 
 few days ? Why did not I at once think of telling him I was 
 under an engagement to set out to-morrow on a journey ? 
 Now it is too late. 
 
 The dog came back, was tied up, and passed the night in 
 howling in such a horrible and melancholy manner as would 
 affect the strongest nerves. 
 
 In the morning, when Vara'i informed him that breakfast 
 was ready, Edmond coolly replied, "he could not get up so 
 early as that :" breakfast was put off an hour. When he came 
 down, I asked him if he had heard his dog ? 
 
 " Oh ! yes," said he ; " poor Phauor ! it's only because he 
 does not know the house ; he will behave better in two or 
 three days. Tell me, now, blackey, what have you given him 
 to eat ?" 
 
 " 1 got him some dog biscuit of a neighbour." 
 
 "Oh, that will never do; he must have some soup, and 
 fiat made thick, mind. Poor Phanor ! he is not accustomed 
 to dog-biscuit that's all very well for nigger dogs." 
 
 We went into the garden; Vara'i brought us pipes. He 
 condescended to take notice of a large cherry-tree pipe with 
 its amber mouthpiece, of the size of an egg, and said, " Ay !
 
 221 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN 
 
 1 have one with a mouthpiece twice as large as that. Thy 
 garden is pretty, Stephen: it is not large, but it is pretty. 
 Well, well, well, and so thou amusest thyself thus, eh? in 
 cultivating flowers in this way, eh 1 Poor fellow ! I have an 
 uncle, now, just in the same way ; he has a handsome garden, 
 water, woods ; I must bring Master Phanor into order before 
 we go there : my uncle would not laugh if he played the same 
 game in his garden that he played on his arrival here last 
 night." 
 
 Whilst saying this, he plucked a rose and put it into his 
 button-hole. 
 
 " What are you about there ?" 
 
 " What am I about 1 why, I have gathered a middling 
 sort of rose to wear in my button-hole." 
 
 " A middling rose ! it is the last that tree will bear this 
 year, the most beautiful of white roses, Madame Hardy. I 
 hoped to see that for five or six days longer; I shall uot see 
 another for a year to come." 
 
 " Why, thou art worse than my uncle ! Don't gather thy 
 roses! Well, I won't touch another. What dost thou do 
 here ? How can we amuse ourselves 1" 
 
 " We do not amuse ourselves here." 
 
 " Ah ! well, never mind ; I can read, I can walk. I sup- 
 pose thou dost not keep a horse 1 " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " That's a pity." 
 
 Such is my present melancholy condition, my dear friend 
 when it will be over I cannot tell. I seek every justifiable 
 means of getting rid of this intruder, but he does not even 
 tell me when he means to go. 
 
 Two shots in the garden caused me to hasten to see what is 
 going on.
 
 LETTER XXXVII. 
 
 THE ENCROACHING VISITOR. 
 
 NOTHING less than my friend Edmond practising in the 
 garden, and who had just killed a beautiful blackbird. This 
 blackbird was, when alive, the leader of my band : I felt more 
 sorrow than I will venture to tell you when I saw him lying 
 on the ground, with his glossy black feathers stained with 
 blood. All the cares I had taken for several years that the 
 birds should rind in my garden a sure and tranquil asylum 
 were rendered abortive by this firing of the gun, the more so 
 from its appearing a kind of perfidy, a meditated murder. 
 In every part of the neighbourhood, the trees are cut down, 
 birds are taken in snares and traps, or shot with guns. Here 
 alone I have preserved large trees and thick bushes ; here I 
 have multiplied service and holly-trees with their coral 
 berries, hawthorn with their garnet fruit, elders and privets, 
 which bear umbels of black berries, the burning-bush with 
 
 G G
 
 226 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 spikes of fire-coloured berries, ivies whose fruits become black 
 with frost, laurustines with dark-blue fruits, azerolias or small 
 medlars covered with little red apples, in order that they 
 might find food in abundance during the whole winter. In 
 certain parts of my rivulet, I have even lessened the depth 
 that they may bathe without danger. 
 
 And how richly have all these cares been repaid! In 
 winter, the redbreasts come and live in my greenhouse, and 
 familiarly hop about in other parts of my dwelling. In 
 summer, the linnets make their nests in the bushes, and the 
 wrens in the angles of the walls. All allow themselves to be 
 approached and to be seen; all seem to fly around me without 
 flying away, and all fill my garden with enchanting music. 
 
 Instead of being seated, crammed into a theatre without 
 fresh air, to hear for the hundredth time the same tenor, with 
 the same apricot-coloured tunic and the same chocolate boots, 
 sing the same air, accompanied by the same cries of admira- 
 tion of people who wish to make part of the spectacle, I had 
 three operas a day. 
 
 In the morning, at the break of day, the chaffinch warbled 
 upon the highest branches of the trees, whilst the flowers 
 open their corollas, whilst the rising sun tinted the heavens 
 with rose and saffron. 
 
 Amidst the ardour of noontide heat, the male linnet, con- 
 cealed beneath the shade of the linden-tree, raised his melo- 
 dious voice, whilst his mate sat upon her eggs in her little 
 nest of hair and grass. 
 
 But in the evening, when everything slept when the stars 
 sparkled in the heavens, when the moonbeams played through 
 the trees, when the evening-primroses with their yellow cups 
 exhaled a sweet perfume, when the glowworms twinkled in 
 the grass, the nightingale raised its full and solemn voice, 
 and sung throughout the night its religious and loving 
 hymns ! 
 
 And this Edmond comes with his gun to alarm, perhaps to 
 send away all my musicians, to falsify my long and careful 
 hospitality, which is now nothing more or less than treachery, 
 since without it perhaps, without the confidence it had 
 inspired, my poor blackbird would not have allowed any one 
 to come near enough to him to make him so easy a victim.
 
 In the sununer the Birds make their nests in the bushes, and in the angles of the wall. P. 22(5.
 
 THE ENCROACHING VISITOR. 227 
 
 What would I not have given to make all my birds, all my 
 melodious guests, understand that it was not I who had made 
 that report, it was not I that had committed that murder! 
 to make them understand that they might come back, that 
 I am not a traitor, that they will find peace and shade here 
 again, that they may come in the winter without mistrust to 
 feast upon the berries of my trees. 
 
 How is this all to be repaired ? 
 
 That chaffinch, which yesterday came to my very window, 
 will never come again ; he will depart from me and from 
 my house ; next year he will not again build his nest in that 
 great elm, in which he has been accustomed to build it every 
 year. 
 
 I got as quickly to Edmond as I could, and entreated him 
 to suspend his sport, and he laughed at me. I was obliged 
 to say that I insisted upon having no guns fired in my garden. 
 Edmond replied that I abused the circumstance of its being 
 my garden. It appeared to me that the abuse was on his part. 
 Nevertheless, his reproach hurt me. I left him in the garden, 
 and shut myself up in my study. I then questioned myself 
 whether he really was in the wrong; if hospitality did not 
 impose duties, difficult, it is true, but sacred, and if I had 
 fulfilled them? I inquired of myself what are the duties of 
 hospitality. After serious examination, I did myself this 
 justice, that, with the exception of washing his feet, as the 
 ancient Hebrews did, I had performed, with respect to him, 
 and in the most scrupulous manner, all the laws of hospitality. 
 But still that reproach wounded me ; he is in the wrong, but 
 he believes that I abuse the circumstance of its being my 
 garden; I have a great mind to go and ask his pardon!
 
 LETTER XXXVIII. 
 
 WONDERS OF TRAVEL SCIENTIFIC NOMENCLATURE. 
 
 THERE are many things which really astonish me in the 
 accounts which have been given to me by a traveller who has 
 been in China. Among them, in the Chinese language, the 
 same word ye, which at Canton means two, at Pekin signifies 
 no more than one. 
 
 You may think how much I was surprised to learn that 
 there are men who shave their heads, preserving only a little 
 bunch of hair, whilst I see here the streets full of people, 
 who only shave their chins, leaving tufts of beard above or 
 below the mouth, or upon their cheeks; in the same manner 
 that I was astonished to hear that Indian women pierce their 
 noses in order to suspend jewels from them, whilst our women 
 have a practice, from superior civilization, no doubt, of 
 piercing their ears for the same purpose. 
 
 He told me that the emperor was dressed in yellow, which 
 appeared very singular to me who have been accustomed tc 
 see the king dressed in blue, green, or red.
 
 WONDERS OF TKAVEL. 22<J 
 
 Chinese mothers torture the feet of their children to pre- 
 vent their growing ; this punishment our women inflict upon 
 themselves, with the only difference, that they arrive at results 
 a little less monstrous. Few people are aware what tortures a 
 French woman suffers, or with what courage she endures 
 them, to lessen the size of her foot a line and a half ! Ths 
 Roman who burnt his hand over a brazier would have 
 blenched if he had been put to a similar trial. 
 
 The literary men, the savants, let the nail of their little finger 
 grow, which we have discontinued to do, but which was done in 
 France at the time of Louis XIV., and was esteemed highly 
 fashionable, as Moliere tells us : 
 
 "Est-ce par 1'ongle long qii'il porte au petit doigt?" 
 
 But these are not all the wonders which he tells me he had 
 seen in China. 1 will repeat some of them to you, though 1 
 know not whether you may not at the present moment be in 
 the midst of the said wonders. 
 
 It appears that in China marriages have for their objects 
 interest and money; that merchants try to sell things at more 
 than their value; and that misers, idlers, ambitious men, 
 and thieves are not uncommon. 
 
 Our traveller likewise observed that the emperor, as a 
 mark of distinction, sometimes gives to those he wishes to 
 favour a sort of yellow waistcoat, or a peacock's feather, 
 whilst among us the favour of the master is manifested by a 
 bit of red riband, or the privilege of writing before his nama 
 the two letters, D. E. He pretends that, in some provinces, 
 corrupt governors sell honours and employments. He speaks 
 of prevaricating and greedy ministers, of rich men, full of 
 haughtiness and vanity. 
 
 He asserts that there is at Pekin a gazette in which are 
 published exaggerated accounts, and even sometimes false 
 assertions. 
 
 If I am not mistaken, the traveller told rne, that among 
 the Chinese, it is not uncommon to see some who fail in their 
 promises, and others who disguise the truth. 
 
 Some, he says, are gamblers, some debauchees. 
 
 Among the women, there are more ugly than pretty , 
 among the men, more fools than wits.
 
 230 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 They eat beef, mutton, and rice. 
 
 Among the trees and plants which he has seen, he named 
 linden-trees, rose-laurels, camellias, peonies, mallows, and a 
 -nagnolia whose blossoms precede the leaves. As regards this 
 last point, I don't feel a very anxious desire to go to China to 
 see this magnolia, since it came to France to see me long ago, 
 a-id I have three in my garden ; but, it must be allowed that 
 in China I should hear it called you Ian, whilst here, I call it 
 the pi'ecocious magnolia, and the learned designate it, precox. 
 
 Now, see if all this is worth the trouble of going to the 
 antipodes for ! 
 
 Our savants, since I have met with some, appear to me to 
 be a more singular people than the Chinese ; for they do not 
 employ Latin and Greek so much for the purpose of under- 
 standing each other, as to prevent their being understood 
 by other people, or at least the second object seems to be 
 generally attended with more success than the first. 
 
 For a long time I have timidly meditated on putting to the 
 learned a single and modest question, and every time I have 
 been about to risk it, respect and veneration have stopped and 
 intimidated me. 
 
 This is my question : 
 
 Wherein would it be more criminal to give to French 
 words a Latin and Greek termination, than a French termina- 
 tion to Greek and Latin words ? What difference does there 
 exist between these two operations 1 
 
 If I obtain from the savants the only possible reasonable 
 answer to these two questions, that is, that one is not more 
 criminal than the other, and that the two operations are 
 perfectly identical, I will ask accessorily why the learned do 
 not call a cabriolet cabrioletus, un mouton (a sheep) moutonus, 
 and un hetre (a beech) hetrus 1 ? 
 
 Why, instead of saying that a plant is polysperme, do they 
 not say that it is many-seeded ? Why is a certain tree desig- 
 nated by them under the surname of micropJiylle, instead of 
 little-leaf? 
 
 If I am told that little-leaf, many-seeded, cabrioletti, <fec., 
 &c., are frightful barbarisms, I will tell them that poly- 
 sperme and microphylle are Greek words to which a French 
 termination has been given, as well as to plusieras semen?as
 
 SCIENTIFIC NOMENCLATURE. 231 
 
 Latin termination ; declaring to them that it is impossible for 
 me to perceive the difference which exists between these two 
 processes, both equally barbarous and equally ridiculous. 
 
 I can perfectly comprehend that works of science are 
 better written in a common and generally-taught language, 
 like Latin or Greek, in order that they may not be confined 
 to one country, but when they write them in the vulgar 
 tongue, I cannot see why they should take the trouble to 
 borrow from foreign languages words which exist in that 
 which they employ. 
 
 Thus, why call the lupin with narrow leaves lupin micro- 
 phylle, since microphylle, a Greek barbarism and a French 
 barbarism, says nothing but with narrow leaves? Why 
 call a sort of Acacia insrme, instead of calling it thornless, 
 which has the same sense, and has only the fault of being more 
 clear ? Why do you say that the paquerette (Easter daisv) 
 is humifuse, instead of saying it is spread upon the earth? 
 Why do you say that the elm has its leaves scabres instead of 
 saying that its leaves are rough, <fec.] 
 
 Why this useless and ridiculous mixture of these three 
 unfortunate languages 1 Adopt one of them, speak it, write 
 it, and only borrow from the others the words in which tho 
 one you have adopted is deficient. 
 
 Do not make for science the horrible thorns with which you 
 surround the most beautiful and most graceful things.
 
 LETTER XXXIX. 
 
 WILD FLOWERS IN GARDENS THE SHOW Kit. 
 
 THERE are some beautiful villagers to whom I have given 
 an asylum in my garden. 
 
 The molena, with its large leaves, covered with a white 
 down, raises its long stalk, terminated in a spike of yellow 
 flowers, by the road-side; it nourishes five or six lepidoptera 
 (vulgo, butterflies) besides beetles. 
 
 There are many plants which seem thus to quit the fields 
 to come and place themselves by the road-sides ; curious and 
 coquettish as they are, they are seldom met with anywhere 
 else. 
 
 Near the molena, the viperina blows in the sun ; its stalks 
 variegated with green and brown, are loaded with little spikes 
 which form one large one by their position. These little spikes 
 have at the same time blue flowers at their base, and rose- 
 coloured buds at their extremity. 
 
 In the same manner, in the road-sides, the foxglove throws
 
 THE FOX-GLOVE SCABIOUS. ^33 
 
 up its beautiful stem of rose-coloured flowers, tiger-spotted 
 and white within, and hanging from one side to the height of 
 four or five feet ; but it is only on roads which are on the skirts 
 of woods, in whose coolness and shade the plant delights. 
 
 Beautiful as it is, the digitalis is a dangerous plant; it 
 exercises a singular influence over man ; it impedes the circu- 
 lation of the blood ; no animal touches it. 
 
 I have assembled in my garden several of these nymphs of 
 the fields find woods, and every year they blossom larger and 
 grow more handsome. 
 
 One plant, which in the garden is generally of so dark a 
 purple that it appears black pricked with white points, is 
 called the scabious, or the widow's flower. In its wild state, 
 it is of a pretty lilac, which would scarcely permit us to 
 say it was in half-mourning. 
 
 Women, in fact, have thought proper to admit, as a mourn- 
 ing colour, one of the most fresh and charming of colours ; lilac 
 is the mourning of far-advanced grief it is the transition 
 from grey to rose-colour. 
 
 The invention of lilac for mourning is an invention analo- 
 gous to that of teal, wild-duck, and moor-hen as fasting food 
 for Lent ; it is one of the numerous accommodations made 
 daily with heaven as with ordinary evils. 
 
 The scabious enjoyed formerly a very enviable position in 
 the woi'ld; it radically cured several more than disagreeable 
 maladies, among which, not the least so, was the itch. 
 
 The devil, it is said, furious that this precious plant should 
 thus thwart the operations of some of his ministers, took 
 delight in biting off the extremity of its roots, in the hope of 
 destroying it ; and to convince the incredulous, this root is 
 still shown with its extremity cut or broken off, at least in 
 one of the varieties of the scabious. But it may be well 
 imagined that the scabious, which cured others so well, had 
 not much trouble in curing itself. 
 
 It appears that now-a-days the scabious is strangely fallen ; 
 that it no longer cures anything, and that it only serves as 
 an asylum for three or four insects; at least we find these 
 judgments pronounced against it in books of both ancient 
 and modern medicine. 
 
 Since morning, the heavens have been concealed by thicl 
 
 H H
 
 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 clouds, the air is heavy, and respiration is difficult. The 
 birds have ceased to sing, the bees will not go beyond the 
 garden walls; the flowers, half-faded, seem to languish on 
 their stalks; swallows fly about, skimming the earth. A flash 
 of lightning gleams from a black cloud, and is followed by 
 a heavy, distant sound. The flashes soon become more frequent, 
 the peals of thunder nearer: then the clouds burst, and the 
 rain falls in torrents ! 
 
 And then the freshened air deliciously dilates the lungs ; 
 the honeysuckles spread abroad their sweetish perfumes; the 
 earth itself throws up a delightful odour ; the rain has ceased, 
 and the sun is bestowing the fires of diamonds upon the 
 drops suspended from the leaves of the trees. Pardon me, 
 beautiful drops of rain, for comparing you to diamonds! 
 
 The birds sing, the flowers resume their splendour, and 
 lift up their heads. Everything is revived, fresh, smiling, 
 happy !
 
 LETTER XL. 
 
 FTER THE SHOWKR. 
 
 THK rain of yesterday evening still moistens the earth: 
 I could introduce you to two or three nations such as I think 
 you will not meet with in the course of your distant travels. 
 I mean, snails, earthworms, toads, &c. ; but there are parti- 
 culars connected with their nature and habits with which 
 { do not like to trust my pen, and therefore I must pass you 
 over to naturalists with less modesty, and at the same time 
 less imagination. 
 
 Among the perfumes which abound after the rain, no one 
 can forget that which the beau exhales from its white blos- 
 soms spotted with black. They say in the country that it is 
 not safe to pass by a field of beans in blossom, and that the
 
 -30 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 odour affects the braiu. There is an old Latin verse which 
 says so : 
 
 "Cum faba florescit, stultorum copia crescit." 
 
 It would not be uninstructive to try to recollect what fits 
 of folly I have been guilty of during my life at the bean- 
 flowering season. It will be all the more easy for me to do so, 
 from my having, for a length of time, been in the habit of 
 writing down every evening the impressions of the day ; that 
 is the only means of thoroughly explaining both actions and 
 thoughts. 
 
 June. 
 
 " How fortunate ! I have succeeded. That kind M. 
 d'Eloges has consented to take my note for 300 francs, in ex- 
 change for which he has given me a watch and 25 francs in 
 money. I have sold my watch again for 40 francs. I am 
 all right then, now. I can send my bouquet, and be at the 
 theatre." 
 
 The beans were in blossom. 
 
 June. 
 
 " Can it then be true that age thus renders hearts cold? 
 and is blindness of the mind, with some people, the result of 
 \'ears? And is that what is called experience? 
 
 " Here is an old friend who has just preached me a sermon 
 three hours long. He pretends that I am wrong in making 
 my happiness, my future, and my life, depend upon a woman 
 and her caprices. I answered him that she whom I loved is 
 not a woman, but an angel, and that a caprice was beneath 
 both her heart and her understanding. I found I was soon 
 obliged to give up the idea of making him renounce his 
 opinion. There are sentiments that everybody cannot com- 
 prehend, and man is easily led to declare that that which he 
 does not see does not exist, and that which he does not think 
 is a folly. 
 
 " But I can say, there could not arise in my mind either 
 a do\ibt or a fear, if all men united were to come and say to 
 me : She is deceiving you, she will forget yon, she will be 
 false to her promises I would not ask even herself to reassure 
 -me ! 
 
 " No, no, I am sure of her and of her love. I cculd not
 
 THE BEANS ARE IN BLOSSOM. 237 
 
 pardon myself a moment of uneasiness, it would be to offend 
 Heaven, which has caused me to meet with her, and which 
 has placed in her hands the happiness of my life. She expects 
 me she loves me. At the moment I write these notes she 
 is thinking of me. 
 
 " Men, envy, destiny, are only able to delay my happiness. 
 
 " I believe in her without any restriction : I might go to 
 the other extremity of the wcrld, and after long years of 
 absence, might fear to find her dead; but I never once should 
 put this question to myself Is she faithful? Does she love 
 me still ? 
 
 The beans were in blossom. 
 
 " What a black, dismal malady is misanthropy ! and what 
 long and disheartening books it has inspired ! / have friends, 
 true friends, upon whom I can reckon as firmly as upon 
 myself. They have frequently told me so, and I believe them. 
 
 " Oh ! how sweet and smiling a thing is life ! what pleasures 
 it gives, what happinesses it promises! 
 
 " It is a delightful road upon which we love to walk, 
 looking forward confidently into the blue mists of the horizon 
 which veil the objects of our desires, and lingering among 
 the blossom-covered trees by which it is bordered ! 
 
 " How deliciously my heart was moved by the protesta- 
 tions of friendship made to me on leaving that dinner-party 
 ;it which we sat so late ! their arms, their swords, their purses, 
 everything was at my service. Certainly I shall not abuse 
 these generous offers, but it gives me much confidence to find 
 that I have a place in such hearts!" 
 
 The beans were in blossom. 
 
 " I have just read the discourse of a statesman who com- 
 plains bitterly of being dragged from the calm pleasures of 
 private life, and the humble joys of his domestic hearth. 
 .But, says he, my country calls upon me, and I devote myself 
 to its interests : I repair to the breach, ready to sacrifice 
 to that dear country, my energies, my life, &c. 
 
 "Oh! leaders of nations, why do you not always follow 
 such a noble example?" 
 
 The beans were in blossom. 
 
 " I arrived yesterday evening exhausted, but so happy ! 
 
 " I had walked eighteen leagues, but I knew that I should
 
 ~38 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 be able to get a distant glance of her at the theatre. If it 
 had been a hundred leagues I might have been more fatigued, 
 but I am certain I should have accomplished the journey all 
 the same, and have arrived in time. Whatever the obstacles 
 may be that arise between her and me, I do not always per- 
 ceive how I shall overcome them ; but, what I am certain of 
 is, that they will be overcome, that we shall be united, that 
 she is mine as I am hers." 
 
 The beans were in full blossom. 
 
 But a truce to this cold-hearted pleasantry. No, it is 
 not a folly to be under the empire of the most beautiful 
 the most noble feelings; it is no folly to feel oneself great, 
 strong, invincible ; it is not a folly to have a good, honest, 
 and generous heart; it is no folly to be filled with good 
 faith; it is not a folly to devote oneself for the good of 
 others; it is not a folly to live thus out of real life. 
 
 No, no ; that cold wisdom which pronounces so severe 
 a judgment upon all it cannot do; that wisdom which owes 
 its birth to the death of so many great, noble, and sweet 
 things; that wisdom which only comes with infirmities, aud 
 which decorates them with such fine names which calls decay 
 of the powers of the stomach and loss of appetite sobriety; the 
 cooling of the heart and the stagnation of the blood a return 
 to reason; envious impotence, a disdain for futile things; 
 this wisdom would be the greatest, the most melancholy of 
 follies, if it were not the commencement of the death of the 
 heart and the senses.
 
 LETTER XLI. 
 
 THE CLOTHES-MOTH AN INCREDULOUS MAN DOES NOT BELIEVE IS TH 
 8AUSAGE-TRLE. 
 
 THERE are moments at which I accuse myself of great 
 restlessness of mind, and of a strong inclination for vaga- 
 bondizing, when I look back at the road I have already 
 travelled in my garden in search of new things, when there 
 are so many which I pass by without favouring them with 
 a glance. 
 
 As I was going out th'is morning to resume my journey 
 from a tuft of flax at which I stopped yesterday, I perceived 
 that there was going on upon the arm of my old fauteuit, 
 life, manners, manoeuvres, and industry; in a word, all that 
 we go so far in search of. 
 
 The little moths, very agreeably shaded with grey, that we 
 see flying about our apartments in an evening, have not 
 always, any more than other moths, enjoyed that capricious 
 Sight or agreeable lightness; they have been caterpillars,
 
 240 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 as the others have. But these caterpillars were not fed 
 during their lives upon either leaves or flowers, nor did they 
 at the period of transformation spin themselves a shroud of 
 silk. 
 
 These are very small caterpillars with sixteen legs, and 
 which are seldom seen, although the traces of their passage 
 can but too plainly be perceived in stuffs and furs, in which 
 they make for themselves a wide road, considering their size, 
 and which they ravage and destroy without mercy. 
 
 During the summer these little grey moths that flit aboxit 
 in houses, deposit their white eggs upon some of the hangings 
 of the furniture ; little caterpillars issue from these eggs, and 
 immediately set about feeding and clothing themselves. The 
 stuff upon which they are born presents them at once with 
 vestments and food; they tear out hairs of the wool, and 
 make of them a case or sheath, which they elongate and 
 enlarge in proportion with their own growth. When the 
 vestment is finished, they still continue to pull out the hairs 
 of wool, but now for the purpose of eating them. 
 
 If one of these little caterpillars, which pass, even in that 
 state, by the general name of the moth, be upon red cloth, its 
 covering will be red ; this is the case just now upon the arm of 
 my chair, which is of woollen velvet ; if it be upon furniture 
 of other colours, these colours will, in the same way, be re- 
 cognised in its vestments. This, which appears so necessary 
 that it is scarcely worth while to repeat it, is not however 
 without exceptions. It sometimes happens, that a moth 
 placed upon red cloth makes itself a white coat, and that 
 another born upon grey cloth weaves itself a red or blue vest- 
 ment. But if you examine these stuffs through a microscope 
 you will see white hairs in the red cloth, and hairs of all 
 sorts of colours in the grey, of which it has pleased the moth, 
 for reasons with which I am unacquainted, to make an exclu- 
 sive choice. 
 
 Whether it prefers a certain colour for its vestment, and 
 others for its food. I know not ; I have not been able to dis- 
 cover any convincing proof whether this insect coquetry 
 prevails over greediness. 
 
 We may however say, that in case of famine, the moth eats 
 its own coat, and appears to think it delicious food; others
 
 THE CLOTHES-MOTH. 241 
 
 find upon fur the means of satisfying both these imperative 
 wants, up to the moment at which they go and conceal them- 
 selves in some corner of an apartment, preparator}' to becom- 
 ing butterflies. 
 
 I could easily believe that these moths were unknown to 
 the ancients, if I had any faith in the accounts of people who 
 said that they had seen the clothes of Servius Tullius five 
 hundred years after his death. 
 
 But Pliny tells us of a means of preserving things from the 
 moth, which proves that the furniture and clothes of these 
 great men, who have been the cause of our making so many 
 " themes," " verses," and " reflections," in our childhood, 
 were no more exempt from it than my old arm-chair. He 
 asserts very seriously that clothes placed for a few minutes 
 upon a coffin, will never be attacked by moths. 
 
 Some more modern savants have not thought proper to 
 have any faith in this receipt of Pliny's, but they advise 
 people to wrap up the stuffs they wish to preserve in the skin 
 of a lion, thinking, doubtless, that these little insects had 
 taken in earnest the royalty which man has conceded to the 
 lion, and that they would respect this monarch, although 
 conquered, skinned, and become a carpet or rug. 
 
 This is an experiment that will succeed no better with lions 
 than with other monarchs. Moths eat stuffs enclosed in a 
 lion's skin with the same assurance and impunity as the will 
 of Louis XIV. was set at nought. 
 
 It seems true I am, like you, a traveller; if I remained all 
 this time in my old arm-chair, it was only because the sky looked 
 grey and threatening ; but a bright ray breaks through the 
 clouds, and I will pursue my walk in my garden, and visit that 
 little tuft of flax near which I yesterday broke off my account. 
 
 A man was once pointed out to ine whom credulity had 
 rendered absolutely mad. At first, a person had innocently 
 said to him, pointing to a peasant with some flax in his hand, 
 " There is a man sowing shirts." He smiled. It was then 
 explained to him seriously and truly, that from this seed 
 would grow a plant, which, by means of preparations, would 
 become excellent cloth, and that from this cloth shirts would 
 be made. This idea did not find entrance into his brain 
 without causing a little tumult there, and the people around 
 
 I I
 
 212 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 him continued to amuse themselves with cramming him with 
 the most absurd ideas upon the vegetable kingdom. 
 
 One day they told him that there was in the king's garden 
 a sausage-tree of great beauty. 
 
 " What do you mean by a sausage-tree '?" ask ad he. 
 
 " What's a sausage-tree 1 there's a question ! What's an 
 api*icot-tree?" 
 
 "A tree that bears apricots." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Well!" 
 
 " W T ell ! why, the sausage-tree is a tree that bears sausages." 
 
 "Pooh! nonsense! Porkbutchers make sausages." 
 
 <; I know very well that porkbutchers make sausages ; pork- 
 butchers make sausages, it is true ; but what sort of sausages'? 
 It is just the same as little Eulalie, who lives near you; she 
 makes flowers; but in stuffs or wools. Are you astonished 
 that because Eulalie makes roses, that rose-bushes should 
 produce them likewise? Eulalie makes artificial flowers." 
 
 "What! do porkbutchers then make artificial sausages'?" 
 
 " Exactly so, my good friend ; but the sausages of the pork- 
 butchers are like the roses of Eulalie to nature, what the false 
 is to the true. If you had ever eaten the fruit of the sausage- 
 tree, you would never allow your teeth to touch the gross 
 imitation that you have hitherto eaten." 
 
 " Ah ! but, now tell me, are there really any sausage-trees?" 
 
 At this mark of wavering incredulity the friends only 
 deigned to reply by shrugging up their shoulders, and con- 
 tinued to talk among themselves about the sausage-tree, with- 
 out appearing to be willing to admit incredulity any longer 
 into their conversation. 
 
 " Is it the garlic variety which is in the king's garden ? " 
 asked one. 
 
 " Yes," replied the other. 
 
 ' Ah, that's the most rare of all." 
 
 "But the tree had very little fruit on it this year. You 
 are aware that the sausage-tree originally comes from a hot 
 climate; and the winters here try it severely; part of the 
 blossoms were destroyed by the late frosts." 
 
 " It is a pity we cannot get one, to convince our sceptica. 
 friend here."
 
 THE SAUSAGE-TREE. 243 
 
 " I could easily get one, because I am intimate with the 
 head gardener; but I don't think it worth the trouble to 
 convince him; I hate these upstart minds, that are so dis- 
 dainful of the beliefs of the vulgar; who aim at producing an 
 effect by giving faith to nothing ; who appear to take men for 
 simpletons, amongst whom they form a brilliant and solitary 
 exception." 
 
 " But," says our hero, " I ask nothing better than to be- 
 lieve when I am convinced by proofs." 
 
 " Proofs ! Have I not already told you that shirts were 
 sown and reaped? Do you not know that cotton grows upon 
 a cotton-tree, and that sugar is the produce of a reed 1 ? 
 Perhaps you don't believe that." 
 
 " I ask your pardon ; yes, I do." 
 
 " I will be bound you doubt that hemp is the seed of ropes, 
 or that snuff is the seed of the ideas which we sow in our 
 brain through the nose. Or perhaps you do not believe 
 that peaches grow upon peach-trees; you prefer believing, no 
 doubt, that pork butchers make peaches'?" 
 
 " No, I don't say that." 
 
 " " Neither do you believe, I suppose, that rose-bushes 
 produce roses ; you think that all roses are made by 
 Mademoiselle Eulalie, do you not 1 ?" 
 
 " Not at all. I know very well " 
 
 " You really know nothing at all. Do you know that gun- 
 powder is the seed of death? Do you know that apples come 
 from trees? But you say you will believe nothing without 
 proof, and will doubt next whether braces grow upon the 
 Indian brace- tree?" 
 
 " Well, I certainly did not knoAV that. What, do you say 
 that braces grow upon a tree like apples?" 
 
 " I do not tell you that the tree is like an apple-tree; on the 
 contrary, it is a fig-tree, which is called ficus elastica, because 
 whilst cutting the braces which it produces, they draw Indian 
 rubber from it." 
 
 " Ah ! that's a different thing ; I thought you were speak- 
 ing of braces with metal springs." 
 
 "That's the way in which you always believe. Those metal 
 springs are artificial springs, a wretched imitation of the 
 ficus elastica, or brace-tree of India; so with the roses of
 
 244 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 Mademoiselle Eulalie; so with the sausages of the pork- 
 butchers." 
 
 "Let us prove to him that braces grow upon the brace- 
 tree. With all my heart; here is a botanical work, look for 
 the word Ficus. 
 
 "Ficus. Ficus religiosa that's not it. Fvcus bengalensis 
 nor that. Ficus virens, ficus scabra, ficus mauritana none ol 
 them. Ficus populifolia, Jicus ulmifolia. No. Ficus lauri- 
 folia, ficus cetrifolia, Jicus crassinervia, Jicus ferruginea, 
 ficus racemosa, Jicus phytolaccoefolia, ficus glaucophylla, ficus 
 scandens. ficus rubiginosa, ficus macrophylla, ficus nymphcei- 
 folia. No. Where can it be? Ah! here it is, ficus elastica. 
 
 " Well, fious elastica, does it exist ? yes or no. Answer. 
 Can you read? What is that before you]" 
 
 " Ficus dastica." 
 
 "Well, do you believe that India exists? If you do not 
 believe that tndia exists, why, we must show it to you on a 
 map: besides, you know what Poules d'Inde (turkeys) are? 
 you know what Marrons d'Inde (large chestnuts) are ? Now 
 here are braces produced from the ficus elastica ; they are good 
 for nothing, they grew in the greenhouse at the Jardin des 
 Plantes. There are none good but such as are brought from 
 ludia every year, just the same as they grow pineapples; all 
 foreign fruits are in greatest perfection in their own country. 
 It is said the crop is excellent this yeai*, the brace-trees are 
 loaded. Well, do you believe me now? Have you proofs 
 enough of that?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, when you produce good reasons " 
 
 " Well, it's just the same with the sausage-tree. Is that 
 more surprising than braces on the ficus elastica ? If you are 
 only willing to believe what you have seen, you will not be- 
 lieve much, my good friend." 
 
 The next morning they had a large cervelas a Tail (a large 
 sausage seasoned with garlic) served for his breakfast. 
 
 " Well, my friend, we have been fortunate enough to 
 get one; aa nothing could convince you but proofs, here 
 it is." 
 
 They tasted the sausage, and found it excellent. 
 
 " Do you imagine a vulgar porkbutcher could make any- 
 thins: like that?
 
 THE SAUSAGE-TREE. 215 
 
 4 Rien n'est beau que le vrai; le vrai seul est aimable." 
 (Nothing is beautiful but truth ; truth alone is lovely.) 
 
 " And yet this even is not half so good as it might be ; in 
 the first place, it did not grow in its native country, and then 
 it is not quite ripe ; but such as it is, it is quite another 
 thing from those which the porkbutcher so coarsely imitates." 
 
 " Well, but this is very astonishing !" 
 
 "What is there astonishing in it? You know very weil 
 that garlic grows in the earth. Does not nature produce pig? 
 Thus you admit that nature has produced the two elements 
 with which porkbutchers make their bad garlic sausages, and 
 you are not willing to believe- that she has produced these 
 elements united in one and the same fruit? 
 
 " Has not nature given to certain arums the odour of a leg 
 of mutton that has hung too long? Has she not given to the 
 Buddlea the colour and the odour of the stamens of the 
 saffron ? Has she not ? But you must have proofs ! Monsieur 
 believes nothing without proofs. In good sooth, my friend, 
 I must tell you the truth, you become quite unsociable ; there 
 is no such thing as holding a conversation with you, none 
 of the ingenuousness of friendship, everything assumes the 
 air of a theorem, you must have proof of everything. It will 
 not be long before you will require proof that the sun shines, 
 or that it rains. And truly, I don't know how we shall 
 furnish you with it," &c. &c. 
 
 This nonsense, uttered with the utmost confidence by five 
 or six men, and all directed against this poor fellow, whom 
 they constantly accused of incredulity and Voltairianism, 
 whom they style sceptic, strong-minded, or M. Arouet, 
 ended by completely turning his brain.
 
 LETTER XLII. 
 
 FLAX THE DISCOMFITED FLORISTS. 
 
 1 HAVE not yet done with my tuft of flax. 
 
 Flax has a slender stalk a foot high, and is of a sea-green 
 colour; every morning it displays pretty pale blue flowers, 
 which yield to the ardour of the sun, fall, and are replaced by 
 others on the morrow. 
 
 Some tolerably large books have been written upon this 
 important subject : were the vestments of the Egyptian 
 priests, and of the persons initiated into the mysteries of 
 Isis, really made of linen or cotton 1 
 
 Upon this question travellers afford us the following in- 
 formation : 
 
 Osbeck (Voyage aux Indes) says that flax is not known in 
 Egypt. Olivier (Memoire sur 1'Egypte) says that immense 
 quantities of flax are cultivated in that country.
 
 THE TWO FLORISTS. 247 
 
 Science, thanks to travellers, is just as far advanced 011 this 
 point as an inhabitant of La Place Sulpice, who had neve r 
 been any further than the Luxembourg. 
 
 Just now I wrote or pronounced the name of Buddlea; for 
 it always appears to me in my unpremeditated, off-hand 
 letters, that I am quietly chattering by the fireside. 
 
 I knew two amateurs of flowers who were animated by 
 a noble and touching emulation in their cultivation. 
 
 The pleasure of the one, when obtaining a new flower, was 
 not to see the flower, to watch the progress of its vegetation, 
 to admire the splendour of its colours, to breathe its perfume, 
 the pleasure, the true pleasure, was to show it to the other, 
 and to see him envy him the possession of it. Happy in 
 having the plant, he was still more happy that the other had 
 it not. A friendship founded upon such bases might last 
 for a long time, but could not be secure from occasional 
 tempests. 
 
 There came a year in which one of our two horticulturists 
 assumed a more reserved air than common ; he looked like 
 a balloon ready to burst ; to such a degree was he puffed out 
 with ill concealed satisfaction and dangerously rarefied vanity. 
 
 The other aifected a modest air, perpetual admiration of 
 the acquisitions, or the jewels of his rival. 
 
 For persons who knew them both this was a certain sign 
 that each of them expected the blooming of something that 
 would be vcrj? disagreeable to his friend, the flowering of some 
 grief for him : each, in the meantime, made extraordinary 
 concessions to the other. People don't willingly lose a friend 
 in whom they are sure speedily to inspire so much envy. 
 
 The younger of the two, M. Ollbruck, came to ask pardon 
 of M. Remond, for a pleasantry of very bad taste which he had 
 committed the year before. 
 
 This was the joke. 
 
 That year, after having reciprocally invited each other 
 to visit successively their hyacinths, their tulips, their ane- 
 mones, their auriculas, their roses, their pinks; in a word, 
 all the flowers allowed to be flowers, in the same manner, aa 
 we have before said, only certain animals are allowed by 
 sportsmen to be game, neither had obtained the least ad- 
 vantage over the other. A conqueror in hyacinths, M.
 
 248 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 Re"mond had been conquered in tulips, had taken his revenge 
 in auriculas, but the equilibrium had been reestablished by 
 the blooming of the ranunculuses. 
 
 But in the month of Jiine, M. Remond led M. Ollbruek to 
 a corner of his garden, and showed him a large thistle with 
 immense leaves spotted with white, called the Charden-marie,* 
 in full splendour. 
 
 Now, this is really a plant of great magnificence, and of 
 which I take particular care in my garden; but could never 
 be deemed worthy of a second glance by so thorough an 
 amateur as M. Ollbruek. "We do not cultivate thistles ; and, 
 however handsome a thistle may be, it is but a thistle. 
 
 M. Remond would not have thought much of it in his 
 neighbour's garden; but in his own, it was, he said, an ad- 
 mirable plant. 
 
 M. Ollbruek asked him why he did not make a collection 
 of nettles, and a collection of chickweed, as well as a collection 
 of thistles. They parted comfortably, and M. Ollbruek, avail- 
 ing himself of the first pretext to write to his friend and rival, 
 addressed him thus : 
 
 " A Monsieur, 
 Monsieur Remond, orties-cnlteur." 
 
 For this piece of diluted facetiousnessit was that M. Ollbruek 
 carne to ask a pardon which M. Remond granted with great 
 eagerness ; and each began the performance of his character. 
 
 M. Remond rubbed his hands and said, " Ah ! ah ! my fine 
 fellow, it is not a thistle this time ; it is a good and a beau- 
 tiful thing ; it is something quite unknown, something that 
 you have never seen ; you will not have much occasion to 
 crow over me this year." 
 
 M. Ollbruek, on the 1 contrary, said, " You will not have 
 much trouble in beating me ; for I have really nothing : 
 ah ! yes, but a bagatelle, a nothing, which does not displease 
 me ; but which you, perhaps, will not deign to look at, and, 
 perhaps, you will be in the right ; for, perhaps, I ana wrong 
 in admiring it." 
 
 And M. Re"mond, who knew his man, said to himself : 
 " Hem ! hem ! it would appear he has something very good ; 
 that is his manner ; but never mind that, all the better even : 
 
 * Carduus marianus. The milk thistle.
 
 THE DISCOVERY. 249 
 
 if he has anything very good, I would rather it should be this 
 year than any other, in which I am stronger than I ever 
 have been." 
 
 " My good Monsieur Remond," M. Ollbruck came one 
 morning to say, in a very bland manner, " if it would not in- 
 convenience you, I should like very much for you to come 
 and see the little thing I spoke of." 
 
 " Ah ! are you there, my dear Ollbruck? I am delighted to 
 see you,we will go and visit my triumph to-morrow morning, 
 I am curious to see what soil of a figure you will make." 
 
 " My good Monsieur Remond, I will go and humble myself 
 before your magnificence whenever you please; but that 
 which I have to show you is such a trifle that I do not entertain 
 a hope that you will think it worthy of a second glance." 
 
 " This fellow is pretty confident," thought Remond to 
 himself ; then he added aloud : " Listen, Ollbruck, I warn you 
 of one thing, which is, that my plant, brilliant as it will appear 
 to you, is not in perfection ; it suffered from the last winter." 
 
 " That is exactly the case with mine, Monsieur Remond, 
 the winter tried it very severely." 
 
 "But, you know, the prettiest girl in the world " 
 
 "Exactly ! exactly ! " 
 
 After long ceremonies, they went to Remond's garden, and 
 there Remond showed us (for I was with them) a beautiful 
 shrub, the young branches of which are white ; the large, 
 oblong, figured leaves, of a deep green on the upper side, end 
 white beneath, do not abandon the tree during the winter. 
 At the extremity of each branch blows a lax cluster of seven 
 or eight round balls formed into little alveoles or cells like 
 those of a honeycomb ; the centre ball is of the most splendid 
 orange-colour, and yields an agreeable saffron odour ; when 
 the flower begins to decline, it smells like honey ; it was 
 a Buddlea.* 
 
 " Well ! " said M. Remond, triumphantly. 
 
 Ollbruck was confounded, pale, speechless. 
 
 " Well ! what do you say to that 1 " repeated M. Remond. 
 
 " It is fine, it is superb ; but I know the plant." 
 
 " I did not imagine you did not know the plant. I know 
 
 * Named after an eminent English botanist of the time of Ray, Adam Buddie, 
 floruit circa. 1700. 
 
 K K
 
 250 A TOUR HOUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 the crown diamonds, but I am not the possessor of them any 
 the more for that. Breathe this odour, and look at this 
 colour ! the leaves evergreen my poor Ollbruck ! A tree 
 which does not shed its leaves in the winter and what leaves ! 
 green at top and lined with silver ! I did not expect to see, 
 you so completely astonished. Never mind, Ollbruck, you will 
 have your revenge next year. Come, let us go and see your 
 prodigy ! " 
 
 " My prodigy ! " cried Ollbruck, as if waking from a dream. 
 " Yes, come, let us go and see it at once, and if you are not 
 as much astonished as I am " 
 
 We went straight to Ollbruck's garden, and he showed us 
 what ? the Buddlea ! precisely the same shrub we had 
 been admiring in Remond's. 
 
 Rernond was in his turn overwhelmed with vexation, for, 
 for him as well as for Ollbruck, the Buddlea immediately lost 
 ell value. What does either care for its beautiful evergreen 
 foliage, for the splendour or perfume of the flowers 1 
 
 Upon inquiring into the cause of this whimsical coinci- 
 dence, it was found that they were both victims of the artful 
 knavery of a gardener. 
 
 This comical fellow, knowing their mania, went, to one after 
 the other ; but first presented himself to M. Remond. 
 
 " Monsieur Remond, I have a rare plant to show you." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " It is a Buddlea." 
 
 " A Buddlea ! I don't know that iiarne." 
 
 " I can very well believe that : you don't know the plant ; 
 cr.me and look at it at my garden." 
 
 Remond accompanied the gardener, and was astonished. 
 
 " How much do you want for it 1 " 
 
 " A louis." 
 
 " How many have you of them ? " 
 
 " Two. I mean to offer the second to M. Ollbruck." 
 
 " Oh, no ! don't do that. What must I give you for the 
 two ? " 
 
 " Three louis." 
 
 " What ! instead of abating me something." 
 
 " Your taking both will be of no advantage to me. I am 
 certain that M. Ollbruck would take the second of me."
 
 THE FRAUDULENT GARDENER. 251 
 
 ** Come, put them down at two louis." 
 
 " I cannot. I must have something for the pleasure of 
 tfhich I deprive myself in not oifering it to M. Ollbruch, who 
 is a very good customer, and never takes his dahlias of 
 Vaulin." 
 
 " Ah ! apropos, I bespeak twenty-five dahlias, six of which 
 nrnst be white-tipped." 
 
 " Very well ; but listen, M. Remond : only take one Buddlea. 
 I know that three louis is too dear, and I would rather gain 
 only one louis by the two, and please at the same time both 
 you and M. Ollbruck." 
 
 " Well, if it must be so, here are the three louis." 
 
 " No ; truly, Sir, I would rather you would only take one ; 
 M. Ollbruck will be angry." 
 
 " The bargain is made, I will take the plants with me, and 
 here are the three louis." 
 
 M. Remond plants one of his Buddleas, breaks the other to 
 pieces, and burns it. 
 
 He was scarcely gone when the gardener replaced the two 
 Buddleas by two others, and went to seek M. Ollbruck, upon 
 whom he played off exactly the same trick. He reserved the 
 second for M. Remond. 
 
 Ollbruck acted in just the same manner that Remond had 
 done, and each counted the days to the period at which he 
 hoped to humble his rival by the sight of the famous 
 Buddlea. 
 
 The Buddlea in their eyes is no longer good for anything 
 but firewood. Ollbruck pulled up his, and trampled it under 
 his feet. I saved Remond's, which was about to share the 
 same fate, and planted it in my garden, where it forms some 
 apology for the vulgar and common plants to which I give an 
 asylum.
 
 LETTER XLIII. 
 
 A MODERN DEITY A PHILOSOPHICAL AND THEOLOGICAL HISTORY OP HEM? 
 AND FLAX, WITH THEIR VARIOUS FORTUNES FROM THEIR BIRTH TO THE1B 
 APOTHEOSIS. 
 
 EVERYTHING that has been hitherto obeyed having been suc- 
 cessively destroyed; all things to which obedience has been 
 rendered having been progressively abolished, men have set 
 about creating new masters. " Man is not," as has been too 
 often said in prose and verse, " a slave who is ambitious of 
 breaking his chains, he is nothing but a capricious servant 
 who loves to change his master." In political history nc 
 tyrant has ever been overthrown but for the advantage of 
 another more or less remote.
 
 THE IDOL'S BIRTH. 253 
 
 People have renounced for ever the old immortal gods, and 
 have imagined themselves an idol which they make for the 
 wants of every day; an all-powerful idol in the morning, 
 which meets with some incredulous votaries at mid-day, and 
 impious ones at three o'clock. 
 
 This is the manner in which he is made : Towards the 
 end of March, the seed of flax is sown in light ground, and 
 the seed of hemp in ground that has been well manured. 
 
 In the month of July the hemp puts forth some insignifi- 
 cant greenish flowers, and shortly its grey round seeds, of 
 which birds are so fond, and which they come and steal, 
 follow : it may truly be said of it, 
 
 " Aux petits des oiseaux il donne la pature." 
 (To the young of birds he gives food.) 
 
 In the month of June the fields of flax are covered with 
 little blue flowers upon slender stalks, which bend and roll 
 with the wind like the waves of the sea. 
 
 When they both begin to get yellow, they are pulled up 
 and put to steep, that is to say, they are plunged into water. 
 There the terrible power they are destined to wield begins to 
 manifest itself; the fish that inhabit the waters in which they 
 are immersed either fly or perish ; the men who are employed 
 in this part of the prepai'ation of them, are affected with a 
 dry cough, and seldom live beyond the age of fifty years. 
 
 Both hemp and flax are metamorphosed into thread. 
 
 Hemp becomes cordage to moor vessels and boats in rivers, 
 and string for tops and boys' kites. 
 
 But what curious and eager crowd is that rushing through 
 the streets ? A man, pale and with his eyes fixed, is escorted 
 by soldiers towards the most public place in the city ; he is 
 given up to the hangman, who passes a hempen cord round 
 his neck and launches him into eternity. 
 
 And here, as from time to time, some believers recognise 
 the idol; and it is well known with what avidity the good 
 women contend for the smallest bits of the cord with which 
 the man has been hung. 
 
 Numerous vessels glide over the bosom of the sea like 
 great swans with extended wings. These white wings are 
 still hemp transformed into cloth.
 
 25 I A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 During this time, the flax, transformed into cloth likewise, 
 but finer and lighter, replaces the fig-leaf which constituted 
 the sole vestment of our first parents, and which has under- 
 gone such strange vicissitudes. Strange to say, the fig-leaf 
 now-a-days must be ten ells long and at least half an ell wide. 
 Apropos of this, I cannot think why so many people persist 
 in clothing our first parents and the statues in public gardens 
 with a i>me-leaf. 
 
 Flax envelopes, conceals, and keeps from contact with the 
 air the satin skins of our ladies. 
 
 But both seem threatened with a cessation of these em- 
 ployments; science is lessening the use of sails; fashion is 
 making a reform in linen vestments. 
 
 When once upon the precipitous declivity of decline and 
 dishonour, they are not long in becoming sad rags, degraded 
 strips, thrown away with disdain into holes and corners and 
 among the filth of cities. 
 
 But this humiliation is the path of thorns which leads to 
 power; it is like the pill which purified Hercules and made 
 him a god. 
 
 In general, demi-gods and great men die of hunger, and 
 arrive at immortality a little sooner than they wish, and 
 then their contemporaries willingly deify them in touching 
 festivals in which is mixed a little joy at having got rid of 
 them. 
 
 Romulus only became a god after he had been torn to 
 pieces. Claudius gained immortality by means of mush- 
 rooms, poison, and the colic. 
 
 Thus hemp and flax are not at all discouraged, and wait 
 philosophically in holes and corners for the fresh humiliations 
 which, like a road, separates them, it is true, from supreme 
 power, but which, nevertheless, conducts them to it. 
 
 By night, ragged, half-starved men, go about with lanterns 
 in their hands collecting these rags, which they heap together 
 in large tubs, in which the flax and hemp become a sort of 
 infectious matter. 
 
 Of this matter paper is made. 
 
 Although paper, they have not yet become idols; they are 
 sold by the ream and the quire; but. they will not have to 
 wait long.
 
 THE IDOL'S PROGRESS. 255 
 
 During this time, on another side, other men are bruising, 
 pounding, diluting poisons, mixing them and turning them 
 over fire, till they become of the colour of mourning. 
 
 The priests of the idol which is about to be made, then shut 
 themselves up with the paper, and trace characters upon it. 
 These characters amount to twenty-four ; but, by their 
 position, they change both their signification and their value. 
 
 If such an one of these figures be placed with such 
 another, and between those certain others, a man a hundred 
 leagues off, lifts up his head, feels himself puffed up with joy 
 and pride, and others venerate and envy him. 
 
 If, on the contrary, it be another figure which is after such 
 another figure and before such another, the same man is over- 
 whelmed with grief and shame, he dares no longer to leave 
 his house, he shuns the regards of men, everybody attacks 
 him, ridicules him, abuses him. 
 
 The idol is folded in four, and slipped underneath doors. 
 
 Cei'tainly it cannot be said of him as Virgil said of the 
 goddess of beauty in half a charming verse, 
 
 " Et vera incessu patet Itea." 
 (Her step betrays the goddess.) 
 
 He enters underneath doors, it is true; but, when once 
 entered, he is master of every house ; he begins by uttering 
 oracles ; then there is but one step from oracles to miracles ; 
 of a fool he makes a man of wit, and of a man of wit an 
 idiot ; of a sordid and ambitious man a virtuous and disin- 
 terested citizen ; he sends a king into exile, and crowns whom 
 he pleases. 
 
 Then the people who regret old beliefs may experience 
 very great delight. They see them all revive, but consider- 
 ably augmented. 
 
 The idol announces to you miraculous waters, which 
 prevent the hair from growing grey; and blacking which 
 revivifies old boots; and he is believed. 
 
 The idol promises the realization of that famous cabbage* 
 which could not be cooked but in a pot as large as a church; 
 and he is believed. 
 
 He promises men in place who shall neither corrupt nor be
 
 256 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 corrupted, and disinterested citizens, devoted to the public 
 good; and he is believed. 
 
 To try your faith, the oracle relates to you the most absurd 
 histories; and you believe him. 
 
 Never was a deity so punctually obeyed. 
 
 But the day is near its end ; the day finishes, the idol sees his 
 altars abandoned. On the morrow morning, he finds nothing 
 but disdainful iconoclasts in those that had been his most 
 fervent adorers; he is exposed to more insults than he has 
 undergone in all that life so full of vicissitudes which we have 
 described. 
 
 Never was idol so treated, he is cut into round pieces 
 to cover pots of preserves, and into long pieces, to light 
 pipes with ; into square pieces, for children to make ducks, 
 boats, and salt-boxes of. 
 
 There is no domestic use to which the idol of yesterday 
 may not be degraded to-day. 
 
 During this time, another deity, who has likewise been 
 slipped under the door, comes in his turn to utter his oracles ; 
 he is listened to and obeyed with the same respect and the 
 same kindness, until on the morrow he goes to the preserve 
 pots and to light the fire. 
 
 Such is the true unadorned history of the greatness and 
 the fall of flax and hemp. 
 
 Now, who could believe this, particularly of flax, which 
 has so innocent, so pure an air, when it opens in the morning 
 its little blue flowers, so light and so fragile !
 
 LETTER XLIV. 
 
 l-HE TEVDRI1 
 
 3 THE MARCil OF 
 
 THE ORCHIS. 
 
 HERE is a singular law which I have never known to "be 
 infringed : among the climbing plants all do not form the 
 spiral by which they embrace the tree or the trellis to which 
 they cling in the same manner. 
 
 The convolvulus, which opens its beautiful bells of all 
 colours in the morning a Kttle before day ; the scarlet-runner, 
 with its brilliant flowers, which climbs to the tops of trees; 
 the Wistaria, with its blue clusters, which covers my house 
 form their spirals from left to right : whilst the honey- 
 suckle, my dear honeysuckle, as well as the hop, turn about 
 supporting trees from right to left, and that always without 
 exception. Never will a honeysuckle or a hop twine round 
 a tree by turning from left to right. Never will a convol- 
 vulus, or a scarlet-runner, or a Wistaria, climb by making 
 their spirals from right to left. 
 
 L L
 
 258 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 Other climbing plants have particular manners of raising 
 themselves; the vine, the passion-flower, which wears the 
 appearance of a cross of St. Louis ; the clematis with its 
 little perfumed flowers, the sweet pea with its odoriferous 
 buttei-flies, attach themselves by little elastic gimlets in the 
 shape of corkscrews. 
 
 Ivy ascends straight up, shooting little roots into the bark 
 of trees or into the chinks in walls. 
 
 And in the same manner acts the Bignonia radicans, 
 except that it only fastens its old wood, and lets its branches 
 of the year droop with their clusters of long red flowers. 
 
 The jasmin with its silver stars supports its new shoots 
 upon its old branches. 
 
 So likewise does the woody nightshade, whose bunches of 
 violet flowers are succeeded by magnificent girandoles of 
 emerald or coral (I say coral for want of a stone as brilliant 
 as the berries of the nightshade) according to the degree of 
 maturity of its fruit. 
 
 The brier and the periwinkle climb by the strength of the 
 sap alone, fall back when they attain a certain height, imme- 
 diately take root again by the point with which they touch 
 the earth, and spring up again with fresh vigour. 
 
 In one of my preceding letters, when speaking of colours, 
 I asked if there were a savant who could tell what was exactly 
 the colour of the purple of the ancients. I, this morning, 
 stumbled by accident upon a passage in Pliny, which says 
 that the flower of the Amaranth is of a more beautiful 
 purple than any that dyers can attain. Unfortunately, the 
 Amaranth is a flower that sports very much ; there are Ama- 
 ranth flowers of all the shades of carmine, from rose-colour to 
 violet, there are some approaching to white, and some yellow. 
 If Pliny had chosen for the term of his comparison a 
 flower of a fixed colour, we should have our question an- 
 swered. 
 
 This reminds me that Virgil, in the fourth book of the 
 Georgics, says saffron is red, 
 
 " Crocumque rubentem." 
 
 The saffron is violet, and has orange stamens. I do not 
 know which of these colours is called red in Latin. It is
 
 THE MARCH OF THE ORCHIS. 
 
 259 
 
 equally to be regretted that we have not the black violet, 
 which is elsewhere mentioned 
 
 " Et nigrae violse sunt." 
 
 A savant has calculated what is the rate of march of the 
 orchids. It must first be proved how the orchids can 
 change their places : the orchis is a spike of little violet, rose, 
 white, or variegated flowers which issues from two bulbs, one 
 of which is small, empty, and as if become thin; whilst the 
 other is white and full of juice. 
 
 The smaller of the two bulbs, the wrinkled one, is that 
 from which the flower draws its sap and its nourishment; the 
 other will nourish the flower next year. Now, these two 
 bulbs being distant from each other by some lines, when the 
 old one becomes quite dry, and a new bulb has grown by the 
 side of the other, the plant will be displaced by the space 
 which is that year between the two bulbs, that is to say nearly 
 six lines, which shows that it would not require more than 
 twelve thousand years for the orchis to travel a league !
 
 LETTER XLV. 
 
 NATURE'S SYMPATHY LESS SUBLIME THAN ITS IKUH-'FEKENCB 
 
 IT appears that formerly trees and plants were happily 
 connected with men in various ways, which connexions have 
 been now interrupted. I neither know why nor how; it 
 would be a difficult matter to say which was wrong first. 
 
 If a shepherd left his country for a short time, everything 
 reminded him of it, everything mourned his absence : 
 
 " Te Tityre pinus, 
 Ipsi te fontes, ipsa haec arhusta vocabant." 
 
 Pellio has a son born. That gives pleasure to both the 
 barley and the wheat ; they take a touching part in the hap- 
 piness of the lieutenant of Augustus : 
 
 " Flavescet campus arista." 
 
 The sheep not finding themselves sufficiently well dressed
 
 SYMPATHY OF NATURE. 261 
 
 for the occasion, think it their duty, and make it a pleasure 
 to stain themselves red and yellow : 
 
 " Ipse sed in pratis aries jam suave rubenti 
 Muriel, jam croceo mutabit vellera luto." 
 
 Gallus is a prey to unsuccessful love ; the laurels pity him 
 sincerely, and the brambles even shed some tears over his 
 fate: 
 
 " Ilium etiam lauri, ilium etiam flevere myricae." 
 
 When Anacreon wishes to drink, the roses come of them- 
 selves to crown his silver locks : 
 
 " To poSov TO TU>V epiorwv, 
 To po&ov ro Ka\\i<t>v\\ov." 
 
 For my part, I am to-day as happy as possible ; I have got 
 rid of an annoyance Edrnond is gone, although till the 
 moment of his departure, nothing announced that he did not 
 intend to stay twenty years. 
 
 Thus " Happiness is composed of evils we have escaped." 
 
 I am happy, and yet I seek in vain in my garden for a little 
 sympathy. 
 
 Certainly, I am under no obligation to the roses for being 
 in bloom, or to the honeysuckles for throwing about their 
 odours so prodigally from the tops of the trees; this is not 
 done for my sake ; they do not do this for the purpose of 
 associating themselves with my joy. 
 
 But there are some flowers which I in some degree reckoned 
 upon ; the gorteria that beautiful flower with its green foliage 
 lined with white, and blossoms of a splendid orange colour 
 which only open to the sun might have shown me a little 
 delicate attention by expanding its rays to-day, although the 
 weather be rather dull. 
 
 Top tiger lilies those beautiful cups of purple and gold 
 which last only for a few hours might have prolonged their 
 blooming for a minute or two, as an evidence of rejoicing. 
 
 The aristea which, upon a miniature foliage of the iris, ex- 
 hibits charming little blue roses that close in the shade might 
 have had the good feeling to keep its blossoms open. 
 
 The briars and the laurels might have afforded me a few 
 tears of joy, as they wept so freely in pity for Gallus.
 
 262 A TOfJR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 My pigeons might have become green or blue; and it 
 would not have appeared unkind in the roses if they had 
 tressed up their crests a little. 
 
 As for the wheat and barley, I have no complaint to make 
 of them, as I do not know what they would have done, or 
 how they would have behaved themselves, seeing that I have 
 none of either in my gai-den. 
 
 But as to the others 
 
 Here is a rose, now can you imagine what it has done? 
 It has enveloped in its petals a rose-beetle, which is goin-g 
 comfortably to sleep. 
 
 The gorterias have folded up their petals in their full 
 length ; the asterias have rolled up theirs, and are absolutely 
 as fast asleep as if Edmond were not gone. 
 
 The pigeons the pigeons have something else to do than 
 to stain themselves blue or red; they think themselves, 
 besides, very well as they are, and are exceedingly busy 
 telling one another so. 
 
 The tiger lilies, as ragged as ill-closed twists of paper, are 
 ready to fall to the earth ; but nothing can equal the indiffe- 
 rence of the briars and laurels ! 
 
 Seriously this fiction, which poets good and bad have all 
 abused, of showing that trees and flowers pai'take our sadness 
 and mourning, our joy and our pleasure, is, for me, a less 
 elevated poetry than the superb indifference of nature. I am 
 not convinced even if they have any right to create this 
 falsehood in order to increase the sadness of their songs. 
 
 The church bell sounds : the peasants say Ah 1 there is a 
 funeral bell! 
 
 And now the sun, who has triumphed over the clouds, sheds 
 upon everything the colours of joy and life, like a look of love 
 and goodness, which God allows to fall upon the earth. 
 
 The flowers, spi-eading forth their beauties like a brilliant 
 illumination, appear to attract the sun. The insects seek 
 each other beneath the leaves ; the bees hum ; the birds sing ; 
 sweet odours float around. 
 
 And the funeral bell continues its heavy monotonous toll, 
 and the peasants bear to the grave a fair young girl, who so 
 dearly loved flowers, the sun, perfumes, the hum of bees, and 
 the song of birds; that lovely girl who planted many of thet-e
 
 THE SUBLIMITY OF NATURE S CALM. 
 
 263 
 
 rose-trees ; that lovely girl who was so fond and careful of her 
 bees ! 
 
 They bear her to the cemetery, and to the bottom of the 
 hole which they have dug in the ground to bury her in, a ray 
 of the sun penetrates and gilds the depth of the grave ; two 
 butterflies sportively pursue each other over it ; in a few 
 months grass will conceal her resting-place, forgetfulness will 
 have overcome remembrance ; flowers will bloom upon that 
 grave; the smile will return to the lips of him who loved 
 her, another love will spring up in his heart, and he will 
 whisper it to another ; under those very same trees, the rays 
 of that same sun will play among the hyacinthine curls of 
 this new love, the same perfumes, the same songs of birds will 
 fill the air; and perhaps he may offer her a rose gathered 
 from one of the trees this fair dead girl had planted !
 
 LETTER XLVL 
 
 THE CONNOISSEUR IS DECEIVED. 
 
 A MAN, with whom I was very intimate when 1 was an 
 inhabitant of cities, came to see me, and we conversed a great 
 deal upoti our opposite tastes, and upon the things which 
 occupy and give interest to our lives. 
 
 On his part, he takes no account of flowers, or trees, or the 
 heavens, or the moon, or men, or animals ; none of these can 
 interest him till after they have been reduced, flattened, dis- 
 figured, and traced upon canvas by means of colours and a 
 brush. He gives a high price for the images of things which 
 in his eyes have no value ; he paid 9,950 francs for a picture 
 by Van Huysum. This picture represents a vase of flowers.
 
 NATURE AND ART. 265 
 
 The real bouquet the living bouquet, with its splendour and 
 its perfumes, might be worth twenty sous. 
 
 For the portrait of this bouquet, that is to say, a flat imita- 
 tion, false in colours, and smelling of oil, he paid 9,950 francs! 
 and is proud and happy at having made so good a bargain ! 
 
 I conducted him round my garden, but he looked at 
 scarcely anything. A branch of hundred-leaved roses, bend- 
 ing under the weight of its blossoms, for a moment, however, 
 attracted his attention : he looked at it and exclaimed, " How 
 like that is to a bouquet of roses by Van Dael which I have 
 at home!" 
 
 It was very evident that he thought nature had made an 
 attempt to imitate his picture. 
 
 In the evening, after supper, pipes and some Turkey 
 tobacco were brought in, and we chatted upon all manner 
 of things ; but he always contrived means to bring the sub- 
 ject round to one of his pictures, by some imperceptible 
 thread or other. 
 
 At length, " Listen," said I. " I likewise have pictures, 
 but I will only show them to you by daylight; to-morrow 
 morning will do." 
 
 "And what pictures have you?" asked he, with a more 
 than half disdainful air. 
 
 " I have a great number." 
 
 " Are they pictures by known masters?" 
 
 "I suppose so; for I have never seen any more beautiful, 
 more grand in their ensemble, or more finished in their 
 details." 
 
 " Ah, ah ! we shall see that." 
 
 " Oh ! I don't conceal them from anybody. I am not one 
 of those egotistical amateurs, who find less pleasure in the 
 possession of their pictures, than th^y do in the conviction 
 that others have none, or at least Uiat they have not the 
 same." 
 
 " Did your collection cost you much?" 
 
 " I got it for nothing." 
 
 "For nothing! Oh, I know what that means! Picture 
 amateurs are divided into two classes : those of the first have 
 expended millions upon their galleries; those of the second, 
 on the contrary, always get their pictures for nothing. Their 
 
 M M
 
 266 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 pretence is to have discovered them on the shelves of some 
 dealers in images, or upon panels over the chimney of a 
 village inn, or even among a lot of old bottles. You are of 
 the second class." 
 
 lf You are welcome to place me in which class you please." 
 
 "Well; but by whom are your best pictures?" 
 
 " Oh ! as to that, I really cannot tell you; I have no memory 
 for names!. And, to be frank with you, it is a circumstance 
 I pay no attention to. I should prefer having a fine picture 
 painted by my porter to a daub by Raffaelle. And what is 
 very singular, this opinion, worthy, from its ingenuousness, 
 of being placed in the rank of the maxims and thoughts of 
 M. de la Palesse, would easily pass for an originality or a 
 whimsicality. I seek for nothing in painting but the true 
 and the beautiful." 
 
 "You really excite my curiosity to see the pictures of 
 a man who entertains such ideas. Can't you recollect any 
 of them?" 
 
 " Oh, yes. I could easily describe, at least for the most 
 part, what my pictures represent." 
 
 " Well." 
 
 " Well, I have one above this room ; it is of a vast plain, 
 surrounded on all sides by trees. Upon the verdant grass, 
 dotted with shadow and light by the sun which is setting 
 behind the trees, repose some sheep. The whole has a charm 
 of calmness and repose which yields the greatest pleasure." 
 
 " I am sure that is by Van der Do-es. Well, that is not 
 worth much." 
 
 " All I know is, that it is very beautiful ; and I do not 
 believe that it is by Van der Does." 
 
 " You astonish me." 
 
 " Another is a sunken road, such as in Normandy is called 
 une cavee. Travellers walk lower than the roots of trees, whose 
 tops extend over the wall of earth which forms the two sides 
 of the road, thick and long roots like twisted serpents." 
 
 " I should not be surprised if that were a copy ; and my 
 reason for thinking so, a reason which I think good, and not 
 subject to contradiction, is that I possess the original, which 
 is by J. Ruysdael." 
 
 " I assure you it is not a copy."
 
 PICTLttES. 
 
 267 
 
 " Ah ! we shall see." 
 
 " I am convinced that a sight of the picture will make 
 you change your opinion. By the side of it you see the 
 entrance to a \rllage ; amidst trees with rounded tops shoots 
 up the church spire; the sun, which darts his oblique rays, 
 fills the foliage of the trees with golden sparks; a peasant is 
 driving home his cart." 
 
 " If that picture be, as I think it is, by J. Ostade, it ts 
 valuable." 
 
 " I do not believe that any Ostade ever did anything ap- 
 proaching it." 
 
 " My dear friend, you don't understand the Ostades." 
 
 " I was yesterday looking at another picture which de- 
 lighted me very much : a child was seated at a window 
 blowing soap-bubbles; the child was serious and attentive, 
 whilst the bubble, still a captive, appeared to grow larger 
 and larger, as it balanced itself upon an imperceptible breath 
 of air. The most enchanting colours succeeded each other 
 upon this frail globe of glass." 
 
 " Oh; that is a well-known picture ! I saw it at the house 
 of an amateur, from whom you must have bought it: that 
 is by J. Mieris." 
 
 " I did not buy it." 
 
 " Oh, dear no ; I suppose it was given you ! or else you 
 found it ! As I told you, you are an amateur of the second 
 class. You pretend to have got for nothing a picture worth 
 6,000 francs!" 
 
 " The back ground of another is composed of magnificent 
 chestnut- trees, with large leaves of golden green, rendered 
 still more so by the rays of the setting sun; a small house 
 covered with vines is entirely gilded by the last warm rays of 
 the star of day ; nearer, and towards the centre, a Bohemian 
 olive, and an elder-tree much lower down ; so that the oblique 
 rays of the sun passing over and into the shade, leave the 
 foliage of the first of a whiteish hue, and the tuft of the 
 latter of a dark green. In front of the elder is a purple 
 blossomed rose; its lower flowers are in shade; one alone, 
 which shoots beyond the elder, catches a ray of the sun, and 
 looks like a magnificent ruby." 
 
 " Are there no figures?"
 
 268 A TOUR HOUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 " None." 
 
 " Then I cannot tell whom that can be by." 
 
 " I feel no doubt that you will recognise the master when 
 you see the picture." 
 
 " Very possibly nay, even probably, I may ; but at pre- 
 sent my memory does not furnish me with anything like 
 that." 
 
 " I saw another this morning which very much interested 
 me. It was a beautiful woman, holding a pink in her hand." 
 
 " Oh, well known : that's by Rubens." 
 
 " Do you think so?" 
 
 " I am sure of it ; but you must permit me to be less sure 
 of another thing." 
 
 " Oh, certainly; and pray what is the thing of which you 
 are not sure?" 
 
 " That is, that this picture can belong to you." 
 
 " Well, I don't positively say it does belong to me ; but 
 what I do say is, that I saw it in my house this morning." 
 
 " My dear friend, my dear friend ! allow me to speak 
 frankly to you. There is one thing I greatly fear on your 
 account; I am afraid you are the dupe of some picture- 
 dealer, who has plundered you and made you pay very dear 
 for mere daubs." 
 
 " I beg you, my good friend, to keep this kind interest for 
 others ; I do assure you that the pictures of which I tell you 
 are all that is most beautiful ; I have never seen any, in any 
 gallery, which can compare with mine, either in truth, design, 
 or colour." 
 
 " I am accustomed to hear every amateur, if he be only 
 the master of three middling copies, or five or six unowned 
 sketches, seek to make himself believe that he possesses mira- 
 cles. Now, I may be allowed to say to you what I am going 
 to observe, because you do not pretend to be rich, but on 
 the contrary, you rather pretend not to be so. Well; I know 
 the value of the pictures you have described to me; and I 
 declare to you, that if you really possess them ; if, as you tell 
 me, these form but a small part of your collection; if yoc 
 
 have not amused yourself with laughing at me How 
 
 many pictures have you ? " 
 
 "Too many to count."
 
 NATURE VERSUS ART. 269 
 
 " Well, then ; your gallery cannot have cost you less than 
 200,000 francs." " 
 
 " Nonsense ! It cost me nothing." 
 
 " You are certainly the most audacious of any amateur of 
 this kind I have ever met with. I wish to-morrow were 
 come." 
 
 The next morning I led my friend into a large room with 
 four windows, and said to him, " Here are my pictures, and 
 the windows are the frames." 
 
 "Oh! that's but a joke!" 
 
 " Not at all ; look, some of my pictures are a little changed 
 since the last time I looked at them, but they are not the less 
 beautiful on that account. This is the one you took to be 
 Ostade, and which is, as the others, simply by the Almighty. 
 There are the trees and the steeple; the cart is no longer 
 there, but there is a girl driving cows to pasture, which is 
 better. Do you believe that Ostade ever attained that truth, 
 that drawing, that colour, that light? 
 
 " Here, on the left, through the other window, is the 
 hollowed road, which is not by J. Ruysdael, and of which you 
 pretend to have the original ; I had a right, however, to tell 
 you that mine is not a copy; it is evident that of the two 
 pictures, however original yours may be, mine is not the 
 copy. 
 
 " And here is the meadow upon which the sun and shade 
 play with such effect ; there are the tall trees, and the sheep 
 which repose upon the grass : that likewise is by the Almighty, 
 and not by Van der Does." 
 
 " Well, well; it's all a very good joke." 
 
 " No, I am not joking at all; so far from it, I think it is 
 you who are joking, or else take me for an idiot, to hope to 
 make me believe that you attach more value to a little tree 
 daubed upon canvass, flat, without shade, without colours, 
 without perfume, without the song of birds, than to that 
 noble, living tree, which, perfumed and harmonious, covers 
 us with its shade. What! you pay 200,000 francs for 
 the imperfect imitation of a tree worth five francs! will 
 you venture to speak of the difficulty overcome 1 Why do 
 you not pay more dearly for the imitation of diamonds 
 and rubies than for true diamonds and rubies? and yet that
 
 270 
 
 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 imitation is much more perfect, and is so successful as to 
 deceive almost anybody. False jewels, as well as true, shine, 
 and draw upon those who wear them, the same admiration, 
 envy, and hatred, that the real ones would; whilst no one is 
 deceived by the painting. The birds which, according to 
 Pliny, wanted to eat the grapes by Zeuxis, would not be 
 so taken in now-a-days; there does not exist any bird so silly 
 as to attempt to build its nest in a painted tree. 
 
 " What ! and is it to pay so dearly for feeble imitations 
 of all the beautiful things we can have for nothing, that men 
 ruin themselves; fill their lives with anxieties and cares, and 
 stuff their pillows with thorns 1 
 
 " No, no; it is you who are joking and who are laughing 
 at me; or else I must believe that you, and all who resemble 
 you, are downright madmen."
 
 LETTER XL VII. 
 
 A TALE OF YOUTH. 
 
 I WILL tell you what a large plum-tree which shades a 
 corner of my favourite grass-plat reminds me of; it is a tale 
 of my youth. 
 
 As I had, what is called, gone through my studies with 
 credit ; that is to say, as I was acquainted with Latin, and 
 could manage a little Greek, I was very much embarrassed to 
 find an honest means of gaining my living. 
 
 Whilst in the embarrassment of this difficulty, I one day met 
 a man in the street, who accosted me by holding out his hand 
 to me. I did not at first recognise him; but at all events 
 it was a mark of kindness, and I gave him my hand, which 
 he shook cordially. He had been, in the college at which 
 I had studied, what is called a yard dog ; that is to say, 
 guardian over our recreations, positive and negative recrea-
 
 272 A. TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 tions in which we really played, and recreations which we 
 passed in copying: 
 
 " A peine nous sortions des portes de Trezene." 
 (We scarcely ever went out from the gates of Trezene.) 
 
 The principal cause of my not knowing him arose from the 
 unwonted splendour of his appearance. He was dressed in 
 black, and wore a watch with a rich gold chain. He told me 
 his name, and explained the change that had taken place 
 in his position. He had left the college, to perform the 
 same office in the establishment of the master of a small 
 private boarding-school. The affairs of this master were 
 in great confusion ; to escape from the hands of his cre- 
 ditors, he formed the idea of placing both his school and 
 his furniture under another name, and cast his eyes upon 
 Levasseur. He passed six months in teaching him by rote 
 what he would have to answer the examiners in order to 
 receive his licence to teach ; then he made a false sale of his 
 furniture, &c. to him, taking of him a counter letter, to prove 
 the invalidity of the transaction. 
 
 A short time afterwards, he fell ill upon a journey, and 
 died at a little inn. Levasseur tore up the counter-letter, which 
 the dead man had placed in his hands on leaving home, and 
 remained sole master of the establishment. 
 
 It was a matter of great moment, when I met him, to find 
 an under-master; in the first place, because he was entirely 
 incapable, and in the next, because he was desirous of giving 
 himself a little occasional recreation, and not to be alwavs 
 chained to the oar. 
 
 When he met me, I have no doubt he was as much sur- 
 prised at the modesty of my costume, as I was surprised 
 at the magnificence of his; a remark to which I dare say 
 I was indebted for his proposing to me to come and live 
 with him. 
 
 " Listen to me," said he : " we shall be like two brothers ; 
 I will share everything with you. I have nothing at present, 
 because I have been obliged to sustain a lawsuit against the 
 creditors of my predecessor, because everything was in bad 
 
 condition he was a man who had no idea of order, and 
 
 who did me a deal of injury. The capital I placed in this
 
 M. LEVASSEUR, BEGINS TO ENCROACH. 273 
 
 business is wasted in bringing things about; I am in debt, 
 both for the lawsuit and indispensable repairs. So, you see, 
 I cannot offer you any money at present; you shall be 
 lodged as I am, fed as I am; and as soon as our united 
 efforts shall be successful, you shall share my prosperity as you 
 will have shared my poverty. Will that do?" 
 
 The moment was admirably chosen, everything went wrong 
 with me; besides, I took these falsehoods for frankness and 
 honesty: I accepted his offer, reproaching myself for still 
 fancying so good a fellow had a false and vulgar air about 
 him. The next day I took up my abode with him. 
 
 I was not long in finding out that he did not treat me 
 exactly like a brother; if he did it was like a younger brother, 
 and kept up in the most rigorous manner the most obliterated 
 traditions even of the rights of the elder born. 
 
 My chamber was next to the sky, and furnished with 
 a flock-bed and one chair ; of four squares which formed the 
 window of my domicile, and admitted more cold than light, 
 one was of paper. With respect to my food, I dined with 
 him and his wife, a vulgar fat woman. After dinner the first 
 day, they invited me to take some coffee with them, which 
 I at that time did not much like, and some liqueur which 
 I did not like at all, and which I determined to decline in 
 future. On the second day, at coffee-time, Levasseur pre- 
 tended to listen, and said: "Monsieur Stephen, I think 
 there is too much noise in school." I arose and went to re- 
 establish order; which, by-the-bye, I found had not been 
 disturbed. 
 
 The day after, exactly at the moment for the introduction 
 of coffee, M. Levasseur again believed he heard a noise in 
 school. This appeared to me to be rather singular. I, how- 
 ever, got up, but found all perfectly quiet. 
 
 On the following day, the same noise assailed his ears, just 
 at the same instant. 
 
 I then perceived that they were not willing to give me any 
 coffee. This discovery relieved me from an annoyance, that 
 of remaining at table with them; and I adopted t"he plan 
 of rising from table as soon as I had finished my meal, 
 and going into the school-room, where I could read, or think, 
 or write a letter, which I hoped to be able to slip into 
 
 N N
 
 274 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 her hand on the following Friday, and I was more happy 
 in doing that than I had ever been in my life. 
 
 Every day fresh encroachments were made upon our mutual 
 agreements. 
 
 At first, I was at liberty every evening. Then, one day, 
 he wanted to go out, and begged me to remain at home for 
 this once. It was not a Friday, so I did not care much 
 about it. 
 
 A few days after, came the same prayer and the same 
 success. On the morrow it was the lady who came to me, 
 and said with a smile, if I was disposed to be very amiable, 
 I should allow them to go to the theatre that night. I stayed 
 at home. 
 
 The next day they went out without saying anything, and 
 I stayed at home. 
 
 The following day was Friday. 
 
 You will ask me, my dear friend, what made me hold 
 Friday so sacred ? I will tell you. That day was my every- 
 thing it was all my life, all my hope, all my courage. On 
 that day I saw Magdeleine. 
 
 Some speculators, I don't remember who, had established 
 a theatre near the city gates. They had applied for aid to 
 M. Muller, who had advanced them some money, and as his 
 principal interest, I believe, had the right of having a weekly 
 box at this theatre. And he took this box generally on a Friday. 
 
 Upon this day I cleaned a pair of boots which I reserved 
 exclusively for this great day; I beat, brushed, re-beat and 
 re-brushed my coat ; I rubbed ink upon the whitened seams ; 
 I stitched on some loose buttons (I had taken pains all the 
 week to secure myself clean linen); I had a pair of gloves 
 which I mended and cleaned over and over again with India- 
 rubber. In spite of all these labours and the strictest economy, 
 there was always some trifling expense to be incurred. M. 
 Levasseur gave me no money ; I procured a supply by copy- 
 ing some writings in my moments of leisure; but these 
 moments were now very few, and besides, I wanted to read 
 a little, and then I was under the absolute necessity of writing 
 a large volume, in the shape of letters, which I sometimes 
 succeeded hi conveying to Magdeleine on a Friday, in addition 
 to verses. But still I managed to earn by my writing about
 
 M. STEPHEN GIVES AN INCH. 275 
 
 ten francs a-week. The entry to the theatre cost me a franc, 
 the rest went to the laundress, and now and then in gloves, 
 which, however seldom used, and taken care of, were not 
 immortal. 
 
 I managed always so as to have, on a Friday, my twenty 
 sous to go to the theatre with. 
 
 There I saw Magdeleine, there I was enraptured by her 
 presence ; my looks met hers, and thence drew strength and 
 courage, hope and faith. As we left the theatre, by favour 
 of the crowd, I generally succeeded in slipping into her hand 
 a letter which I had been Avriting all the week, and then she 
 gave me in exchange a morsel of paper, a letter from her ! 
 When I think of the happiness I then felt, it appears to me 
 that I offended Heaven by the complaints I sometimes have 
 dared to breathe, when it has overwhelmed me with its 
 anger. 
 
 We had now come to the Friday. This gave me some little 
 scintillations of happiness ; but I dreaded lest they should 
 wish me to stay at home : I knew very well that / would 
 not stay at home; I knew very well I should be at the theatre ; 
 but I was not willing to quarrel with M. Levasseur, in 
 whose house I had found the only means I then knew of 
 providing for my existence. 
 
 I did not wish to refuse to stay at home, if I should be 
 asked ; I did not wish to prevent their going out, if I saw 
 them get ready, as I had done the evening before. 
 
 I wished, without announcing that I was going out, which 
 would have been almost an abdication of my rights, I wished 
 to manifest my intention before theirs could have shown 
 itself, by a commencement of execution. 
 
 I dressed myself beforehand, and came in to dinner quite 
 prepared. M. Levasseur and his wife exchanged looks ; 
 Madame Levasseur forgot two or three times to assist me ; 
 M. Levasseur heard three or four times a noise in the school- 
 room ; then, as I asked the servant for bread, Madame Levas- 
 seur observed aloud that there was not a house in Paris in 
 which people ate so much as was eaten in hers. 
 
 I felt myself blush ; I was on the rack. As soon as dinner 
 was over, I saluted them, they scarcely returned my bow, and 
 I went out. That day Magdeleine did not come to the theatre.
 
 276 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 During the week which followed, at first all the Levasseur 
 household was cold towards me : then fresh encroachments 
 were attempted, and as I made no opposition to them, things 
 resumed their former state; they went out every evening. 
 I was, however, determined not to expose myself a second time 
 to the humiliations of the past Friday. I reserved for that day 
 a few sous above the price of my admission to the theatre. 
 
 I had a great mind to propose to them to stay at home 
 every day except Friday ; but I thought it best to stick to 
 my evenings, because, from some cause or other, Magdeleine's 
 night for going to the theatre might be changed, and then if 
 I were compelled to remain by agreement, labours might be 
 required of me which would have prevented my writing my 
 dear letters, or scribbling some of the sixty thousand verses 
 which I addressed to Magdeleine, and of which she never 
 saw one. 
 
 I seized an opportunity in the course of the morning, when 
 I met Madame Levasseur in the garden, to tell her, that / 
 should not have the honour of dining with her on that day. 
 
 She made me no answer, but called M. Levasseur. They 
 talked for a long time together ; for my part, I was in another 
 part of the garden, watching the boys at play ; besides, I was 
 to see Magdeleine that evening : as to a Friday being lost, 
 the ill-humour of M. and Madame Levasseur was nothing in 
 comparison with the armed enemies, the infernal fires, the 
 fabulous monsters that I would have encountered and over- 
 come to render myself worthy of my happiness. 
 
 The hour being come, I set out and wandered round the 
 theatre to find a place where T could dine for my few sous. 
 
 At that time, my friend, I had a tolerably good appetite, 
 and from the door of every restaurant, or even poor eating- 
 house, there issued savoury odours of gibelottes or boeuf a-la- 
 mode, which attracted me involuntarily : then I thought of 
 the slender state of my finances, and I looked about for more 
 humble fare. 
 
 At length T fixed upon a kind of large plot of ground, 
 planted with plum-trees, under which was spread a carpet of 
 turf. The plums were ripe : I asked for three sous' worth of 
 bread and twenty plums, made a delicious dinner, and then 
 went to the theatre. She was there !
 
 M. LEVASSEUR TAKES AN ELL. 277 
 
 I reproached myself for ever having thought of dining; 
 I reproached myself for the paltry regret I had felt at not 
 being able to partake of that gibelotle, whose provoking odour 
 had so tempted me. 
 
 I exchanged my letter with Magdeleine; after the play 
 they walked home, and I followed them at a distance. 
 
 How I should have gloried in their being attacked, that 
 I might have had an opportunity of defending them ! how 
 I racked my memory for all the histories of thieves that I had 
 read, and how little doubt did I entertain of the certainty of 
 my victory, whatever might be the number of my assailants ! 
 
 The following Friday I was less fortunate ; I possessed no 
 more than just my twenty sous. I made up my mind not to 
 leave Lavasseur's house till after dinner. But although I had 
 hinted in the morning I should go out in the evening, I per- 
 ceived that the servant, in laying the cloth, neglected to place 
 my knife and fork, conformably with the orders she had 
 received. I had no dinner that day. I had no money to 
 enable me to repeat my excellent repast under the plum-trees. 
 In the evening I returned home, rich in a letter from Mag- 
 deleine, but with a sad empty stomach ! 
 
 At length there came a Friday on which I was very un- 
 easy. Madame Levasseur began by inflicting a good scold- 
 ing upon the poor servant, and then sent her off, early in the 
 morning, to her dressmakers, to insist upon having her new 
 dress home before evening. M. Levasseur was fresh shaved, 
 although he had gone through that operation only the even- 
 ing before, and it was his custom to shave every other day. 
 
 I foresaw a storm, and I wished to avert it by making a 
 concession. I addressed M. Levasseur, and offered to give up 
 all the other evenings of the week, provided I were at liberty 
 on Fridays. 
 
 He answered me, with a little hesitation, that he would see 
 about it, and went to confer with his wife. After a short 
 matrimonial discussion, he came back to me and said, " You 
 can go out next Friday, but to-day" 
 
 " To-day," I replied, " it is indispensable that I should go 
 out to-day." 
 
 " You must, however, dispense with it, for the house can- 
 not be left alone, and we are going to the theatre."
 
 278 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 " My dear Monsieur Levasseur," said I, " I do not wish to 
 have any difference with you, but you must please to recol- 
 lect that according to our agreement, I am at liberty to go 
 out every evening, and that by reserving only Friday to 
 myself, I make a concession that you ought to receive, at 
 least, with politeness." 
 
 " I don't enter into these reasons," said he ; " but I must 
 be master in my own house. I am very willing to permit 
 you to go out on Fridays, but not to-day." 
 
 I thought I had paid a sufficiently high ransom for my 
 beloved Fridays in giving up the other days of the week. I 
 replied that I was exceedingly sorry, but that I must go out. 
 
 He left me, saying, " Next Friday, if you please ; but to- 
 day you must not think of it." 
 
 When left alone, I became angry with myself and my ap- 
 parent want of firmness and spirit. I said no more until the 
 usual hour, when I dressed, my self, and prepared to go out. 
 I found M. and Madame Levasseur in the doorway, in full 
 dress ; Madame in particular was decked out in flaming style, 
 and her dress occupied an incredible space. They thought 
 to have been beforehand with me, imagining that if they 
 were once gone, I should not dare to leave the house un- 
 protected, and should stay at home. I bowed to them as 
 I passed out before them. M. Levasseur called me back. I 
 turned towards them with the remark that I was late, and 
 rather in a hurry. 
 
 " Sii'," said M. Levasseur, purple with rage, "I forbade 
 your going out at all." 
 
 " Sir," replied I coolly, "have you any right to do so? Do 
 you think you are acting legally and honestly by me 1 ? Is 
 this according to our agreement ? " 
 
 " I don't enter into these reasons," said he ; "I am deter- 
 mined to be master in my own house. When I forbid you 
 to go out, you ought not to go out." 
 
 " Sir," said I, " I pardon your speaking thus, because 1 
 have merited it by my own want of spirit in allowing you to 
 impose upon me as you have done ; I leave your house, sir, 
 never to return to it." 
 
 "That is just what I wish," answered M. Levasseur. I 
 bowed, and left them
 
 M. STEPHEN ASSERTS HIMSELF. 279 
 
 I had no asylum for the night ; no prospect of food on the 
 morrow; but that was a matter of no importance then. The 
 play began early that day, and I wished to have time to eat 
 a morsel. The last time I had been to the theatre without 
 dining ; I had glanced at myself in a mirror, and found that 
 I looked pale, thin and ugly. I went to the Orchard, where 
 I dined upon two sous' worth of bread and two sous' worth of 
 cheese, then went to the theatre, where I passed my evening 
 delightfully. By a singular chance, in the piece played that 
 night the two lovers bore the same names as myself and 
 
 Magdeleine ; our eyes were constantly fixed upon each 
 
 other, and we applied all the tender things said upon the 
 stage to ourselves. 
 
 Upon going out, after having given and received a letter, 
 I escorted them home, at my usual respectful distance. 
 
 Then, and not till then, as I mechanically took the road to 
 Levasseur's, I recollected all that had passed, and it came 
 sharply and bitterly to my mind that I had neither home nor 
 bed, and that I must pass the night beneath the canopy of 
 heaven. 
 
 In front of M. Mailer's house there was a little meadow, 
 from which I could perceive the window of Magdeleine's 
 chamber. I soon saw a light in it, and I fancied she must 
 be reading my letter; whilst I, on my part, for want of light, 
 could only cover hers with tender kisses. Then the light was 
 extinguished. 
 
 I then pictured to myself Magdeleine sleeping ; 1 thought 
 I could see her beautiful long eyelashes drooping over her 
 cheeks; I dare not repeat the smiling pictures that passed 
 before my mind; I bade her good night twe*nty times. Good 
 night, Magdeleine; good night, my beloved; good night, my 
 wife ! my adored wife, good night ! 
 
 I laid down upon the grass and went to sleep, regretting 
 only one thing : that I had not read her dear letter, which I 
 held clasped tightly in my hand. 
 
 I was awakened some time before daybreak, by the cool- 
 ness of the morning air; I was fatigued, depressed, chilled; 
 I roused myself, put myself a little to rights, day dawned, 
 and I vead her letter, a letter full of tender promises, magi'' 
 words. I felt rested, refreshed, and in spirits.
 
 280 
 
 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 I left the little meadow, for fear of being noticed, and wan- 
 dered about at hazard, reflecting upon what was best to be 
 done. I had still a few sous left, BO I went to the Orchard, 
 and made an excellent breakfast upon bread and cheese. I 
 got into conversation with the farmer, and soon made an 
 arrangement with him ; I remained with him all the summer, 
 sleeping in a barn, upon straw, copying to gain something to 
 subsist on, but above all to obtain twenty sous for eveiy 
 Friday. I paid daily. When copying failed, I only made 
 one repast a-day ; I pretended to make the other at the house 
 of some friend, but I never allowed such necessities to inter- 
 fere with the sacred price of my ticket for the following 
 Friday. 
 
 Now, the Orchard is destroyed, the plum-trees are pulled 
 up, and probably burnt; the farmer is dead, and houses in- 
 habited by people I know nothing of, cover the spot upon 
 which I made so many excellent dinners.
 
 LETTER XLVIII. 
 
 THE VINE. 
 
 WHAT a magnificent tree is a vine ! 
 
 You know me sufficiently, my dear friend, to be sure that 
 nothing Bacchic forms part of my admiration; I drink but 
 little wine, and besides, the vines which I love are not best 
 adapted to the production of it. I love these immense wreaths 
 of vine which extend far and wide in rich green garlands, and 
 which become in autumn of a splendid purple. If I cannot 
 be said even to like wine, I don't at all like the poetry it has 
 inspired. To begin with that of Anacreon, who is fortunate 
 in having written in Gi'eek. that is to say, in a language which 
 those even who have learnt it for six years, do not under- 
 stand ; in a language that many pretend to admire, for the 
 sake of appearing to understand it. 
 
 Voltaire has justly said, that there are a hundred and fifty 
 o o
 
 282 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 drinking songs in the French language, much better than 
 what are called the Odes of Anacreon, upon the vine and its 
 juice divine. 
 
 Mtfto^iei* AionVuj 
 
 To poiov TO <a\Ki<t>v\\ov. 
 
 " Let us mingle with the liquor of Bacchus, the beautifully 
 leaved rose, the rose of love." 
 
 DtMfMV . . . TeXuiKTtf. 
 
 " Let us drink and laugh." 
 
 Such is the matter upon which all the verses of Anacreon 
 dwell. Let us take an ode at hazard. 
 
 Elr TO &etv Trivet v. 
 
 " Upon the necessity for drinking." 
 H yn . . . 
 
 " The earth drinks the water, the tree drinks the earth, the 
 sea drinks the air, the sun drinks the sea, the moon drinks 
 the sun; why should I be reproached when I drink 1 ?" 
 
 And the following, in which he wishes to be seated under 
 the shade of Bathyllus,* whom he terms a handsome tree. 
 
 And the other : 
 
 " When I drink wine, my cares are laid to sleep." 
 These ideas are repeated twenty times over, often without 
 even changing the expressions. 
 
 Or* *flO TTifa) TOV OiVOV. 
 
 " When I drink, &c., my cares are laid to sleep." 
 One thing alone distinguishes Anacreon and his odes from 
 other drinkers and other Bacchic songs, which is, that he puts 
 water into his wine, and is not ashamed to own that he does so. 
 
 Ae iriveiv nerpiiat. 
 
 " We must drink with moderation." 
 
 Tot /uev &(*' &i%iat 
 "YidTor, TOI trevre i' olvov 
 KvaSovt. 
 
 " Mix ten measures of water with five measures of wine." 
 
 A Samian youth, the minion of Anacreon.
 
 THE VINE WEEVIL. 283 
 
 Now, whatever the songs of Bacchus may be, it has always 
 appeared to me impossible to see poetry in drunkenness, or 
 rather in the brutified state produced by wine, which trans- 
 forms men as Circe transformed the companions of Ulysses. 
 
 Pliny goes further than Anacreon, with respect to sobriety, 
 even in the weak wine and water of which we have spoken. 
 He tells of a wine with which twenty parts of water were 
 mixed. 
 
 Petronius recommends abstinence to those who are desirous 
 of applying themselves to elevated things. 
 
 " Artis severae si quis amat effectus 
 Mentemque magnis applicat, &c." 
 
 I love the vine so much for the richness and elegance of its 
 foliage, and for its beautiful violet and golden clusters of 
 fruit. 
 
 There is a little beetle or weevil which lives upon the vine ; 
 its vestment, although very hard, and rather a cuirass than a 
 vestment, is of a clear green, inclining to blue in the male, 
 sprinkled with gold and silver, in such a manner that it 
 appears to be clothed in magnificent apple-green velvet. It 
 rolls itself up in the leaves of the vine, of which it makes a 
 cornet which it lines with down, and in which it lays its eggs ; 
 from these eggs issue white worms, which pass the winter in 
 the earth. The perfect insect has its head terminated by a 
 point armed with shears, with which it does much injury to 
 the grapes. 
 
 At the extremity of .my garden the vine extends in long 
 porticoes, through the arcades of which may be seen trees of 
 all sorts, and foliage of all colours. Here is an azerolier (a 
 small medlar) which is covered in autumn with little scarlet 
 apples, producing the richest effect. I have given away 
 several grafts of this: far from deriving pleasure from the 
 privation of others, I do my utmost to spread and render 
 common and vulgar all the trees and plants that I prefer ; it 
 is as if I multiplied the pleasure and the chances of beholding 
 them of all who, like me, really love flowers for their splen- 
 dour, their grace, and their perfume. Those who, on the 
 contrary, are jealous of their plants, and only esteem them in 
 proportion with their conviction that nobody else possesses
 
 284 A. TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 them, do not love flowers; and be assured that it is either 
 chance or poverty which has made them collectors of flowers, 
 instead of being collectors of pictures, cameos, medals, or any 
 other thing that might serve as an excuse for indulging in all 
 the joys of possession, seasoned with the idea that others do 
 not possess. 
 
 I have even carried the vulgarization of beautiful flowers 
 further than this. 
 
 I ramble about the country near my dwelling, and seek the 
 wildest and least frequented spots. In these, after clearing 
 and preparing a few inches of ground, I scatter the seeds of 
 my most favourite plants, which re-sow themselves, perpetuate 
 themselves, and multiply themselves. At this moment, 
 whilst the fields display nothing but the common red poppy, 
 strollers find with surprise in certain wild nooks of our 
 country, the most beautiful double poppies with their white, 
 red, pink, carnation, and variegated blossoms. 
 
 At the foot of an isolated tree, instead of the little bind- 
 weed, with its white flower, may be sometimes found the 
 beautifully climbing convolvulus major, of all the lovely 
 colours that cau be imagined. 
 
 Sweet peas fasten their tendrils to the bushes, and cover 
 them with the deliciously scented white, rose-colour, or white 
 and violet butterflies. 
 
 It affords me immense pleasure to fix upon a wild rose in 
 a hedge, and graft upon it red and white cultivated roses, 
 sometimes simple roses of a magnificent gold yellow, then 
 large Provence roses, or others variegated with red and white. 
 
 The rivulets in our neighbourhood do not produce on their 
 banks these forget-me-nots, with their blue flowers, with 
 which the rivulet of my garden is adorned : I mean to save 
 the seed, and scatter it in my walks. 
 
 I have observed two young wild quince-trees in the nearest 
 wood; next spring I will graft upon them two of the best 
 kinds of pears. 
 
 And then, how I enjoy beforehand and in imagination, the 
 pleasure and surprise which the solitary stroller will experience 
 when he meets in his rambles with those beautiful flowers and 
 those delicious fruits ! 
 
 This fancy of mine may, one day or other, cause some
 
 THE RIVULET WITHOUT FORGET-ME-NOTS. P. 284.
 
 SCATTERED SEED. 
 
 285 
 
 learned botanist, who is herborizing in these parts a hundred 
 years hence, to print a stupid and startling system. All these 
 beautiful flowers will have become common in the country, 
 and will give it an aspect peculiar to itself; and, perhaps, 
 chance or the wind will cast a few of the seeds of some of 
 them amidst the grass which shall cover my forgotten grave '
 
 LETTER XLIX. 
 
 LHERBE AU CEAXTRE RACINE BOILEAU SORCERERS PLINY HOMEE 
 AND YELLOW c.AKLIC. 
 
 HERE, now, is a plant which had the honour of being the 
 object of a correspondence between Racine and Boileau. 
 Gardeners call it the yellow julienne; horticulturists, Velar 
 de Sainte-Barbe ; savants, Erysimum barbarea ; * old women, 
 Jierbe au chantre. 
 
 It throws up, from a bunch of leaves shaped like a lyre, a 
 stalk surmounted by a thyrsus of yellow flowers. 
 
 It was formerly believed, even as late as the time of 
 Louis XIV., that this kerbe au chantre was, at least in one of 
 its varieties, a sovereign remedy in cases of extinction of the 
 voice. 
 
 We find in the correspondence of Racine and Boileau two 
 letters, in which Racine recommends the syrup of erysimum 
 to Boileau, who is visiting the waters of Bourbonne in older 
 
 * Now known as Barbarea. The yellow rocket of English gardens. ED.
 
 THE ERYSIMUM. 287 
 
 to be cured of a loss of voice. Boileau replies that he has 
 heard the best accounts of the erysimum, and that he means 
 to make use of it the following summer. 
 
 It is a plant of slender pretensions in a garden, and which, 
 as regards a cough, cures it, as any herb would, of which 
 we should persist in drinking an infusion till the cough went 
 away of itself. 
 
 For a long time virtues and miracles were attributed to 
 plants, which have been exploded for centuries, virtues 
 founded upon analogies, resemblances, and want of resem- 
 blances. 
 
 The scabious was in great repute for complaints of the 
 eyes, because the scabious is in shape somewhat like the eyes ; 
 one plant was good for the liver, and another for the heart, 
 on account of the shape of their foliage. 
 
 Then again, some tiger-spotted plants have been used, solely 
 on that account, against the venom of serpents. 
 
 Other plants have received names borrowed from the 
 writings of the ancients, and with their names have been 
 transmitted to them the virtues, most frequently fictitious, 
 which the ancients attributed to the plant pointed out by 
 them. But if these virtues had been real, as the plant of the 
 moderns, though bearing the same name, is frequently a very 
 different plant, it could not participate in any respect with 
 the miracles proclaimed. 
 
 Among the virtues attributed to plants, we must not forget 
 that of destroying enchantments, and overpowering the efforts 
 and conjurations of sorcerers. 
 
 The service-tree, that fine tree whose umbels of white 
 blossoms are succeeded by bunches of fruit, first green, then 
 yellow, then orange, and then bright scarlet, still enjoys in 
 Scotland a great reputation of this kind. Every year, 
 shepherds make their sheep pass, one by one, through a ring 
 made of the branches of the service-tree. God in the 
 beginning, when creating the service-tree, never designed it to 
 be subservient to such impious follies ; He only meant to 
 make a very beautiful tree, covered with very beautiful fruit, 
 which should present in the winter to those other charming 
 objects of His creating, the blackbirds and the thrushes, a 
 sumptuous and an abundant feast.
 
 288 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 Among the bulb-gods I forgot to mention a little god of 
 this kind, which, is at this moment almost under my feet, 
 which Homer calls moly, and the moderns yellow garlic, 
 allium aureum. Many persons keep it in their gardens, 
 solely for the pleasure of seeing the yellow stars with which 
 it is covered, and are blessed with all the joys of earth, and 
 preserved from all mischances, without feeling the least grati- 
 tude towards the garlic, which is, notwithstanding, the only 
 cause of this happy state; preferring, without doubt, to 
 attribute their success in everything to their merit, their 
 wisdom, and their prudence; looking upon the garlic as a 
 mere "bouquet." 
 
 But the yellow garlic is more than it appears to be ; the 
 yellow garlic has the power of keeping us safe from enchant- 
 ments, spells, evil presages. A crow may fly by you on your 
 left hand, but you need not entertain any fear if you have 
 only the yellow garlic in your garden. You meet with a 
 spider in the morning don't be afraid of it; you spill the 
 salt the mischance will not fall to you; a hare crosses your 
 path in the morning be not on that account apprehensive of 
 the crosses of the world ; the yellow garlic is cherished byyou 
 in your garden, and watches over you; the yellow garlic, 
 which affects to bloom simply like any other flower, and has 
 the air of caring about nothing, which yields but a sufficiently 
 disagreeable smell the yellow garlic will not allow any of 
 these evil omens to affect you. You happen to be thirteen at 
 table, you know that one of the guests of course will die 
 within the year. Let others be made uneasy by this ominous 
 circumstance, others who have not the yellow garlic in their 
 gardens. But this is Friday ! To be thirteen at table is a 
 particularly unfortunate affair, when there happens to be 
 barely dinner enough for twelve. Yes, but this is Friday! 
 and Friday is an unlucky day. What is that to you? there 
 is no unlucky day, I tell you, for the fortunate possessor of 
 the yellow garlic. 
 
 Pliny as well as Homer was acquainted with the qualities 
 of the yellow garlic. 
 
 Pliny says that it is one of the most valuable plants to 
 man. Homer relates that it was to the virtues of the yellow 
 garlic that Ulysses owed his fortunate escape from being
 
 MOLY. 
 
 289 
 
 turned into a pig "by Circe, as well as his companions, whom 
 he delivered from this disagreeable transformation. 
 
 . And yet, after all this, perhaps the learned are deceived, 
 when they tell us that the yellow garlic is precisely that 
 which Homer and Pliny call moly. Whichever way it may 
 be, I feel quite disposed to recognise equal and the same 
 virtues in both plants. 
 
 r P
 
 LETTER L. 
 
 VIRTUES OP PLANTS. 
 
 THERE exists a work in sufficiently bad Latin, written in 
 old times by a doctor named Johannes de Mediolano, of the 
 Academy of Salerno, and attributed to the entire school of 
 
 Salerno 
 
 ; Anglorum regi scribit tola schola Salerni." 
 
 This book, which contains all sorts of medical precepts and 
 rules for preserving health, and of which some are exceed- 
 ingly whimsical, frequently recurs to my memory, in the 
 course of the journey I am making round my garden, on 
 account of the singular virtues attributed to certain plants by 
 the said school of Salerno.
 
 THE KUE AND THE SAGE. 291 
 
 Hue, for example, of which I have already spoken to you, 
 is a plant which merits all sorts of consideration, according 
 to the learned doctor. In fact, by an uncommon prodigy, it 
 diminishes the force of love in man, and, on the contrary, 
 increases the flame in women. This plant clears both the 
 sight, and the perceptions of the mind, when eaten raw ; but 
 when cooked, it destroys fleas.* 
 
 This I warn you, and you can make use of rue according 
 to your need : if you fall in love imprudently, and, by a 
 strong effort of your own good sense, or by the advice of 
 sincere friends, you perceive your folly, eat your rue raw : if 
 you are tormented by fleas, boil it. 
 
 Does not this aphorism, put forth in the most serious 
 manner possible, quoted and respected by all old physicians, 
 (I am not acquainted with the sentiments of the medical 
 world of the present day with regard to the school of Sa- 
 lerno,) does not this aphorism appear to have been merely 
 translated in a discourse which a writer of the present day 
 puts into the month of a charlatan ? 
 
 "Buy my specific; 
 Taken aa a liquid it awakens, 
 Taken as a powder it promotes sleep." 
 
 But rue is nothing in comparison with sage. Sage pre- 
 serves the human race,f and the whole school of Salerno, after 
 a long enumeration of the virtues of sage, seriously exclaims : 
 " How can it happen that a man who has sage in his garden, 
 yet ends by dying 1 " 
 
 The learned body replies to itself by saying : " It is a proof 
 of the necessity of death, which nothing can enable us to 
 avoid." 
 
 I have in my garden sages of various sorts : one is remark- 
 able for its curious foliage ; sometimes one of its notched 
 leaves is painted, half rose-colour and green, or rose-colour 
 and white, or green and white. Some leaves are entirely rose- 
 colour, or green, or white. 
 
 Another sage exhibits, at the extremity of its branches, 
 
 * "Cruda comesta . . . . 
 
 Kuta facit castum, dat lumen et ingent astreui, 
 
 Cocta et ruta tacit de pulicibus loca tufci." 
 t " Salvia salvatrix, naturae conciliatrix." 
 t " Cur moriatur homo eui salvia erescitin horto?"
 
 292 A TOUll ROUND MTf GARDEN. 
 
 flowers, and the as yet unopened cups of flowers, of the 
 brightest red (Salvia fulyens) ; others are of a softer red, its 
 blossoms clothed with a purple down (Salvia cardinalis] ; 
 this one (Salvia patens) spreads forth its flowers of so clear 
 and pure a blue, that every silk stuff, having any pretensions 
 to be blue, takes by the side of it a different colour, and 
 inclines to green, yellow, &c. 
 
 I do not know whether, in the eyes of the partisans of the 
 school of Salerno, it is not exhibiting an immoderate love of 
 life, with a great desire to become a centenarian, to have so 
 many sage-plants around me; and yet I can safely affirm 
 that I have only been led to cultivate them by the splendour 
 of their hues. 
 
 Sage and rue, uniting their powers, allow you to drink as 
 much as your inclination prompts you to take, without injury 
 to your brain. * 
 
 Permit me, my friend, whilst we are on the subject, to 
 quote a few more of the precepts of the school of Salerno. 
 
 I do not know what walnuts can have done to the learned 
 doctors, but it is impossible to speak more disadvantageously 
 of a poor fruit than they do. The first walnut is good, they 
 say ; the second is injurious, the third kills, t 
 
 Do you remember the time when we did not take the 
 trouble to cotmt them, when we laid siege with stones to the 
 great walnut-tree which partly shaded the courtyard of the 
 old house where we were educated ? How the projectiles 
 hissed as they cut the leaves, and brought down the fruit in 
 showers ! How we picked them up, and how we ate the con- 
 quered ! 
 
 Perhaps the danger of eating walnuts is in an inverse 
 sense, as it is in certain games, when arrived at a certain 
 number of points, you win; but if you exceed that number, 
 you lose. The third nut, doubtless, only kills when you don't 
 eat a fourth; or perhaps this dangerous virtue ceases to 
 exist when the walnuts are stolen ! 
 
 And do you remember all those games in which walnuts 
 so advantageously took the place of marbles, encouraged as 
 we were in these diversions by the example of the most 
 
 * " Salvia cum ruta facinnt tit>i pocula tuta." 
 
 t " Unica nux prodest nocet altera, tertia triers est."
 
 WALNUTS. 
 
 293 
 
 famous Komans, the heroes of our themes, who had, like us, 
 played with walnuts in their childhood 1 
 
 One of the recommendations upon which the learned doc- 
 tors of whom we were speaking laid great stress, is " Never 
 eat goose on the first of May : " 
 
 " Prima dies Mali . . . 
 
 Non carnibus anseris uti ! " 
 
 But here is an aphorism full of sense and wit. " Wash 
 your hands often," says the learned doctor Johannes, " wash 
 your hands often, if you wish to live in good health. Wash 
 your hands after meals ; it clears the sight." And then adds, 
 very seriously : " To wash the hands, not only promotes 
 health and clears the sight, but it also, incontestably, cleans 
 them."
 
 LETTER LI. 
 
 THE INCOGNITO. 
 
 THE master of the tulips placed his finger on his lips, as 
 Harpocrates, the God of Silence, might have done, and then 
 said : " Look ! what magnificent hues ! what a form ! what 
 onglets ! what a carriage ! what purity in the pencilling ! 
 what clearness in the streaks ! how it is cut ! how it is 
 proportioned ! " 
 
 " It is really a faultless tulip ! " 
 
 " What do you call it?" 
 
 " Hush ! It is a tulip which in itself alone is worth all the 
 rest of my collection. There are but two of them in the 
 world, gentlemen." 
 
 " But its name?" 
 
 " Hush ! Its name ! I dare not pronounce it without 
 forfeiting my word of honour. I should be most proud and
 
 THE INCOGNITO. 295 
 
 very happy to tell its name, to proclaim it aloud, to write 
 it in letters of gold over its magnificent corolla. It is a name 
 well known and respected." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Sir; I press no further. There may 
 be something political in the matter : perhaps it is the name 
 of some famous exile. I by no means wish to compromise 
 you. Besides, on such subjects, we may not be of the same 
 opinion." 
 
 " Oh ! nothing of the kind, Sir ; the name has no con- 
 nexion with politics : but I have sworn upon my honour not 
 to let it be seen under its proper name. It is here incognito 
 under the most severe incognito. Perhaps, even already I 
 have said too much. But with everybody' with people for 
 whom I have not the esteem which you inspire me with 1 
 do not go so far; I do not even confess that that tulip is the 
 queen of tulips. I pass before it with indifference an affected 
 indifference you understand: I designate it under the name 
 of Rebecca. But, mind, that is not its real name." 
 
 The amateurs left the garden, and I with them; but on 
 the morrow I returned, and said to him : " But now, really, 
 is this a terrible mystery ?" 
 
 " You shall judge. This tulip, which we will continue to 
 call the Rebecca, was in the possession of a man who had paid 
 very dearly for it ; particularly as, knowing there was another 
 of the kind in Holland, he had gone thither to purchase it, 
 and had crushed it beneath his feet, in order to render his 
 own unique. Every year it excited the envy of the numerous 
 amateurs who flock to see his collection; every year he took 
 care to destroy the offsets which formed around the bulb, and 
 which might have produced more of the sort. For my part, 
 Sir, I dare not tell you how much I offered him for one of 
 these offsets, which he every year pounded in a mortar. I 
 would have injured my property to obtain it compromised 
 the prospects of my children ! 
 
 " I began to lose all interest in my collection : my most 
 beautiful tulips could not console me for not possessing that 
 one that one which I dare not name. In vain my friend 
 ought I to call a man so who allowed me to perish without 
 pity ] in vain my friend said to me, ' Come and see it as 
 often as you please.' I went I sat down before it for hours
 
 296 A T'JUE ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 together ; but he took care never to leave me alone with it : 
 he dreaded the force of my passion. I dare say I should have 
 stolen it; or else I might have watered it with a deleterious 
 liquid, in order to destroy it: then, at least, it would not 
 have existed, and I should have felt no remorse. When Gyges 
 slew Candaules, in order to obtain his wife, everybody blamed 
 Candaules, who had insisted upon Gyges seeing her as she 
 came out of the bath. They should not have shown me the 
 tulip. I arrived at such a state of despair, that one year I 
 planted no tulips my dear tulips. My gardener took pity 
 upon them, and perhaps upon me; and the clown but I 
 must pardon him, because he saved them. he planted them 
 about in the garden, in vulgar earth !" 
 
 " Well, but at length, how did you obtain this tulip?" 
 
 " I will tell you. I have not quite imitated Gyges, although 
 my friend had not proved himself to be more delicate than 
 wandaules; but, nevertheless, that which I did, 1 fear may 
 be called a crime. I contrived to have an offset stolen. 
 Caudaules has a nephew. This nephew who has great expec- 
 tations from his uncle, who is very rich, assists him in plant- 
 ing and taking up his tulip roots, and affects an admiration 
 for these flowers which, poor creature ! he does not really feel, 
 but without which his uncle would not even endure his 
 presence. The uncle is rich, but he is of opinion that it is 
 not safe for young people to have too much money in their 
 pockets. The nephew had contracted a debt which tormented 
 him very much. His creditor threatened to make application 
 to his uncle. He applied to me, and implored me to extricate 
 him from his embarrassment. I was cruel, Sir : flatly refused 
 him. I even took a delight in exaggerating the anger of his 
 uncle if he became acquainted with the disgraceful affair. I 
 threw him into a state of perfect despair, and then said to 
 him : 'Nevertheless, if you are willing, I will give the money 
 you want.' 
 
 " ' Oh ! cried he, you save my life.' 
 
 " ' Yes, but on one condition.' 
 
 " ' A thousand, if you require them !' 
 
 " ' No ; one will do. You will give me an offset of the 
 
 tulip in question.' 
 
 " He drew back in horror from the preposition. ' My uncle.
 
 THE INCOGNITO. 297 
 
 cried he, 'would turn me out of doors and disinherit 
 me!' 
 
 " ' Yes, but he shall know nothing about it whilst there is 
 no doubt he will soon hear of the debts you have incurred.' 
 
 " ' But, if he ever should know it !' 
 
 " ' He never shall, unless you tell him yourself.' 
 
 " ' But you.' 
 
 " In short, I pressed, I terrified the unhappy young man ; 
 he promised to give me an offset when they took up the tulip 
 roots, but he required my oath on my honour never to 
 name, that which I call Rebecca, to anybody and to give it 
 another name till the death of his uncle. 
 
 " In exchange for this promise, I gave him the money he 
 wanted. 
 
 " Well, we both kept our words ; I had the tulip, and 1 have 
 never named it before any one ; the first time it blossomed 
 here in my garden being mine the uncle came to see my 
 tulips. That is a courtesy which amateurs exchange, as you 
 know j he looked at it and turned pale. ' What do you call 
 this ? ' said he, in a faltering voice. 
 
 " Ah ! Sir, I could willingly have paid him back all he had 
 
 made me suffer ! I could have told him the name you 
 
 don't know. But I remembered my promise, my promise on 
 my honour, and the nephew was present, and awaited my 
 answer in an agony, and I replied, ' Rebecca ! ' 
 
 " He, nevertheless, could but observe the resemblance to his 
 tulip ; he was evidently struck, but said nothing ; he 
 praised the rest of my collection, but said not a word in 
 praise of this, the pearl and the diamond of it. He came 
 again the next day the following day in short, every day 
 whilst it was in blossom, but he succeeded in deceiving 
 himself; he fancied he saw between Rebecca and the other 
 some imaginary differences ; but he only said, ' It in some 
 degree resembles you know what.' 
 
 " Well, Sir, I have now the tulip I have so much desired, 
 and yet I am not happy. What use is it to me, since I 
 cannot tell anybody? Some deep amateurs nearly recognise 
 it, but I am forced to deny the fact, and I don't meet with 
 one who is so sure as to say to me, You are a liar. I every day 
 undergo frightful torments , I am obliged to hear the praises 
 Q Q
 
 298 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 of a tulip which I have as well as he. When I am alone, 1 
 regale myself -with it ; I call it by its true name, to -which I 
 add the most tender and magnificent epithets. The other day 
 I enjoyed a little pleasure ; I pronounced this name this 
 mysterious name aloud to a man ; but I did not, in this, 
 break my word : this man is deaf, and could not hear a 
 cannon. 
 
 "Well, that comforted me a little, but very imperfectly. 
 Nobody knows that I have it it look have pity on me, 
 my oath oppresses me swear to me upon your honour, on 
 your part, never to reveal what I am going to say to you ; I 
 will then tell you its real name the true name of Rebecca, 
 of that queen disguised as a grisette. The oath will not be 
 difficult for you to keep ; you will have no struggle like mine, 
 Monsieur, it is frightful! .1 almost wish that this Candaulea 
 were dead that I might say aloud that I have now do take 
 the oath I ask you to take." I took pity on him, and solemnly 
 promised never to repeat the name of the famous tulip. 
 Then, with an inexpressible feeling of pride, he touched the 
 plant with his wand, and said, " This is ." 
 
 But, on my part, I am bound by an oath ; I must not 
 repeat the name he was so happy to pronounce.
 
 LETTER LII. 
 
 EACH PLANT HAS ITS OWN TYPE, BUT MEN TRY TO FOKM THEMSELVES 
 ON ONE SINGLE TYPE. 
 
 IF I sometimes appear to prefer trees and plants to men, I 
 will not tell you, as my sole reason, that I owe ever-reviving 
 pleasures to trees and flowers, and that men, with very few 
 exceptions, have always been to me obstacles or enemies; for 
 you know the human heart too well to be satisfied with this 
 reason, and no one could pretend with a worse grace than I, 
 particularly to you, that our affections and antipathies are in 
 direct ratio with the good or evil we have received from the 
 persons or objects which have given birth to them. I, who 
 have given up all my life to one who has done me so much 
 injury; you, who are so fond of melons, which never fail to 
 repay your love for them with horrible cramps iu the 
 stomach. 
 
 I principally like trees and flowers, because both exhibit 
 themselves to me as they really are, whether near or at a 
 distance, winter or summer. i perceive at a distance a tree 
 covered with blossoms of flat white, and I know that it 
 is a cherry-tree ; I know that its rich tufts will bloom under
 
 300 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 mild rains and blasts of wind even, after which it will be 
 decked in beautifully shining leaves, among which will grow 
 fruit, first green, then red, which the birds will dispute with 
 me; then the leaves will become ruddy, and fall. 
 
 If the tree have rose-coloured flowers, I know that it will 
 give me velvety peaches in the month of September ; I know 
 likewise that the leaves are bitter. 
 
 But here is a plant which climbs up a trellis;* in summer, 
 it bears little star-shaped flowers of a violet colour, to which 
 succeed girandoles of fruit, which are at first of the colour oi 
 the emeralds, and afterwards of that of coral ; I know that I 
 have nothing to look for from it beyond the pleasure afforded 
 to the eyes, for the berries are poisonous. 
 
 If I plant the bulb of a hyacinth, I know what colour and 
 what perfume I am to expect ; in the same way, if I sow seeds, 
 they will give me the colours and the odours they promise me. 
 
 But with men it is very different. 
 
 "We find in books two or three types of characters, in which 
 romancers have delighted to assemble all perfections even the 
 most contradictory and the most exclusive of one another. 
 
 If we could rely upon the first view of this, we should 
 only meet in life with people formed upon these two or three 
 types ; all men are, without exception, modest, disinterested, 
 brave, generous, devoted, sensible, &c. 
 
 It is a comedy with very little variety, in which every one 
 wishes to play under the same mask. All these virtues are 
 blossoms wait for the fruits ! the fruits ! 
 
 It is just as if all the trees and plants in the spring time 
 decked themselves with the rose-coloured blossoms of the 
 peach-tree, and afterwards, in autumn, bore 'the mortal cap- 
 sules of the thorn-apple, the fox-glove, or the henbane. 
 
 Not that I wish any ill to these plants ; on the contrary, I 
 love them on account of their beauty ; and besides, does not 
 medicine extract even from their poison medicaments of great 
 power and use 1 
 
 I should not complain of them unless, after having 
 promised by the blossoms of the peach and the cherry to 
 yield me delicious fruits, they gave me afterwards their 
 berries and their capsules, and invited me to eat them. 
 
 * Solanum Dulcamara. The bittersweet or woody nightshade.
 
 TYPES OF CHARACTER. 301 
 
 Look into the world; all are chalked out upon the same 
 model, or nearly so. 
 
 There are two or three types for a hundred thousand girls, 
 all different one from the other; they have all the same 
 inclinations and the same forms; there is but one type for 
 young people from eighteen to twenty years of age; they 
 have all the same tastes, the same pretensions, and the same 
 mode of arranging their hair ; all the mothers afford but one 
 single and the same representation; she is the vigilant hen 
 who only lives for her chickens. 
 
 There is something even worse than not having certain 
 qualities, and that is to feign them ; certainly, if I had only 
 room for one tree in my garden, and I were obliged to choose 
 between the peach-tree and the thorn-apple, I should deter 
 mine in favour of the peach; but where is the garden in 
 which there is only room for two trees, or the heart in which 
 there is only room for two affections ? And then there are so 
 many gardens, and so many different hearts. 
 
 Give me the smallest portion of a plant, half of a leaf, a 
 torn petal, the fragment of a branch, a seed even, and I know 
 at once what I am to expect; that plant promises me such a 
 form, such a colour, such a perfume ; if I love its perfume, 
 its colour, its form, it will give them to me in the promised 
 season; if not, I can ask that which I love of another; this 
 one will not be long in meeting with some one who seeks it, 
 and who loves that which it has to give. Now, here is a 
 drawing-room filled with young girls ; let us examine them 
 for a minute. 
 
 This one is a fair girl ; her head is covered with small 
 tresses which escape from the comb and curl of themselves; 
 her dark blue eyes are piercing ; her nose is aquiline ; her 
 mouth is terminated at the two corners by a strongly-marked 
 line, the upper lip is thin and close, the under lip is short 
 but thick; both are as red as cherries; she has a firm, 
 decided, bold character, she loves risks and dangers. 
 
 But being fair she must always be dressed in white; her 
 eyes are constantly cast down, and she will utter piercing 
 cries at the sight of a spider ; she is passionately fond of the 
 country and solitude, and declares she could live for ever 
 upon milk and fruit.
 
 302 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 Now, here is another whose profile is straight and soft aa 
 that of a Greek statue; her figure is slender, tall, almost 
 thin ; her hair is brown ; her eyes, of a luminous hazel, shed 
 nothing but timid and furtive glances from beneath their 
 long beautifully-pencilled lashes ; she is mild and gentle ; she 
 really loves repose the shade of willows by the side of a 
 murmuring stream ; she is really capable of profound, eternal, 
 timid and concealed love. 
 
 It is a great chance, however, as she happens to be a bru- 
 nette, if she has not been taught that she must be lively, 
 sparkling, and joyous ; but the least that can happen if both 
 be not compelled to play a part which nature never intended 
 them for the least that can happen is, that both will be 
 alike : the first will assume a mark that resembles the second, 
 the second will exaggerate her manners and bearing in imita- 
 tion of the first. 
 
 Both are charming as God placed them on the earth ; both 
 are disguised and have become a falsehood. 
 
 Take twenty young men and set them talking; all have 
 the same tastes, all carry their canes in the same manner, all 
 speak lightly of love and women, all profess to seek rather 
 than avoid quarrels and duels, and to love fiery horses, strong 
 liquors, and potent tobacco. 
 
 It will not be before an acquaintance of some duration, 
 that you will discover that one of these young men is a 
 youth of soft sensibility, who was two years before he could 
 summon resolution to sup into the hand of the girl he loves 
 some verses, in which he softened down and diluted as much 
 as possible the sentiments which fill his heart. 
 
 That other loves quiet and meditation, and can pour out 
 his full heart in beautiful verses and delicious melodies. 
 
 Again, a third really dreams of nothing but peace and 
 universal fraternity ; he, naturally, would preach and practise 
 concord. 
 
 Are you not satisfied that each of these, separately, is pre- 
 ferable to the common type upon which all aim to model 
 themselves ? 
 
 My creed is not very bitter as regards the wicked ; I do 
 not require them to be exterminated, any more than I would 
 pull up my beautiful foxglove, or my splendid thorn-apple ;
 
 TYPES OP CHARACTER. 303 
 
 only I must insist upon their not pretending to be cherry 
 trees, and that they will not disguise themselves as goose- 
 berry-bushes. 
 
 If the potato were to disguise itself, we might attempt to 
 eat its fruit, or to bite its raw roots, but we should soon 
 throw it away in disgust. 
 
 Every one has a right to be what he is; every one is best 
 so; every one bears within himself affinities looked for in 
 life by analogous affinities; facets prepared for other cor- 
 responding facets, projected, which fall into corresponding 
 hollows. I would willingly love all real personages, I cannot 
 love a mask. 
 
 It is the same with animals and insects. The spider pre- 
 tends no passion for roses; the grub has no particular par- 
 tiality for flies. 
 
 Everything in nature is frankly that which it is; man 
 alone, from vanity, arrives by a singularly circuitous route at 
 the most astonishing degree of humility. 
 
 Every one, if he examines himself thoroughly, believes 
 himself to be superior to all others, and does his best to 
 cause this opinion which he entertains of himself to be ac- 
 cepted by the greatest number possible. 
 
 He never dreams of what he is seeking to acquire ; simply, 
 an incontestable right to the hatred of all he may persuade 
 to agree with him, and the ridicule of those whom he does 
 not persuade. 
 
 Every one believes himself superior to others, and yet no 
 one appears as he really is. How is this contradiction to be 
 explained 1 
 
 That woman believes herself to be the most charming of 
 women; she speaks of others with the utmost disdain, and 
 yet she never moves a step without being completely dis- 
 guised, without displaying a figure differing widely from her 
 own, without studying a carriage which is not natural to her. 
 
 Of what then is she so proud? Of her beauty 1 She cannot 
 have faith in that, because she takes such pains to alter it. 
 What vanity and what humility ! 
 
 Ask that man, into the skin of which of his contemporaries 
 he would most wish to enter; but I mean his real skin, not 
 in a skin of riches, dignities, <fec. ; ask him if he should like
 
 304 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 to be Mr Any-one, with not only his fortune, his rank, or 
 his reputation ; but if he should like to change minds, noses, 
 teeth, and names with him. If he tell you the truth, there 
 will always be something which he will wish to reserve, 
 something in which he feels himself superior to all others : 
 lead him to talk a little more, and he will not fail to let you 
 perceive that the things in which he acknowledges himself 
 inferior, are things about which he cares very little ; that real 
 qualities and perfections, such as are worth the trouble of wish- 
 ing for, such as truly deserve admiration, are precisely those 
 by which he believes he bears it away. 
 
 I would tell you to put this question to yourself; but 
 although there is some chance of making another person 
 speak truth if you happen to be more cunning or more 
 skilful than he, I fear there is very little chance of making a 
 man speak truth to himself. 
 
 Well ; this man so happy, so proud of being precisely him- 
 self, he never exhibits himself such as he really is, either 
 morally or physically : he will boast of talents which he does 
 not possess, and conceal qualities he, perhaps, might justly 
 claim merit for. Take him upon all points, and, with a little 
 address, you will make him, by fractions, disown himself three 
 times over. 
 
 I again ask, how is it possible to be at the same time so 
 proud and so humble, and of the self-same things ? 
 
 What vanity and what humility ! 
 
 " Every man possesses three characters : that which he 
 exhibits, that which he really has, and that which he believes 
 he has." 
 
 The Silkworm Moth.
 
 LETTER LIU. 
 
 MAN THE MONARCH OP CREATION THE VIOLET AND ITS PROPRIETORS. 
 
 MAN pretends to be the king ot all nature. When I look at 
 things closely, this monarch, so vain of his power, appears to 
 me to have a singular resemblance to certain bishops, styled 
 in partibus infidelium that is to say, whose bishoprics, in the 
 power of infidels, are so situated, that if chance should offer 
 them an opportunity of appearing in them, they could not 
 avoid being broiled, hung, quartered, or impaled. 
 
 I do not here speak of animals, who, if man ventures too 
 near to their den, eagerly avail themselves of the opportunity 
 of regaling upon a monarch raw, or in his own gravy. 
 
 I mean the ianocent pretenders, who share with man the 
 R R
 
 306 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 empire of the things of the earth, and, generally, leave him 
 nothing but their refuse. 
 
 Here we are, by chance, returned to my violet-filled turf. 
 You, my good friend, king of nature as of all the world, you 
 think that the violet was only made to recreate your eyes by 
 its green foliage, and its amethyst-coloured flowers but to 
 intoxicate your brain with its perfume. Permit me to unde- 
 ceive you. The violet serves as an asylum and as food to 
 insects without number; they are not so large as you, it is 
 true, but if you pride yourself upon this advantage, you 
 must give way to the ox and the elephant, and also to your 
 gardener, or your butcher, who are bigger and stronger than 
 you. 
 
 I do not intend to fatigue you with a long nomenclature 
 of the insects that haunt the violet, for which it is a shelter, 
 a retreat, and a sumptuous well-furnished table. 
 
 Here, gnawing away with all his heart at the leaves of the 
 flower of lo, is a grey caterpillar, with white and reddish 
 thorns; it will become a butterfly, of which the upper side 
 of the superior wings is of a marigold yellow, and the under 
 part of the inferior wings is ornamented with fourteen silver 
 spots. I do not know its name.* 
 
 Here is another caterpillar; in general, caterpillars, out of 
 contempt I suppose, are not honoured with names; the but- 
 terfly, into which this will be metamorphosed, is called 
 Euphrosyne:^ the upper side of its wings will be fawn- 
 coloured, the under part of the inferior wings will be spotted 
 with silver, like those of the other, but it will only have nine 
 of these brilliant spots. The caterpillar is black, with two 
 rows of yellow spots. 
 
 This other brown caterpillar, with yellowish spots, will 
 become a butterfly, called Spanish snuff; its name indicates 
 its colour ; it will become a denizen of the air in the month 
 of July. 
 
 The Aglae| will take flight about the middle of June; at 
 present it is still a black caterpillar with white bands; as a 
 butterfly, it will be fawn-coloured ana yellow. 
 
 And this olive-tinted caterpillar, with a white band bor- 
 
 * Argynnis Niobe? ED. t Melitcea Euphrosyne. ED. 
 
 I Argynnis Aglaia. ED.
 
 THE VIOLET AND ITS PROPRIETORS. 
 
 30? 
 
 dered with black points, will become a fawn-coloured moth, 
 spotted with black, with a few silver eyes, and is called 
 Adippe.* 
 
 These are the guests, the inhabitants, and the master of 
 the violet. 
 
 In vain the Athenians consecrated it to themselves, and 
 engraved it on tablets everywhere in the city of Athens 
 with it : in vain, according to Aristophanes, the orators 
 flattered the people, by calling them Athenians crowned with 
 violets an epithet which I can only compare to one which 
 Homer so frequently bestows upon the Greeks, calling them 
 at least twenty times in the course of the Iliad, 'Ewv^u.iS 
 ' \Xaioi, the well-greaved Greeks : in vain, in some cities of 
 Germany, this flower is stiM consecrated to the coffins of 
 virgins; the insects we have just seen are the masters of 
 the violet before men, and only leave them as much of it as 
 they do not want. 
 
 Argynnis Adippe. ED.
 
 LETTER LIV. 
 
 FLOWERS AND THEIR PROPRIETORS. 
 
 AND the honeysuckle ! 
 
 The honeysuckle, whose odours I have so often breathed 
 the honeysuckle, which intoxicates me which every year brings 
 back so many sweet and melancholy thoughts that, wherever 
 I chance to meet with it, the honeysuckle appears to me to be 
 my own particular flower. Well, it really belongs to the Sphinx 
 fuciformis, a moth, whose body is green, with wings trans- 
 parent in the centre, and of a brown colour round the edges ; 
 the caterpillar is green with a brownish red horn. 
 
 It belongs to the moth sibilla, previoiisly a green cater- 
 pillar, with its head and bristles inclined to red ; afterwards 
 a brown, white and dull-blue-coloured butterfly. 
 
 It belongs to the blue sylvan, which is of a black-blue with 
 a white band ; and to I don't know how many flies, and to a 
 particular species of aphis, &c. &c. 
 
 Do you fancy that the alder, yonder beautiful tree growing 
 on the verge of the rivulet, was only made to cover you with 
 its shade during the sultry hours of the day ? 
 
 Fluminibus . . . alni 
 Nascuntur. 
 
 Do you really suppose it has nothing else to do than to pro- 
 vide laddei'S, wooden shoes, and stakes for you ? No, no ; the
 
 THE ALDEE, THE CRESS, THE SCABIOUS. 309 
 
 alder nourishes numerous insects, and among the rest, the one 
 called the alder moth, why, the whole of the alder belongs to 
 it ! This moth, whose wings are yellow sprinkled with brown, 
 has previously been a very singular caterpillar : its shape, its 
 colour, everything, resembles a little portion of an alder- 
 branch of the preceding year, already dried and withered. 
 
 Do you imagine that cresses have no other destination but 
 to surround the roast-fowls on your table 1 No ; in cresses, 
 a green caterpillar, ornamented with three white lines, con- 
 ceals, feeds, and is metamorphosed into a charming moth with 
 wings, each enriched with two orange spots. 
 
 Close to our feet is a scabious, that dark flower which 
 we have already met with and spoken of, do you think 
 it lias no moth peculiar to itself? The maturne, at first 
 a black caterpillar with three yellow lines ; then a brown, 
 yellow, and black moth : the artemisia, a black caterpillar 
 with white points ; then a bi'own, yellow and red moth : and 
 the Sphinx bombiciformis, whose body is painted with a black 
 and a purple band. 
 
 The epilobe, which grows close to the water, at the foot 
 of the alder does not it nourish the brown caterpillar, (orna- 
 mented with two spots of violet-tinted white, and six grey 
 stripes, with a white-pointed black horn,) which is transformed 
 into the vine sphinx, that charming green and rose-coloured 
 moth? 
 
 The colchicum, in the autumn, enamels the meadows with 
 its little lilac-coloured lilies. The flowers spring from the 
 earth, without being accompanied by leaves ; without being 
 supported by stalks : the ovary remains in the earth ; the 
 stamens shed their pollen upon it ; the flower disappears 
 beneath the snow and it is not till the following spring, that 
 a tuft of large broad leaves, of a beautiful green, is seen 
 issuing from the earth, amidst which appear the seeds which 
 have ripened underground. The leaves die and disappear 
 a long time before the new flowers appear. All parts of the 
 colchicum are injurious; but the bulb is deadly poison. Its 
 flavour, at first insipid, becomes hot and sharp; soon after it 
 has been eaten, violent vomitings and cold sweats ensue, 
 followed by death in a few hours. 
 
 Man, when sometimes checked in his singular ideas relative
 
 310 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN 
 
 to the royalty over nature which he attributes to himself, 
 asks himself what is the use of certain plants which he cannot 
 eat, or of certain animals which eat him ; and in his hypocri- 
 tical submission to the decrees of Providence, imagines that 
 these animals, or these plants, contain for him some concealed 
 utility, which he seeks with pertinacity, and hopes some day 
 to discover. 
 
 He would avoid racking his brain on the s abject, if he 
 would but renounce the foolish pride which makes him believe 
 that he is the centre and the aim of all that exists. The 
 bulbs of the colchicum, which are mortal to man and cattle, 
 are eagerly sought for by moles, those subterranean travellers, 
 who consider them as the best and most wholesome food for 
 their young. 
 
 Here is, however for the truth must be told in a journey 
 like mine, here is a plant that no insect, no animal attacks ; 
 it is the paquerette, or Easter daisy,* that ornament of the 
 fields, with golden disc and rays of silver, spread in such pro- 
 fusion at our feet ; nothing is so humble, nothing is so much 
 respected. 
 
 There are other daisies, calm autumn flowers, called China 
 asters. Around their yellow disc they exhibit rays of all 
 the shades of rose and violet, sometimes white, or white 
 and violet, or white and rose-coloured; it is a rich but melan- 
 choly flower. It is, beyond contradiction, the most beautiful 
 of the asters; a family which, with the chrysanthemums, 
 completes the rich coronet of the year. 
 
 The aster came to us from China about a hundred years ago. 
 
 The Mole. Talpavulgaris. 
 Chrysanthemum kucantliemum. The moon-daisy.
 
 LETTER LY. 
 
 THE GROVXDSEL LAUREL LIBERTY, FRATERNITY. AND EQUALITY. 
 
 IT is evident that groundsel was created for the birds of 
 the fields : as man has determined, as I told you yesterday, to 
 refer everything to himself; he has imagined the following 
 use for groundsel : You have the tooth-ache ; groundsel 
 was made expressly to cure your tooth-ache. Pull up a root 
 of groundsel, cut through the root with a razor or a very sharp 
 knife, replant the groundsel, and preserve only the portion 
 you have cut off, and which you must apply three or four 
 times to your ailing tooth; it is very probable you will 
 be cured, says Pliny; but that depends upon a condition; 
 the groundsel that you have replanted after having mutilated 
 its root, must continue to vegetate and to do well ; if it should 
 die, your tooth will give you more pain than ever. 
 
 Let us stop a little ; here is the laurel of the poets,* the 
 laurel of triumphant conquerors ! but, alas ! also the laurel of 
 hams ! But there is another more humble laurel, which 
 serves likewise to crown victors, and which has escaped the 
 disgrace of being employed in sauces, and in decorating the 
 smoked members of an impure animal; it is the Alexandrine 
 
 * Lauras nobilis. The bay-tree. ED.
 
 312 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 laurel,*whichonly grows in the shade of other trees, and the 
 representation of which we meet with upon ancient medals 
 and monuments. 
 
 The laurel, as it is said, was formerly a safeguard against 
 thunder : in this respect, it appears to me to have been ad- 
 vantageously displaced by the lightning conductor; it has 
 never been a safeguard against envy or hatred, which, on the 
 contrary, it seems to attract with an invincible power: the 
 true crown of genius has always been a crown of thorns, but 
 of that beautiful perfumed thorn which blooms in the spring, 
 and which conceals its ensanguined spikes beneath its festoons 
 of white flowers. 
 
 Another reputation enjoyed by the laurel was, that of pro- 
 curing agreeable dreams, by the placing of some of its leaves 
 under the pillow; a saying which I mean to put to the test 
 one of these nights. 
 
 Now-a-days, all greatness and power are overthrown, under 
 the pretext of equality. Equality is an absurdity; but if 
 possible it would be desirable that it should be sought for, 
 rather by elevating the low than by abasing the great, as is 
 the fashion ; by raising the strawberries and hazels to the 
 height of oaks, instead of cutting down the oaks to a level 
 with the strawberries and the hazels ; but man is not so 
 much the enemy of slavery as he pretends to be. 
 
 Kings and men of genius are cast into the mire ; but we 
 worship singers and dancers; not only those that are beau 
 tiful, which is after all a great superiority, a great power and 
 a legitimate royalty, natural and incontestable ; but also the 
 most meagre, the most ugly, the most yellow among them ; 
 and simply because they are singers and dancers. Formerly 
 they were paid with money and diamonds; now we heap 
 flowers upon them, and drag their carriages through the 
 streets. 
 
 Everything is for them, even consideration. I should now- 
 a-days be laughed at, if I said that which is incontestable, 
 that the poorest and humblest wife of an artisan or mechanic 
 is a thousand times above the richest, the most beautiful, and 
 the most skilful of these women ; lower than whom I can 
 discover none but the imbeciles who worship them and crown 
 tiiem with flowers and love. 
 
 1 Ruscus androgynus.
 
 LIBERTY, FRATERNITY, AND EQUALITY. 
 
 313 
 
 I am this day forty years old: I have seen two political 
 revolutions; and I shall see at least another. After I have 
 seen the third it is probable I shall say exactly as I said after 
 the other two : " Abuses are not attacked for the purpose of 
 removing them, but of conquering them. The more fre- 
 quently things change, the mere they continue to be the 
 same things." 
 
 s s
 
 LETTER LVI. 
 
 DREAMLAND. 
 
 AH! my friend; I am just returned from such a beautiful 
 country ! Now, will it be possible for me to remember all 
 the wonders I have there seen? 
 
 In the fh-st place, the trees bore fruits which exhaled un- 
 known perfumes ; some had blossoms of fire, and in these 
 flowers were bees of gold, whose humming was an enchanting 
 music. 
 
 Scarcely had I entered these happy regions when I felt 
 the influence of the climate: I became lively and light; I no 
 longer walked ; I flew, and perched upon the very tops of 
 the trees. 
 
 In this land I found all that I had lost by death or forgetful- 
 ness ; I found them all living, all happy, and all loving me with 
 a delightful tenderness ; they were all young and handsome. 
 There I beheld all the things I had dreamt of, or desired,
 
 DREAMLAND. 310 
 
 \nd which I had rejected from my thoughts and my heart afi 
 the follies and visions of a diseased brain ; I saw them 
 realized, and considered ordinary and common ; no one was 
 astonished at them, and I not more than others. At my 
 call, lions and tigers came and rubbed themselves against me, 
 and offered to bear me on their backs; but what need had 
 I of their assistance, I who could fly like an eagle myself! 
 
 There I found my Magdeleine, Magdeleine who loved me, 
 and made it clear to me that she had never been unfaithful. 
 Oh, unspeakable happiness! I do not know what she said to 
 me, nor what arguments she made use of; all I know is, that 
 I entirely believed her. 
 
 And M. Muller too ; how he shook my hand ; how delighted 
 he was with our happiness. And my father, my father for 
 whom I had wept so bitterly, he was not dead, he had only 
 gone to wait for me in this blessed country, wherein all I had 
 ever loved were assembled ; he still wore his smiling, cheerful, 
 open countenance, and from his fingers still poured forth 
 floods of harmony. 
 
 It appeared to me that till that time my life had been 
 nothing but a dream and a nightmare ; or that after difficult, 
 proofs and an initiation, the phantoms which had terrified 
 me were all dispersed. 
 
 I was rich, and I lavished upon Magdeleine everything that 
 woman loves, everything that we love so dearly to give her. 
 Upon what magnificent jewellery, upon what beautiful stuffs, 
 upon what carpets, and upon what flowers she walked! What 
 pearls were entwined in the manes of the horses which dragged 
 her carriage! Oh! how beautiful she was! How was she 
 adorned with all these riches, and how was I adorned by her! 
 Precious stones and diamonds surrounded her, and sparkled 
 beneath her feet; but neither diamonds nor precious stones 
 were deemed worthy of glittering upon her. I gave her stars 
 to place in her hair ; Mars, that red star ; and Venus, that 
 blue star which I had so long seen shining in the heavens, 
 were not, as they are called elsewhere, large planets ; no, they 
 were like flowers of fire, which became her delightfully. 
 
 Then, as I examined her more closely, I discovered that 
 she was at the same time all the women I have loved in the 
 course of my life. Then our looks were fixed upon eacb
 
 '616 
 
 A TOUR BOUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 other; the fire that issued from our eyes met and waa 
 mingled ; I became her and she became me ; I felt her blood 
 in my veins ; I then at once became aware of what love really 
 is a flame separated in two which endeavours to unite again. 
 
 Oh, the beautiful country! nobody took any notice of us; 
 nobody envied our happiness ; we thought of nobody. 
 
 And what a beautiful blue the sky was of ! 
 
 This country, my friend, you may visit it as I have done, 
 where you are, just as if you were here this evening, if it be 
 agreeable to you; only give directions that no imbecile indi- 
 vidual should come and awaken you by knocking too early at 
 your door in the morning, as I was served. 
 
 Because if there is a stunning fall, it is that which we make 
 in descending from the smiling regions of dreams into this 
 arid country which we call life. 
 
 If we consider the matter well, however, who knows, if 
 after that which we call death, we shall not learn, that that, 
 which was really a dream was what we called life ; whilst what 
 we took for dreams were excursions which our souls made, 
 whilst our body, that prison of flesh, remained in the country 
 of real life.
 
 LETTER LVII. 
 
 AROMATIC PLANTS SCIENTIFIC NOMENCLATURE. 
 
 HEBE is a thorny tree, with narrow leaves, of a bluish 
 grey, which called kippophde. 
 
 J. J. Rousseau relates that one day, as he was herborising on 
 the banks of the Isere, he ate some of the yellow fruits of this 
 tree. An advocate of Grenoble, who accompanied him. did 
 not dare to take the liberty of warning him that these fruits 
 were supposed to be poisonous. Happily they are not so. 
 
 Almost all trees, almost all plants will have their share of 
 sun; all require air. The fragon,* almost alone, is more 
 modest ; it is only under trees that it grows with vigour into 
 tufted bushes. The fragon, from a distance, has the appear- 
 ance of a myrtle, but each of its leaves is terminated by a 
 sharp point. In the spring its little flowers, green and violet, 
 do not bloom as other shrubs do, at the extremity of a pedun- 
 cle, but upon the leaves themselves. To these flowers suc- 
 ceed little green, round fruits. When winter arrives, the 
 fragon, which has remained green under the bare trees, is 
 covered all over with little red balls, as large as small cherries, 
 nut of a coral red. 
 
 JJusci/s aculeatus. The knee holly or butcher's broom
 
 318 A TOUK BOUND MY GARDEN'. 
 
 The Alexandrine laurel, of which I spoke to you not long 
 since, and which shares with the bay the glory of crowning 
 victors, is a sort of fragon. 
 
 Thyme, like the fragon, takes upon itself to embellish the 
 parts of the earth which other plants disdain. If there is an 
 arid, stony, dry soil, burnt up by the sun, it is there thyme 
 spreads its charming green beds, perfumed, close, thick, elastic, 
 scattered over with little balls of blossom, of a pink colour, 
 and of a delightful freshness. 
 
 Thyme and the fragon have often inspired me with lively 
 sentiments of gratitude ; they are two beautiful presents 
 from heaven. When we admire other plants, we may Ciink 
 that if chance had not placed them where they are, their place 
 would be occupied by others, whilst upon the spot in which 
 the fragon displays its evergreen foliage, and its beads of coral, 
 there would be nothing but the bare earth ; there, where the 
 thyme spreads its green and pink beds, there would be no- 
 thing but clay. 
 
 Balm, thyme, savory, lavender, and rosemary, grow in 
 preference upon the driest lands, and the most burning rocks. 
 Thyme has its moth, called the thyme moth the balm is 
 a great favourite with bees : the Greeks called it honey-leaf. 
 An insect in the shape of a little green tortoise, a cassida, in- 
 habits the blossoms of the balm. 
 
 Whilst we are upon aromatic plants, we must not fail to 
 seek for the mint. But, besides that, there are several species 
 of mint ; we must quit the dry part of the garden, and return 
 to the banks of the rivulet and the pool, where we shall find 
 the mint-balms, of which one is aquatic, both bearing flowers 
 of the grey of the heliotrope, the aquatic in round clusters, 
 the other in spikes. 
 
 But the true mint is peppermint, that whose hot and pun- 
 gent flavour is followed by an agreeable coldness. Otherwise 
 it resembles the preceding, only it has not, as they have, any 
 down upon its leaves. 
 
 There is a history attached to mint. 
 
 It is well known that Pluto, god of the infernal regions, 
 bore off Proserpine. Geres set out in search of her daughter, 
 and complained to Jupiter. Jupiter pronounced, that Proser- 
 pine should be restored to her mother, if she had eaten nothing
 
 METAMORPHOSES NOMENCLATURE. 319 
 
 since her entrance into the kingdom of darkness. One Ascal- 
 aphus declared he had seen her put three pomegranate seeds 
 into her mouth. Proserpine remained queen of hell, and 
 Ascalaphus was changed into an owl, as a reward for his 
 meddling. 
 
 It may easily be imagined that Pluto in time became cooler 
 in his admiration of a wife whom he had had such difficulty 
 to keep when he had won her ; but, however that may be, 
 it was pretty well known that he was not insensible to the 
 attractions of a young virgin named Mentha, daughter of the 
 old river Cocytus. 
 
 Several daughters of rivers were beloved by the gods, but, 
 in general, their fathers took care to transform them into 
 something insensible in the moment of danger. Syrinx, pur- 
 sued by the god Pan, was changed into a reed; Daphne, on 
 the point of being caught by Apollo, was metamorphosed into 
 a laurel. So Apollo crowned himself with laurel ; Pan made 
 himself a pipe of reed. 
 
 Old Cocytus was less careful the god was successful; but 
 Proserpine surprised the lovers, and changed the nymph into 
 the plant which bears her name. 
 
 Two cassidas and a chrysomel, a sort of blue beetle, take 
 up their abode in the aquatic mint. 
 
 I am very much embarrassed when I wish to give a correct 
 idea of an insect or a plant ; to you, particularly, who have 
 never taken delight in either botany or entomology. If I 
 explain to you one word with which you are unacquainted, by 
 another of which you are equally ignorant, I cannot be said 
 to assist your progress in knowledge greatly; if, on the con- 
 trary, I try to find a similitude between that which I want 
 you to understand and something that you already know, 1 
 run the danger of angering the learned, by the use of im- 
 proper terms. 
 
 If I were to tell you that the chrysomeles is one of the cole 
 optera, whose antennce are articulated globularly, the body 
 oval, the corslet wide and fringed at the sides, the elytra gene- 
 rally adorned with brilliant colours, you would be very little 
 the wiser unless I told you that by coleoptera I mean insects 
 which have hard elytra; by elytra, the cases of the wings ; by 
 articles, the divisions of the antennce; the antennae the kind
 
 320 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 of tnoveable horns which the insect bears in the front of its 
 head. 
 
 This would do very well for once; but if, at every insect 
 we meet with, it were necessary for me to make you undergo 
 a sentence in a foreign language, and then a translation with 
 dictionary fragments, you would soon cease to listen to me ; 
 besides, all these words, whatever trouble we may give our- 
 selves in explaining them, convey very little to those who have 
 not seen the objects. 
 
 If, on the contrary, by straining the sense a little, I try to 
 confine the ideas which I wish to make you comprehend within 
 the circle of the somewhat too general ideas which you always 
 possess; if, on your account, I call every four-winged insect 
 covered with coloured dust, a butterfly, when perhaps it is 
 a night-moth, a phalsena, a sphynx, &c. &c. 
 
 If I designate every insect having its wings covered with 
 two hard cases under the vague designation of a beetle, I may 
 make myself sufficiently understood by you, who do not re- 
 quire science of me ; but I offend the learned, and my lan- 
 guage would be as ridiculous for them as that of a foreigner 
 who would write : You have always had for me des boyaux de 
 pere; instead of saying, des entrailles de pere.* 
 
 \ must, however, tell the learned, that, thanks to their 
 austerity and their dignity, even well informed people, finding 
 the first step of the ladder to a special science too elevated, 
 are frequently discouraged, and do not attempt to mount it. 
 Whilst an ignorant fellow, like me, who has been some of the 
 learned, and who has carefully preserved all the crumbs they 
 have been kind enough to drop before him, goes to seek people 
 in a state of ignorance, whose language he knows and does 
 not despise, and brings them to the foot of the ladder; the 
 rest is your concern. 
 
 If I should publish this journey round my garden, it would 
 go further in rendering entomology and botany familiar than 
 the largest and best books published by the learned. 
 
 Science is a steep island, surrounded by a few more rocks 
 than are necessary, to which every savant makes it a pleasure 
 
 * An untranslateable sentence, best explained as being analogous to that of the 
 French Author, who translated " Love's last shift," (the title of an old comedy,) by 
 La derniere chemise de 1'amour. TRANS.
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF SCIENCE. 
 
 321 
 
 and a duty to add some asperities. 1 pass people over in a 
 light wherry ; I transport them from the opposite shore to 
 the banks of your isle, it remains for you then to hold out 
 your hand to them, if ifc be true that you wish to people 
 your isle, (of which I sometimes feel inclined to doubt,) when 
 I observe in what a manner you every day make access to 
 it more difficult. 
 
 T T
 
 LETTER LVIII. 
 
 THE YELLOW ROSES. 
 
 HERE is a yellow rose-tree which reminds me of a story. 
 
 I went one evening, two years ago, to pass a few hours at 
 the house of an old, amiable, intellectual and indulgent lady, 
 who lives near me ; she is passionately fond of flowers, and 
 you can scarcely guess how much coquetry I exercise in 
 making bouquets for her; how delighted I am with her 
 astonishment when I carry her a flower she is not acquainted 
 with, or one that is not common in our country. 
 
 On my arrival there yesterday, I found with her an old 
 gentleman, who, about a year since, took possession of a large 
 property left to him by a distant relation, upon the condition 
 of his bearing the name of it, and who is consequently called 
 M. Descoudraies. 
 
 He got introduced to my old friend, and I soon had reason 
 to be jealous of his assiduities; they quickly conceived a
 
 THE YELLOW ROSES. 323 
 
 friendship for each other, and passed almost all their evenings 
 together playing at backgammon. 
 
 I bowed in silence, that I might not interrupt the con- 
 versation, and when it was finished presented to Madame 
 Lorgerel a bouquet of yellow roses which. I had brought 
 with me. 
 
 My roses were very fine ones, in addition to which, the rairrt, 
 of that year caused roses to bloom badly; mine, sheltered 
 by a projecting roof, were, perhaps, the only yellow roses in 
 the neighbourhood that had blossomed well. Madame Lorgerel 
 was delighted with her beautiful bouquet. 
 
 M. Descoudraies said nothing, but he appeared absent 
 and a little agitated. I looked at him with astonishment, 
 being quite unable to comprehend the mysterious influence 
 of my yellow roses ; but Madame Lorgerel spoke of something 
 else, and I believed I must have been mistaken. 
 
 As for M. Descoudraies, he smiled, and would have laughed, 
 but it did not amount to a laugh, and said : 
 
 " Would you believe that this bouquet has just called up, 
 as if by a magic operation, an entire epoch of my youth 1 
 
 " During five minutes I have been twenty years old, during 
 five minutes I have again become in love with a lady, who, if 
 she be still alive, must be sixty. I must tell you this story, 
 it is a circumstance that has exercised a great influence over 
 my life, and the remembrance of which, even now, when my 
 blood has n;> more warmth left than just to enable me to 
 live and play at backgammon, does not fail to agitate me in 
 an extraordinary manner. 
 
 " I was twenty ; that is rather more than forty years ago. 
 I had but just left college, at which young men stayed rather 
 later than they do at present.* After having deliberated 
 seriously for me, but without consulting me, upon the choice 
 of a profession, my father one morning announced to me that 
 he had procured me a lieutenancy in a regiment then in 
 garrison in a city of Auvergne, and desired me to be ready to 
 join it in three days. 
 
 " I was greatly disconcerted on many accounts ; in the first 
 place, I had no liking for a military life, but that was an 
 
 * The reader must bear in mind, that the " colleges " mentioned in this and othel 
 places are analogous to our public schools, such as Harrow and Eton.
 
 324 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 objection that might have been quickly overcome ; the sight 
 of a handsome uniform, a few ambitious sentences, and a 
 little music might have easily made an Achilles or a Csesar 
 of me. 
 
 "But I was in love ! 
 
 " On no consideration in the world would I have ventured 
 to say a word of this to my father; his only reply to my 
 confidence would have been to order me to set out that 
 very evening. 
 
 " But I had an uncle. What an uncle he was ! 
 
 " He was a man of nearly the same age that I am now ; 
 but he was still young, not for himself but for others; for 
 never did an old man resign to Satan his pomps, works, and 
 vanities with a better grace. He loved young people; he 
 understood them without being 'jealous of them. He did not 
 believe that infirmities were a progress, or that old age was 
 necessarily wisdom. By the force of goodness and reason, he 
 lived upon the happiness of others. He was mixed up with 
 all the generous follies, all the noble extravagances of youth ; 
 he was the confidant and protector of all lovers, the assistant 
 in cases of debt, the encourager of hopes. 
 
 " I went to his house, and saluted him with, 
 
 " ' Dear uncle, I am very unfortunate.' 
 
 " ' I will bet twenty louis you are not,' said he. 
 
 " ' Dear uncle, don't joke. Besides, you would lose.' 
 
 " ' If I lose I will pay ; and that perhaps will help to 
 console you.' 
 
 " ' No, uncle ; money has nothing to do with my grief.' 
 
 " ' Well, tell it me, then.' 
 
 " ' My father has just announced to me that I am a lieu- 
 tenant in the regiment of ' 
 
 " ' Pretty misfortune that, to be sure. One of the hand- 
 somest uniforms in the army; the officers all gentlemen.' 
 
 " ' But, uncle, I don't wish to be a soldier.' 
 
 " ' What ! you don't wish to be a soldier 1 Perhaps you 
 are deficient in courage ? ' 
 
 " ' I scarcely know yet, uncle ; nevertheless, you are the 
 only person I would allow to put such a question to me.' 
 
 " ' Well, brave Cid ! and my very good friend, why are you 
 unwilling to be a soldier ? '
 
 THE YELLOW ROSES. 325 
 
 " ' Because I wish to be married.' 
 
 <Bah!' 
 
 " ' It is very well for you to say, Bah ! I am in love ! ' 
 
 " ' Do you call that a misfortune, you ungrateful young 
 scoundrel ? Why, I should like to be in love myself, over 
 head and ears. And, pray who is the object of such a bril- 
 liant flame 1 ' 
 
 " ' Dear uncle, she is an angel ! ' 
 
 " ' Oh ! I knew that before : it is always an angel. In a 
 little time you will love a woman better than an angel. But 
 what earthly name does this angel reply to ? ' 
 
 " ' Her name, uncle, is Noe"mi.' 
 
 " ' That 's not what I asked you. Noemi ; that 's all your 
 own, it 's a pretty name, though. But for me, who want to 
 know who this angel is, and to what family she belongs, 
 a family name is necessary.' 
 
 " ' It is Mademoiselle Amelot, uncle.' 
 
 " ' Indeed ! that 's better than an angel ! A tall, slender, 
 graceful brunette, with eyes of black velvet. I can't say 
 I disapprove of the object at all.' 
 
 " ' Ah ! dear uncle, if you did but know her mind and 
 heart ! ' 
 
 " ' Ah, yes ! I know all about that. And thou art paid in 
 return, as we used to say formerly 1 Is that the phrase with 
 you fellows, now-a-days?' 
 
 " ' Really, uncle, I do not know.' 
 
 " ' Not know ! thou nephew unworthy of thine uncle ! 
 You are every day creeping into the house, and don't know 
 whether you are loved ! ' 
 
 " ' She does not even know that I love her, uncle.' 
 
 " ' Oh ! in that respect you are deceived, fair nephew ; and 
 show that you understand nothing of the matter. She knew 
 you loved her, at least a quarter of an hour before you knew 
 it yourself.' 
 
 " ' Uncle, all that I know is, that I shall kill myself, if she 
 be not mine.' 
 
 " ' Oh, oh ! as strong as that, fair nephew, is it 1 Humph ! 
 there are many chances against her being yours. Your father 
 is much richer than hers, and will not bestow his son upon 
 her.'
 
 326 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 ' Well then, uncle, I know what remains for me to do.' 
 ' Nonsense j let us see : don't commit any folly ; at least 
 listen to me.' 
 " ' Yes, uncle.' 
 
 " ' Well,' in the first place, you cannot marry at twenty ' 
 "< Why not, uncle ?' 
 
 " ' Because I won't let you ; and without me this marriage 
 will never take place.' 
 
 " ' Oh, my dear, good little uncle ! ' 
 
 " ' If the girl loves you if she promises to wait three years 
 
 for you ' 
 
 " ' Three years, uncle !' 
 
 " ' Don't begin to argue aboTit it, or I shall insist upon 
 four. If she will promise to wait three years for you, you will 
 join your regiment.' 
 
 " ' Ah, uncle ! uncle !' 
 
 " e But not at Clermont ; I will contrive to have you placed 
 in a regiment at a few leagues from Paris, whither you can 
 come once in every three months.' 
 
 " ' Well, uncle; but how am I to know if she loves me ?' 
 " ' How are you to know ! Why by asking her, to be sure. 
 " ' Dear uncle, I dare not.' 
 
 " ' Then pack up your kit, and obey your father.' 
 " ' But, dear uncle, you don't know what sort of a girl she 
 is. I have wished a hundred times to tell her I loved her ; .1 
 have been ashamed of my own timidity ; I have endeavoured 
 to obtain courage in all ways ; I have prepared speeches, and 
 learnt them by heart; I have written letters: but when an 
 opportunity offered for speaking to her, I felt the first word 
 choke me, and I spoke of something else. Her look is so 
 mild, but at the same time so severe, it appeared to me that 
 she could never love a man ; and then I spoke of something 
 else. As for letters, it is still worse : at the moment I should 
 give them, I fancy them so silly, that I cannot believe I can 
 tear them into pieces small enough.' 
 
 " ' Well, but, my boy, the matter must be decided; and I 
 will tell you why : your father has not let you into the whole 
 affair. One of his reasons for sending you to Clermont is, 
 that the colonel of the regiment is one of his most intimate 
 friends, and has a daughter: this daughter is destined for
 
 THE YELLOW ROSES. 327 
 
 you ; it is a rich and suitable match. But you need say 
 
 nothing about itl; I know that all this amounts to nothing 
 when a man is in love. It is a great folly, but it is a folly 
 I should be sorry not to have committed myself: they must 
 be cold-blooded mortals who do not commit such. I know 
 very well that old folks call this illusions ; but who knows if 
 it be not they who have some of these illusions 1 The spec- 
 tacles that lessen objects are not more true than those which 
 enlarge them. 
 
 " ' If she loves you, you must sacrifice everything for her 
 sake: that's a folly, I know; but it is right, and must be 
 done. But you must ascertain if she loves you ; and there is 
 just now au excellent opportunity for putting the question. 
 
 Her family are about to marry her to another Well, 
 
 nephew, you turn pale at that idea, and you would like to 
 measure swords with your odious rival. Is not that what 
 you said just now 1 Well, try to preserve a little of this great 
 courage in the presence of the beautiful Noe'mi. They want 
 to marry her: you are richer than she is, but the man they 
 wish to marry her to is richer than you; besides, he has 
 a title, and is a husband quite ready, and the corbeille is 
 ready; whilst for you they must wait. Go to Noe'mi, and 
 tell her you love her: she knows it well enough, but it is 
 expected to be told. Ask her if she responds to your affection, 
 and tell her she ought to love you; you are young, hand- 
 some, and sensible. Tell her that she shall swear to you to 
 wait three years for you, and that she shall write it to me 
 to me myself, in a letter, which I will keep. Then I will 
 break off the marriage yonder; I will get you placed in 
 another regiment ; and in three years, in spite of your father, 
 in spite of the " Bah !" in spite of everything, I will marry 
 you.' 
 
 ' Dear uncle, I have an idea.' 
 
 ' What is it?' 
 
 ' I will write to her.' 
 
 ' As you please.' 
 
 I left my uncle, and instantly set about my letter. There 
 was no difficulty in the writing I had already written her a 
 hundred and fifty; but it was the delivery of the letter that 
 embarrassed me. -Nevertheless, as there was no time to be
 
 328 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 lost in hesitation, I fixed upon a plan : I purchased a bouquet 
 of yellow roses, and placed my billet in the middle of the 
 bouquet. 
 
 " Stop perhaps it is being very foolish, but I still remem- 
 ber the contents of it. After the avowal of my love, I sup- 
 plicated her to love me in return, to be happy with me, and 
 to wait for me three years. I entreated her, if she con- 
 sented, to wear in her bosom in the evening one of my yellow 
 roses. Then, said I, I shall have courage to speak to you, 
 and will tell you all you have to do to secure my happiness: 
 I dare not say our happiness." 
 
 "What! did you put the billet in the bouquet?" said 
 Madame Lorgerel. 
 
 " Yes, Madame." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 " And then, in the evening Noe"mi did not wear a yellow 
 rose in her bosom. I was near killing myself. My uncle 
 dragged me away to Clermont, in spite of myself; he re- 
 mained with me two months, mingled with the young officers, 
 and finished by diverting my thoughts, and convincing me 
 that Noe"mi had never loved me. 
 
 " ' But, uncle,' said I, ' she always appeared so glad when 
 I arrived, and made such gentle reproaches when I came 
 late.' 
 
 " ' Ah ! women love to have the love of all the world; but 
 there are persons whom they don't love.' 
 
 " In short, in the end, I nearly forgot her; and then I 
 married the daughter of the colonel, whom I lost after a 
 union of eight years; and here I am now, left quite alone. 
 My uncle has been dead a long while. Well, would you 
 believe that I still think frequently of Noe"mi ; and what is 
 most curious is, that she always presents herself before me as 
 a young girl of seventeen, with her beautiful brown hair, and, 
 as my uncle said, her black velvet eyes; whereas she must 
 now be, if living, quite an old woman." 
 
 '' You do not know what became of her?" 
 
 " No, Madame." 
 
 " Well, but your name was not then Descoudraies ?" 
 
 " No ; that is the name of my uncle's estate. My name 
 was Edrnond d'Altheim."
 
 THE YELLOW ROSES. 329 
 
 " Just SO." 
 
 " How, Madame, just so ?" 
 
 ' I will tell you what is become of Noemi." 
 
 ' You will, Madam 1 " 
 ' Yes ; she loved you." 
 
 ' But the yellow rose 1 " 
 
 ' She never saw the billet. Your sudden departure cost 
 her much grief and many teai'S ; but, like you, she married 
 Monsieur de Lorgerel." 
 
 " M. De Lorgerel!" 
 
 "Yes, M. de Lorgerel, whose widow I now am." 
 
 " What, you ! What ! you, Noemi Amelot?" 
 
 " Alas ! yes, as you are, or rather as you no longer are, 
 Edmond d'Altheim." 
 
 " Who could ever have believed that the day would come 
 when we should not recognise each other 1 ?" 
 
 " Yes, is it not strange? And only to meet to play at back- 
 gammon?" 
 
 " But the bouquet?" 
 
 " The bouquet here it is. I have always kept it." 
 
 And Madame Lorgerel fetched an ebony box from an 
 escritoire, which she opened. 
 
 She took out a faded bouquet. She trembled. 
 
 " Untie it, untie it ! " said M. Descoudraies. 
 
 She untied the bouquet, and found the billet, which had 
 been there forty-two years. 
 
 Both remained silent. I wished to leave them. M. Descou- 
 draies arose. Madame de Lorgerel took him by the hand and 
 said, " You are right. This renewal of the youth of our hearts 
 must not take place before two old faces like ours. Let us 
 avoid casting this ridicule upon a noble sentiment, which will 
 perhaps afford us happiness for the rest of our lives. Do not 
 come again till after the expiration of a few days." 
 
 From that time, old M. Descoudraies and old Madame de 
 Lorgerel are seldom apart ; I have never witnessed anything 
 like the sentiment that exists between them. They go over 
 again and again all the little details of that love which was 
 never told; they have a thousand things to relate, they are 
 in love retrospectively: they wist to be married, but they 
 diue not marry. 
 
 u u
 
 LKTTKIl LIX. 
 
 ORIGIN AND PROPERTIES OP CERTAIN PLANTS THEIR COLOURS ONI t 
 COMPARATIVE END OF THE TOUR, 
 
 MANY controversies have taken place with respect to the 
 heliotrope, the flower whose umbels, of a greyish blue, 
 exhale such a sweet odour of vanilla. 
 
 It is related that the nymph Clytie, the daughter of 
 Oceanus, was abandoned by Apollo, whom she had loved. 
 This threw her into such deep grief that she ceased to eat or 
 to drink, and died with her eyes fixed upon the sun. She 
 was changed into a flower called heliotrope. Now heliotrope 
 signifies, / turn towards the sun. 
 
 Some savants have determined that it was not our helio- 
 trope with the vanilla odour, that was spoken of when 
 alluding to the metamorphoses of Clytie, but of the great
 
 THE HELIOTROPE AND HORSE-CHESTNUT. 331 
 
 sunflower, sometimes called turnsole, which implies just the 
 ame thing as heliotrope. But there is a trifling incon- 
 venience attached to this solution, which is, that the sun- 
 flower comes to us from Peru, and that in the time of Ovid 
 Peru was not known. 
 
 If we seek for another flower to which to attribute the his- 
 tory of Cly tie, that is another embarrassment, with the indica- 
 tion you have, that it is a flower which turns towards the sun. 
 
 Point out to me any flower that does not turn towards the 
 sun. Put all you please into a chamber that has but one 
 opening, and you will see, not only their flowers, but their 
 leaves, nay, their stalks, seek the air, daylight, and the sun. 
 
 The wild heliotrope which resembles the cultivated helio- 
 trope, excepting in the smell, is often sold under the pretence 
 that it has the quality of curing warts, which is not true. 
 
 This time I will not forget it; I will clear up the phe- 
 nomena of the fraxinella. As soon as day disappears, I will 
 set fire to the inflammable air that surrounds it. In the mean- 
 while, here we are under the horse-chestnut-ti - ees. Some bear 
 spikes of white flowers, others spikes of rose-coloured flowers. 
 The horse-chestnut-tree is originally from Constantinople, 
 whence it was sent into Austria iu 1594, and brought to Paris 
 in 1613, by a M. Bachelier, the same who brought the ane- 
 mones, as I told you. 
 
 Men, who in general render great worship to beauty, are, I 
 know not why, ashamed of this worship, and invent for that 
 which they think beautiful all sorts of moral and useful 
 qualities, often sufficiently apocryphal. On the other side, 
 there is nothing concerning which one part of mankind does 
 not seek to deceive the others. 
 
 It was from these two united causes, no doubt, that attempts 
 were made to manufacture, but more particularly to sell, soap 
 made' of the fruit of the horse-chestnut-tree. Then they 
 undertook to feed cattle upon it. The latter did, in the end, 
 eat it, but with great dislike, and after long and almost starv- 
 ing hesitation; they preferred hunger to death, but very little. 
 
 The millepertuis for a long time was supposed to possess 
 the power of driving away demons; it is now-a-days satis- 
 fied with displaying some pretty clusters of yellow flowers, and 
 with presenting the singular appearance of leaves perforated 
 with an infinite number of little holes. 
 
 " St John's wort. Hyprriiiim.
 
 332 A. TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 
 
 Here shines the scarlet-geranium ; its splendid colour 
 dazzles the eyes; it would appear to be the sovereign red. 
 Take a flower of it and place it by the side of the little scarlet 
 verbena of Miquilon, which creeps among the magnolias, 
 those trees which bear lilies upon heath land, and variegate it 
 with sparkling little umbels. Place near one of these umbels 
 the blossom of the geranium, and by a singular metamor- 
 ohosis, the geranium is no longer red, it becomes yellow, its 
 red is subdued and destroyed by the red of the verbena. The 
 verbena, in its turn, will pale before the cardinal lobelia. All 
 which proves that things are only red as they are great by the 
 side of those which are less red and less great. The greatness 
 of great men is made more than half of the littleness of 
 the others. 
 
 By the side of the marigold of the gardens, that beautiful 
 orange anemone of such a brilliant colour, there opens at 
 certain hours the rainy marigold, a daisy-like flower with a 
 violet-coloured disc and white rays above, violet and green 
 underneath, which closes a little before rain. 
 
 But day is beginning to decline ; the sparrows chirp and 
 seem to squabble in the trees ; bats fly around my head ; the 
 beauties of the day are closed, the beauties of the night and 
 the onagres unfold and open their corollas. 
 
 Varai, bring me a light. Now for the fraxinella ! 
 
 I was just at this point of my journey, my good friend, 
 when an unusual noise interrupted the wonted silence of my 
 retreat. It was the noise of a carriage and the horses 
 galloping, with the crack of the post-boy's whip. 
 
 It was you, returned from your long voyage before I have 
 half-finished mine. But you could only afford me a few 
 minutes ; you set out again for Paris two hours after your 
 arrival ; business imperatively required your presence. 
 
 I have put these letters in order, and sent them to you. 
 When you come to see me, we will continue my journey 
 together. Farewell ! 
 
 VONDON : K. CLAY, SUNS, AND TAYLOR. PIUNTKKS.
 
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