THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
NOTES ON ALLEGORIC FIGURES, ETC. 
 
 * These allegoric figures are my Shield, my Coat-of-Anns, my 
 Spade! With which I have begun three-quarters of a century 
 since, to work out iny present social condition; and also, a little, 
 my moral and intellectual state to-day 
 
 *My "Motto" surrounding the allegoric figures is of a more 
 recent origin. I have coined it,in part, from documents written 
 more than 1,900 years, and to which I have added some sparks 
 of my brain to give body and sente to the phrase quoted. 
 
 * Translation in plain English: God! and We also have done 
 something to enjoy our present comfortable way of living, etc., 
 etc. Our motto has always been, "Help yourself and God will 
 help you." 
 
 * English of " Labor improbus omuia vincit: " " An obstinate 
 labor conquers every thing." 
 
 * Les figures allegoriques ci-jointes, sont mon Bouclier, ma 
 Cotte d'Armes, ma Bcche ! Avec laquelle j'ai comment il y a 
 trois quarts de siecle, ma presente condition sociale et aussi un peu 
 ma condition morale et intellect uelle. 
 
 * Ma Devise qui entoure les figures allegoriques est d'origine 
 plus recente. Je 1'ai forgee en partie, de documents 6crits il y a 
 1,900 ans; et auxquels j'ai ajouti quelques etincelles de ma cervelle 
 afin de donner un corps et un sens a la phrase " citee." 
 
 * Tradurtion libre : Dieu et Nous aussi nous nous sommes 
 donnes quelques peines pour nous procurer les bien fails dont nous 
 jouissons aujourd'hui. Notre devise a toujours etc, " Aide toi 
 et le Ciel t'aidera. " 
 
 * "Labor improbus omnia vincit." 
 
 Le travail opiniatre vient a bout de tout. 
 
 L. M. 
 
LEPTOPTEHIS SUPERBA. 
 
\** 
 
 ANHALONIUM FISSURATUM. 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 Of INCIDENTS CONNECTED WITH 
 
 HORTICULTURAL AFFAIRS, ETC. 
 
 FROM 1807 UP TO THIS DAY 1893. 
 
 WITH PORTRAIT AND ALLEGORICAL FIGURES. 
 "By an ever practical wisdom seeker," 
 
 L. MENAND. 
 
 WITH AN APPENDIX 
 
 OF RETROSPECTIVE INCIDENTS OMITTED OR 
 
 FORGOTTEN IN THE ABOVE, 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS, ETC. 
 
 ALBANY, N. Y. 
 
 WEED, PARSONS AND COMPANY. 
 
 1892. 
 
Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred 
 and ninety-two, 
 
 BT L. MEN AND, 
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
SB 
 
 3 
 
 A PREFATORY HINT. 
 
 Before sending these little agglomerations of my 
 recollections oat of my hands, L feel, intuitively, I 
 ought to make some remarks in relation to them, so 
 as to save any one the trouble to make them for me, 
 or against me, for, I am fully aware that some may pos- 
 sibly say that recollector, L. Menand, is passably en- 
 dowed with vanity of all sorts, but especially literary 
 vanity above all poetical vanity. These remarks, 
 if made, are perfectly right and natural, according to 
 our " human nature." Yet I want to apologize before- 
 hand for that venial sin, vanity. "It ought to be 
 wished " that all sins should be similar to mine in 
 that line, vanity in the highest degree, and caused by 
 the same motives ! .... The community at large would 
 not be worse if not much better .... I have not much 
 more to say to justify my sin or sms, for I admit I 
 have more than one, though I do not monopolize them 
 all. My prose and poetry, may be, are two of them, 
 especially the later, for my justification I would say 
 that I have never studied much the theory of either. 
 
2 A PREFATORY HINT. 
 
 I have always written according to the dictates of my 
 heart and conscience. Disregarding the rules (es- 
 pecially of poetry, of which I am perfectly ignorant, 
 of the rules, but I like the thing when it has common 
 sense, besides rhymes measured as with a rule, as 
 geographers do), but those of my own judgment being 
 a " Homo asper " .... I will not say any more but 
 that I am more or less like the rest of mankind. 
 
 Yours, etc., 
 
 L. MEN AND. 
 
EXPLANATION. 
 
 To excuse our faults, often blunders, and occa- 
 sionally stupidity, we, the sacred as the profanes, we 
 quote the classic phrase : 
 
 " Quandoque bonus Homerus dormitat." " Sometimes even the 
 good Homer nods." 
 
 What I want to come at with this preliminary re- 
 mark, is that /, who am apt to find " atoms in other 
 people's eyes, I cannot see " a B&otian monument " 
 of stupidity in mine, e. g, last year I got an electro- 
 typed species of cactus named "Anhalonium 
 
 fasuratum, and I wrote the specific name prismaticum. 
 A blind man could not see the difference of the plants, 
 but could feel it, and yet it has taken me since a year, 
 and seeing the plant (and name) almost every day 
 
 to discover my ? I cannot find a name adequate 
 
 for that idiotic oversight and no chance to justify my- 
 self. 1 cannot say, as we often do, " It is my man's 
 fault." This is no man's fault but a biped but an ass ! 
 
 Some, charitable people, will probably say: that old 
 
4: EXPLANATION. 
 
 man is absent-minded ! but more may say : that en- 
 thusiast of good wine has absorbed too much what- 
 ever may be said I shall accept and I shall, I will 
 laugh myself of my witticism, but my laugh is of an 
 awful Hue shade and not at all " celestial ! " but the 
 reverse. I hope for my comfort that my confession 
 will be found sincere, in as much that I do not ask for 
 absolution, I shall inflict myself an adequate penance 
 if I live long enough. 
 
 I shall alter my motto and substitute another better 
 appropriated, that will afterward legitimate any stupidi- 
 ties that come out of my head. Here it is : " Breotiim 
 in crasso jurares aere natum," English : You would 
 swear that he was born in the thick air of the 
 Boeotians, the people of the Greek province of 
 Boeotia were proverbially remarkable for their stu- 
 pidity. 
 
 L. MENAND. 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 I have been told that I was born on the 2d of Au- 
 gust, 1807, in the old province of France called Bur- 
 gundy, a country noted for her good wine, probably 
 one of the reasons I am more partial to wine than to 
 whisky. 
 
 My father was a gardener and this somewhat accounts 
 for my early love for horticulture. As far as I can rec- 
 ollect I was about eight or ten years old, more or less, 
 when I began to try to grow plants from cuttings. I 
 have always been fond of cutting ! properly and figur- 
 atively speaking, except cutting my fingers ! Besides, 
 I was also very fond of reading books treating of gar- 
 dening operations, especially the nomenclature long 
 names that I learned by heart, as parrots do, without 
 knowing the meaning, which constitutes a poor learn- 
 ing. However, later in life I have found these words 
 very useful. I found that " words lead to the knowl- 
 edge of things." One thing I have never been able to 
 learn is mathematics I mean that lateral branch of 
 it, " arithmetic," the science " par excellence." Even 
 
6 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 to-day, with more than three-quarters of a century 
 of . . . .1 cannot comprehend the mystery of the Trin- 
 ity ! Yet, I have always been able to count the money 
 that has passed through my hands. 
 
 Excuse me this digression, and I return to my prop- 
 agation that I continued to practice until I lost my 
 father. Then I was between fifteen and sixteen years 
 old, perhaps a little more, I cannot ascertain exactly. 
 All that I am certain of is that I remained with my 
 mother and sister until the month of March, 1827, 
 when an idea many ideas got into my head that I 
 was old enough to * c think for myself " came to me, 
 and that it would be serviceable to know the sense of 
 all the words I knew by heart. One thing I knew by 
 experience the culminating one that the steeple 
 of my city (Chdlons-sur-Saone, Dept. de Saone-et- 
 Loire, France) did not afford me shade or protection 
 enough, or rather too much of it, for I foresaw that 
 ultimately it would " etiolate " my conceptions in the 
 bud ! Then I at once came to the conclusion to leave 
 my Penates, my Lares and my other household gods 
 and move to the "capital of the civilized world'' 
 according to the general idea of the French, but not 
 exactly to mine which was and still is cosmopolitan. 
 
 Paris, then, for me was an " Eldorado " where I 
 thought, in my puerile innocence, that every one was, 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1827. 7 
 
 or ought to be, a philosopher ! .... or something of that 
 sort. Ah ! what a philosophy ! ! you will soon see. 
 In a few days after I had decided to leave my home I 
 was in Paris, in company with a philosopher ! I got 
 acquainted with in the stage-coach, who kindly offered 
 me his services, as he supposed I would not know 
 where to go at such time of night 10 or 11 p, M. 
 When we got out of the stage he hired a cab and told 
 me he was going to carry me to his hotel ! Before 
 getting into the cab the first sight I had of Paris was 
 such a fog as I had never seen before and never have 
 since. The Parisians called it London fog. I think I 
 could have cut a slice off it. In a few minutes we 
 reached that hotel! located in a narrow, gloomy, 
 dirty street in the * ' city " the old Paris within a 
 few hundred yards of Notre Dame, that church so 
 graphically delineated by Yictor Hugo, in his wonder- 
 ful book " Notre Dame? de Paris." That hotel looked 
 to me paltry, dirty, cutthroat, etc., etc. That den a 
 few years later became famous from having been the 
 
 spot where the social romancer, " Eugene Sue," 
 
 introduced his hero and heroine, Prince Rodolphe and 
 Fleur de Marie, in his marvellous book, " Les Myste- 
 res de Paris." I took supper that night and in the 
 
 ) 
 
 morning breakfast bought from a restaurant, with my 
 " cicerone," and never saw him again but six months 
 after by chance in the " Champs Elysees." He made an 
 
8 AUTOBIOGBAPHY AND 
 
 apology for not having warned me of what I would 
 see in that Hotel du Liable. Notwithstanding his 
 living in such atmosphere that man was an honest 
 man, for it was on his recommendations, etc., that no- 
 thing bad had happened to me. I slept three nights 
 there. In the day time I ran through the city to deliver 
 some letters of recommendation, etc. During those 
 three evenings and nights I learned more than I did 
 thereafter in ten years. 
 
 The same day I left that vestibule of hell I went to 
 take possession of a situation as an assistant gardener 
 in one of the most aristocratic suburbs of Paris, with 
 a different breed of philosophers. There I was some- 
 what in my dreamed-for element. Many green and 
 hothouses full of rare plants ; few of them I knew, 
 except the names of some ; but I could not apply the 
 names to the plants, and when I attempted to ask the 
 names of the head gardener a sort of biped bear! 
 he answered me : " You had better to mind your work, 
 for if you have any ambition to be a gentleman's gar- 
 dener you will do better to learn forcing vegetables," 
 etc., etc. To that hint I replied that I thought it 
 would be better to work for the people who carried on 
 that business, and as I was among plants I wished to 
 know something about them; that gentlemen who 
 wanted forced vegetables wanted also plants, etc. He 
 
KECOLLECTIONS, 1827. 9 
 
 stared at me with a frown and told me to go to my 
 work pointing with his hand to a certain hothouse ; 
 " there you will find that large plant in a tub, that has 
 leaves the shape of a gardener 1 8 trowel /".... was not 
 that description a philosophic circumlocution to avoid 
 telling me the name of it ? Inwardly in my sleeves 
 I laughed, for 1 knew the plant and its name. So, as I 
 was in contact with philosophers, I durst, I had the 
 temerity to speak with my mouth open and with my 
 heart also. I humbly replied : " I do not know ex- 
 actly if I understand rightly ; your description is some- 
 what novel to me and very picturesque. I think you 
 mean the Strelitzia reginse ! " " Who told you that, 
 Mr. TJie Doctor f " he responded, with a sneer that had 
 a heinous look. From that I had won the sympathy 
 of that charming man. Truly, there was no love lost 
 between us. I liberally reciprocated his sentiments to- 
 ward me. I had been recommended to him by one of 
 his acquaintances to whom I think he was under obli- 
 gations, and he did not like to say he did not want me, 
 for he was looking for a man. I thought that he 
 hated me the first time he spoke to me. 
 
 When I went in that place I had some Local expres- 
 sions that were not very exactly the purest French, and 
 I knew it ; but the habit was sticking to me. How- 
 ever, I soon got rid of them quicker than he had 
 
10 AUTOBIOGBAPHY AND 
 
 learned French orthography. A few days after the 
 coining of that description of a leaf "like a gardener's 
 trowel," he gave me a chance to retaliate. We were 
 potting some carnations. A young man, with me, 
 were potting, and he, the " neologist in description, 
 was writing the labels, and threw them to us on the 
 floor where we were potting, bent on our knees no 
 potting bench. I supposed it was for the purpose of 
 doing penance it was in Lent time ! (I feel that I 
 am overstretching.) I caught a label spelt wrong, and 
 as it was only a few moments since he had laughed at 
 me, I thought the occasion was a good one to recipro- 
 cate, so I told him that name was incorrect in my 
 village we spelt it with a double r. " You think so, 
 Mr. The Doctor ! " " I do not think, I am sure of 
 it ! " On that affirmation he started like a runaway 
 horse. The young man with me asked what was the 
 matter with the boss. I told him, " I think he has 
 gone to his room to look in his dictionary to see if I 
 am right." What, right? that young philosopher some- 
 what belonged to the school of our boss, and thought 
 it childish to get mad for one letter more or less, but 
 he was a philosopher of the sect of the quiets, and did 
 not trouble himself any more about the incident. From 
 that time our boss did not make any more jokes on my 
 local expressions, but did not like me any better. I 
 remained under his sway about eighteen months, till 
 
KECOLLECTIONS, 1828. 11 
 
 August, 1828. Before leaving that Neologist I must 
 sketch some of his features : That man was typical, 
 even in his name David. I have never known his 
 initials. He was always called David. As you would 
 say: God ! or his antithesis, the Devil. At that time 
 his facial look suggested to me that he was an Israelite, 
 but not born in Bethlehem. He was a Normand from 
 Kouen, Normandy. Seen in profile, his face somewhat 
 looked, to me, like the upper end of a carving knife 
 with some indentations simulating his mouth, his nose, 
 etc. This last nasal appendix was very remarkable. 
 It was aquiline like the beak of the eagle in appear- 
 ance, but to my fancy I thought he looked in his 
 mind, always for me, like a compound of a goose, or a 
 hawk, or an owl, or like any nocturnal animal of prey. 
 
 It is only since I have seen the portrait of " Fagin, 
 in Oliver Twist," that I have realized he might have 
 been a descendant, direct or indirect of that character, 
 Fagin, but it matters not this moment. After sixty- 
 four years I have the profound conviction that the 
 David of my heart and Fagin, must have been iden- 
 tical morally and physically speaking. Only my 
 
 David had some resemblance to the King. of Israel. In 
 one respect my David had to my knowledge seduced 
 or bought another man's wife, but I do not think he 
 kilted the husband, so there was a little less criminality 
 
12 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 in my type than in our King, but for some persons a 
 King can commit ADULTERY, A CRIME, and not be a 
 criminal as a common mortal, for, according to some 
 casuists, what his crime with one is virtue, with another, 
 especially when that manKing or not has written some 
 
 religious poetry I think I have done 
 
 with my digressions of my " never forgotten Neologist" 
 The chords of my soulhe had touched with his irrational 
 
 hatred are still vibrating ! ! This closed 
 
 the first act of my debut in life. Then I changed, in 
 one way for the worse, but every day adding some- 
 thing to my theories of life. 
 
 I shall pass over all my tribulations during the 
 year 1829, the most unlucky and inauspicious of my 
 life, so much so as willing to be gone ad pair es. At 
 the close of that year I had the good luck to find a 
 situation where I found a library at my disposal. I 
 fell on one work by Lamarck and Decandolle, " La 
 Flore Francaise," which work revolutionized the course 
 of my ideas and opened a new field to my ambition 
 for new studies, a study not exactly connected to hor- 
 ticulture, but which absorbed me at once the study 
 of " wild plants," if that expression is proper, and es- 
 pecially " Cryptogamous plants." Every one who 
 knew me, when I told them my discovery of that 
 book, laughed at me, and said, in plain language, that 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1829-30. 13 
 
 I was a down right fool. I admitted the epithet, but 
 did not change my mind. What a stupid idea, will 
 say my acquaintances of to-day, to study " crypto- 
 gainy " to be a florist ; " it is absurd !" Be it so, but 
 paradoxical as it may be, it has been more beneficial to 
 me than growing coleus at seventy-five cents per 100 ! ! 
 It has in the first place given me self gratification ! 
 It has systematized my ideas, in theory ancr*in practice. 
 It has brought me in contact with people that would 
 otherwise never have looked at me. When later I 
 made up my mind to cultivate exotic plants, such as 
 Ericas, Banksias, and all kinds of New Holland plants, 
 I was saluted with the same reverence I was a fool ! 
 such business would not pay, etc., etc. 
 
 But I perceive that I am overflowing on rny subject. 
 I am anticipating upon the future by fifty years. So 
 I return to the first reading of my French Flora, and 
 the cryptogamic ideas it wove in my brain ! Crypto- 
 gamic indeed ! since they were not understood. In the 
 beginning of 1830 I had to leave my library and its 
 books to settle a short distance further, but always in 
 the precincts of Paris. It was my third year of grav- 
 itation around that luminous terrestrial planet, that 
 was soon to be more luminous by kindling that " Three 
 days' revolution !" Revolution that I wished and ex- 
 pected since two or three years, at the time I laid 
 2 
 
14 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 down the plan the foundation of my religious 
 and political creed, with that aphorism : " No kings I 
 No Medium between Man and Heaven ; every one his 
 own arbitrator, free will ! in spiritual affairs." 
 
 That year, 1830 to April, 1831, closed what 1 would 
 call the first phase of my life. Then I left Paris and 
 went to take possession of a situation as a gardener in 
 the province " Champagne," the classical land of the 
 wine so-called, where I lived over six years, the quietest 
 period of my life. There I could study without being 
 sneered at, but on the contrary I was encouraged to do 
 so. But, alas ! as before, I could not understand the 
 meaning of Latin and Greek names of plants, and at 
 that time we had not such a valuable work as Mr. Nich- 
 olson's " Dictionary of Gardening. 1 ' Somewhat as by 
 intuition I understood or guessed that such adjectives 
 as grandiflorus, grandiflora and grandiflorum meant 
 large flowers, but I was perplexed about the termination 
 in us, a and um. How I sighed at my ignorance, and 
 no way, I thought, to learn, for I was as most young 
 men were, and still are to-day. If you have not re- 
 ceived a collegiate education when young, you can 
 never get it after, especially when you are deprived of 
 means. Notwithstanding that drawback I felt that I 
 could do something. I was determined to try. One 
 day I heard of a certain gentleman a notary public. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1831-37. 15- 
 
 who was managing the financial affairs of my employer 
 (an old lady) who was a good Latinist. He was not, 
 but he put me in the way of doing something to en- 
 lighten me on the subject. So the first time he came 
 to the place I watched for him and introduced myself. 
 With a book in my hand I told him what I had heard 
 of his knowledge, etc., etc. He sharply looked at me 
 and said : " What do you want of me ?" I showed 
 him my adjectives in us, a, um, etc., and I told him I 
 thought they meant so and so. He looked at me be- 
 tween my two eyes and gravely told me : "If you 
 know that why do you ask me ?" I answered that I 
 thought I knew but was not certain, but what I know 
 not are those terminations, etc. tl Those terminations," 
 he said, " are masculine, feminine and neuter, and if 
 you know as much as you evidently seem to, get a 
 Latin grammar, and in a few days you will know as 
 much as I do." " To get a Latin grammar I shall 
 have to go twelve miles to get it" (we were in the 
 country). " I know it," he said, " but to-morrow I go 
 thither (to Rheims, the next city) and I shall bring you 
 one." I made the remark that a grammar would not 
 give me all the information I wanted. " I must have 
 a dictionary of French and Latin and Latin and 
 French." My employer who was present said : 
 " Bring him also those dictionaries," etc. He put his 
 hands on my shoulders and said : " Young man, if 
 
16 AUTOBIOGRAPAY AND 
 
 you have guessed all that you have told me, yon will 
 go far, and when you have looked over your grammar 
 for a few days, come and see me at my office, to show 
 me your progress in guessing Latin." I went to see 
 him two or three weeks after, and I found that if he 
 was not a good Latinist he was a good man, and he 
 gave me good advice. He kept me two or three hours, 
 talking politics, theology, literature, etc. 
 
 I will continue my course for a little while longeron 
 the European continent ; then I shall sail for the west- 
 ern hemisphere, my adoptive country, where I have lived 
 happy ! ! for fifty-four years, less a fortnight, when 
 dark clouds suddenly eclipsed forever my sunshine ! 
 
 half of my life my Egeria ! my wife You will 
 
 please excuse the above extemporaneous digression. I 
 could not refrain doing it. It choked me 
 
 I resume the narration of rny studies. I was in pos- 
 session of the instruments, books, to elucidate the 
 meaning of words stuffed in my head. The first night 
 I got that grammar I did not sleep much. I spent 
 most part of it to decline the first declension : penna, 
 pennse or rosa, rosse, etc., and went to bed reciting : 
 
 Nominative rosa ; 
 
 Genitive, rosse ; 
 Dative, rosae ; 
 Accusative, rosam ; 
 Vocative, o rosa ; 
 Ablative, rosa. 
 
 Here I decline rosa ! as a 
 -compliment to our friends, 
 the rose growers 
 
KECOLLECTIONS, 1831-37. 17 
 
 When I say I did not sleep much, to tell the truth I 
 don't think I slept at all, for I Ifeink I was still hum- 
 ming " Nominative rosa" when I opened my eyes and 
 saw the light, or, rather, the dawn of day, as the dawn 
 of my motions, dusky ! It was a Sunday morning in 
 June, and I intended to go herborizing ; so I got up, 
 took up my herborizing box and started across mead- 
 ows, woods, swamps, etc. I had walked a considerable 
 distance, when I found myself on an eminence, wet 
 above the knees by the dew, and not feeling too com- 
 fortable, when I turned round and I saw the rays of 
 the sun emerging out of the horizon. I was dazzled 
 by the sublime magnificence of that Light God ! ! that 
 supreme unknown ! ! For awhile I forgot my gram- 
 mar, the cryptogamous and phanerogamous plants. 
 The whole nature, the creation, which I was contem- 
 plating with so much admiration that all my moral, in- 
 tellectual faculties were I could not analyze them, 
 
 was so bewildered it took some time before I could 
 realize where I was, my blood still in ebullition and my 
 legs cold, but it did not last long. That God- Light 
 soon warmed me again, and when I got over my ecstacy 
 I began to realize I had often seen a rising of the sun, 
 but never in such a circumstance. So I immediately 
 resumed my search for a certain plant, of which I 
 scented the smell before I saw it. I was trampling it 
 under my feet ; it was an orchidese, "Satyritim hir- 
 
18 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 ciimm," a well-baptized plant, from its horrid he-goat's 
 smell. This is another digression perhaps out of 
 place but it is an incident of my life and I " sketch 
 it!" And I have many more incidental episodes to 
 relate, but I shall pass them over, or most of them. 
 
 I went on with my studies of Latin and cryptogamy 
 and a few other odd ideas, notions, etc. I progressed 
 moderately well. The first use I made of my embry- 
 onic knowledge of Latin was quite a diminutive tri- 
 umph for my vanity. I can not refrain from recount- 
 ing it. 
 
 I had a young man working with me who was going 
 to marry. One day he asked me if he could not have 
 half a day to go and see his betrothed. I told him he 
 could, but I told him jokingly : " My dear fellow, if 
 you marry before the priest you will have to go to 
 confess, if not he will not marry you ; but if you give 
 up the religious ceremony and get satisfied to be mar- 
 ried before your mayor or any other official, all right ! 
 As the French law does not recognize the religious cer- 
 emony as legal, you can choose." He answered me 
 that he would not go to confess and would get mar- 
 ried ! "Well, do as you please," I responded. When 
 he came to work the following day he showed me a 
 sheet of paper folded in four parts, not sealed, nor any 
 envelope at that time. It was a certificate about his 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1831-37. "19 
 
 morality. No, I forget now, but at the bottom of that 
 document there was a postscript in Latin that he could 
 not understand the reason I suppose that he showed 
 it to me. That postscript was to inform the priest 
 who would marry him that he (the one who had writ- 
 ten it) had not heard the confession of the bearer. 
 It was short: " Domine, Non audivi confessionem, 
 Johan...," etc. I cannot remember names. After 
 reading it I told him "You have not been to con- 
 fess." " How do you know ? " he replied, looking at 
 me with a change in his countenance, turning pale as 
 if he had committed a crime. " Well, I know it. Do 
 you not know that heretics, free thinkers and * bloody 
 Republicans ' as they called me as they called us 
 can guess a good many things ? Besides, this paper 
 tells me that you have not." What shall I do ? " he 
 asked in a tremulous voice. By that time I had re- 
 turned his paper. " Give it to me again ; I will fix it 
 all right/' I folded the bottom of the paper contain- 
 ing the P. S., cut it off and handed him both the cer- 
 tificate and the P. S. and told him, " Now you can do 
 what you please ; give both to the priest or only one, 
 and he will marry you if you care for the religious cer- 
 emony. If not, get the mayor of your village, and 
 he will marry you, and that is the only legal marriage 
 according to French law. He got married, but I 
 never heard anything about the particulars, the con- 
 
20 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 elusions, nor did I care; I had the fun, that's all I 
 wanted. 
 
 From this stage of my condition in that place, until 
 June, 1837, I have not many incidents of my life to 
 relate, besides what I said before, only that new ideas 
 added to old ones, were constantly fomenting in my 
 brain, owing to my solitary life, for I had nobody with 
 whom I could exchange my views, my conceptions, 
 except some occasional correspondence with acquain- 
 tances in Paris. The revolution of 1830 had disap- 
 pointed me ; from that event I had expected the proc- 
 lamation of the Republic, laws more liberal, universal 
 suffrage ; instead of that, and thanks to the influence 
 of General Lafayette and other lukewarm Republicans 
 of the same school, we had another King. The politi- 
 cal and religious constitution did not suit me, and every 
 day I was sighing for the moment I would have money 
 enough to quit France. I tried to get a situation under 
 the government to go to Madagascar, but the man who 
 could get me the position would not do it ; he had been 
 there two or three years and had been sick all the time, 
 etc., etc. "I am sorry." " I, too," he said, " though 
 
 you are one of those d exalted Republicans who 
 
 frequently compel us National Guards to take our 
 muskets to quell your stupid notions of Democracy," etc. 
 He was a good man enough but he was gangrened 
 
KECOLLECTIONS, 1831-37. 21 
 
 with royalism more royalist than the king ; one 
 of those philosophers of the school of the stagnants ! 
 His ideas were flowing only when he was at the head 
 of his company of the militia to hunt the Kepublicans, 
 whom, I must say, were not all saints, far from it ; but 
 brutal force is a poor way of civilizing men. Under 
 Louis Phillippe emeutes (mobs) were of daily occur- 
 rence. 
 
 All these things did not help me to cherish my 
 native country, inasmuch as I had already adopted that 
 device : " Ubi Libertas ibi patria " " Where liberty 
 dwells, there is my country ;" and that country I con- 
 templated should be the United States of North Amer- 
 ica. With all such reflections maturing in my mind, 
 I determined to move onward ; so immediately I made 
 my preparations to leave my situation, and in a few 
 weeks I was in Paris on my way to Havre. Before 
 leaving Paris I stopped with a friend for a few days, 
 during which he took me to the " Sorbonne," one of 
 the oldest universities in he world, to attend a lecture 
 on botany by the LAST of the Jussieu (Adrien de Jus- 
 sieu), a family of savants. While there I met a great 
 many young students, lawyers, physicians and other 
 philosophers in embryo, who, when they understood I 
 was going to America, flocked around me and asked 
 me, without any ceremony, if I would send them spec- 
 
22 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 imens of American plants for their herbaria. I replied 
 in the same tune, that I was just going to cross the At- 
 lantic to collect them, etc. One of them, especially, 
 clung to me, with a specimen plant the professor was 
 to lecture on, and asked me if I would tell him the 
 name ! To that question I asked him how long he had 
 been attending the lectures. He replied " two or three 
 years." " Three years ! and you do not know that 
 plant that grows on the old wall of your father's gar- 
 den ? " It was Linaria cyrabalaria, and in three years 
 he had not been able to know that plant. After the 
 lecture was over I asked rny friend if there were many 
 students of the same stamp as the one who had asked 
 me the name of a plant growing with him. " No," 
 he said, " not perhaps over two-thirds ! ! " We went off 
 making comments on the young " savants 5 ' we had 
 just left. All of them had received a college educa- 
 tion, 
 
 On the last day of July, 1837, 1 left Paris for 
 Havre, whence I sailed for New York, where I landed 
 on the 7th of September, 1837. 
 
 Then I was on free ! land with slaves not far off, 
 held in bondage by another class of philosophers, of 
 the school of the " Koman patricians," who, like 
 Brutus, who stabbed his father, Caesar, because he was 
 a tyrant, and he at the same time compelled his slaves 
 
KECOLLECTTONS, 183T. 23 
 
 to fight against wild beasts in the arenas for his distrac- 
 tion. Here allow me a short digression. I have 
 omitted above, that before landing and passing at the 
 custom house, a countryman of mine, a sort of lawyer, 
 asked me : " When the custom-house officers will ask 
 you ' what is your profession ? ' what will you answer ? " 
 " Of course I will answer that I am a gardener," I re- 
 plied. " You are a fool if you do that," said he. " Why 
 do you not say that you are a botanist f" I could not 
 help laughing, and answered him, " I suppose I am a 
 botanist as much as you are a lawyer ; probably better, 
 for I know a cabbage from a lettuce, and you you 
 do not know the difference between a lawyer and a 
 liar ! which for me are often synonymous expressions." 
 When we passed the inspector he was first. He said 
 he was a lawyer ! They laughed for a few seconds, 
 then they asked me, " Are you a lawyer too ?" " No, 
 I am a gardener." " Good ! " said one of the in- 
 spectors in French, " you have a better chance to find 
 employment than your friend." He was not my 
 friend. He tried to be, but in vain ; he got my con- 
 tempt. 
 
 I was in New York, but I had very little money. 
 As a compensation I had quantities of letters of recom- 
 mendation to people in New York, Philadelphia, Wash- 
 ington, New Orleans and Havana. In this last city I 
 
21 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 had almost the certitude of a situation as curator of a 
 botanic garden under the governorship of General 
 Tacon, but my desire to learn English made me give 
 up all the recommendations except those for New York, 
 one for Dr. Torrey and one for Mr. George Thorburn. 
 In a few days I had employment with the latter at 
 Astoria, L. I., then "Hallett's Cove." It was only a 
 year or two later that that village was named Astoria, 
 from J. Jacob Astor, who had given $10,000 for the 
 christening, etc. There I began to work my salvation, 
 material and spiritual, digging up of the ground to 
 plant trees and shrubs, and the English grammar, to 
 find the " roots of all evils." I have found some, but 
 have worn out many spades before I could rest on the 
 laurels that I have cultivated for fifty-four years. It 
 is in Astoria that I found the greatest number of the 
 cryptogamous plants which I have sent to France. It 
 was at Astoria, also, that I found the best specimen of 
 the animal kingdom's production, " a Phanerogyne ! /" 
 
 whom I have lost in 1890 That Phanerogyne was 
 
 not indigenous to Astoria, but was a British produc- 
 tion, of British and French blood. This plant I have 
 cultivated for fifty years, less a fortnight. When I 
 saw it for the first time I was somewhat puzzled, but in 
 a very short time I found I had discovered a typical 
 form of vegetation and felt wonderfully anxious to have 
 it in my herbarium. But it was not an ordinary speci- 
 
 * fpavepoS Tvvrj. Plianeros Gune. Hence Phanerogyne, 
 Phaneros manifest, visible. Gune woman, wife, etc. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1837-40. 25 
 
 men of vegetation that ono can put between two sheets 
 of paper and dry it. Nevertheless it took me over two 
 months, and a considerable number of sheets of paper 
 and ink, with all the quintessence of my rhetoric, before 
 I could press it. Many will think I knew something 
 about it before my finding. No ! nothing at all. Not 
 even its vernacular name ; and in less than two hours 
 after my discovery of this rara avis it had flown to- 
 ward the north pole, Albany. When I heard of that 
 flight I thought I had been mystified, and yet I 
 thought I had been able to read the inner nature of my 
 plant. So I had. I found it thereafter, to my jubila- 
 tion. But since Oh, Phanerogyne ! ! of half 
 
 of my life, of my soul ! once more ! adieu ! adieu 
 forever ! adieu pour tou jours ! Yale seternum !!..., 
 .... Here ends the second phase of my life. 
 
 On the 30th of October, 1840, I started for Albany, 
 following the track of my plant, my rara avis, or my 
 phanerogyne as you please. For me these three appel- 
 lations suit me. On the 3 1st of October I got fast 
 bound in the chains of marriage. Then on the same 
 day we left Albany on the steamboat, where, for the 
 beginning of my honeymoon we had to separate to 
 divorce. There were no state rooms yet. Ladies 
 stopped on the upper deck and men had to go down. 
 When, in the morning we arrived at New York, Mr. 
 
26 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 Thorburn, my employer, was waiting for us, and tak- 
 ing both of us by the hands, and in a loud thrilling 
 voice, addressed me so : " Now my dear fellow ! ! you 
 will have to stay at my house as I had proposed to you 
 when you went, and you said you would not, and would 
 go straight to Astoria. You may go if you please, but 
 your house is burned to the ground," and he laughed. 
 " It was burned before you were half way to Albany." 
 I did not believe him; I thought he was joking. 
 "Well," he said, "if you doubt, go and see it, but 
 leave your bird here at my house. She will not fly out 
 of the cage." So I started at once, and when I arrived 
 I saw a nice heap of ashes on the site of the house. 
 Everything had been burned except my bedstead, a 
 table and a few other things. My bed room stood north 
 and the fire had been set on the south with a north 
 wind, so that a carpenter who had been building a 
 greenhouse for us, and who knew I was in Albany, and 
 living close by, when going to bed saw the house on 
 fire and he ran at once for my room, broke the window, 
 for the entrance of the house was already burned, and 
 saved the few articles mentioned. The most important 
 article was a table a lucky table in which I had 
 $300 in gold in a purse. It had been thrown in a bed 
 of roses, where I found it, the legs up. At once it 
 struck me that the purse was gone, for the drawer was 
 not locked. I went to it, opened the drawer, and saw 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1840. 27 
 
 my purse with contents intact. I had had $500 in it, 
 but had taken $200 to go to be " chained." 
 
 From November 1840 until March 1842, 1 continued 
 to conduct Mr. Thorburn's business at Astoria. Then 
 we parted and I came to Albany to try my chance as a 
 florist and nurseryman. I located on the Albany and 
 Troy road, on a modest scale more than modest, i. e. 
 meagre ! Do you wish to have a slight idea of it ? 
 Well ! before the year 1842 was over every cent of the 
 five or six hundred dollars, or a little over, were gone, 
 and in nine months, from March to December, business 
 was so prosperous that during that lapse of time I re- 
 ceived $17 ! We spent at least $100 a month. Had 
 it not been for that Phanerogyne, that Egeria of mine, 
 I would have had to bundle up, to bundle off, for 
 climes more hospitable, but that diminutive (in appear- 
 ance), that rara avis, that bird of mine, saved us from 
 a complete wreck. Not only saved us, but upheld my 
 courage, and when the rose buds or buds of any descrip- 
 tion, failed to open, she supplied them with 'musical 
 notes ! Now ! you will understand my love, my devo- 
 tion, my veneration for that personified providence. 
 She never flinched ; her fortitude upheld her will ! and 
 in my eyes the exiguity of her stature transfigured her 
 as a " giantess ! ! " 
 
28 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 However, the year 1843 began under a more auspi- 
 cious sky. We had had hard times. From that day 
 we went "pianissimo" but we never retrograded. 
 Some " cryptogamic " ties held us, held us to our de- 
 termination to swim or sink together, and we did so 
 for fifty years. We swam in a lake of bliss ! ! That 
 lake had become an ocean when a cyclone rent our 
 
 blessedness ! forever . The years 1843, '44, 45' 
 
 and '46 passed off with very little progress, except in 
 the double line of propagation in the vegetable and 
 the animal kingdoms. But we had got possession of 
 a better and cheaper location, 300 or 400 yards from 
 where we were, we had purchased four acres of land, 
 built a house, etc., where we moved on the 1st of 
 April, 1847. We were proprietors (in parte) and we 
 were on the way to improvement. Plenty of elbow 
 room to apply my device " Help thyself and God will 
 help thee," and I was cheerfully willing to put the 
 theory into practice to work, work more and to pray 
 together. As I have said above, our double line of 
 propagation required more energy on my part, as my 
 helpmate could not much longer substitute musical 
 notes for the missing rose buds. I could sufficiently 
 (with elbow and brain oil) do it myself. 
 
 At that juncture a slight fever broke out among the 
 community of Albany and Troy for hardy perennial 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1842-57. 29 
 
 plants, and as I had a fair collection I did well ; for 
 three or four years, in the spring I was for a few weeks 
 busy in putting up collections of 6 or 12 or more ; also 
 a few shrubs. When that fever subsided the fever for 
 conifers, arbor vitses and Norway spruces, balsam firs, 
 etc., took its place, but with better remuneration ten 
 fold, and the fever lasted longer, and in after years I 
 had specimens of Siberian arbor vitses for my own 
 gratification that I sold for $20 each ; of smaller ones 
 I sold more than I could grow, for $2 and $2.50, in- 
 cluding planting and warranting to live ; if they did 
 not live I replaced, or no pay ! It was at that time I 
 began to hear that often silly expression : " It won't 
 pay to warrant trees to live." I have done it for 25 
 years or more and it has always paid me handsomely. 
 And yet I had to compete with parties who sold as 
 good looking trees as mine for 75 cents and $1 when I 
 asked $2 and over. I transplanted our trees every 
 other year when not every year. I followed the same 
 practice for dwarf pear trees, then so popular. I think 
 I have said somewhere that I had no faculty for learn- 
 ing arithmetic, yet I have always understood that the 
 straight line was the shortest in geometry as in com- 
 mercial transactions. 
 
 
 The above digressions have made me forget our 
 
 propagations, which were going " crescendo " in both 
 
30 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 lines. Then horticulture was progressing forward 
 not backward as I have seen in many instances on the 
 fallacious pretext that it " did not pay." Then you 
 could sell "New Holland and Cape of Good Hope plants, 
 etc., that nobody wants to-day. I think I shall do well 
 not to follow the thread of my digressions on that sub- 
 ject when the " Chrysanthomania " is at the apogee of 
 its paroxysm. Fifty years ago the camellia swayed ! 
 the horticultural world as the chrysanthemum does to- 
 day. Everything has' to undergo the vicissitudes of 
 life, " Hodie mihi, eras tibi," to-day to me to-morrow 
 to you. Among the various epidemics on plants we 
 have had in succession are the " Morus multicaulis," 
 " Chinese Yam " (Dioscorea), Fuchsia, Coleus, Pelar- 
 gonium zonale and P. inguinans, vulgo geranium 
 (horse shoe geraniums), which by the way are not 
 geraniums, notwithstanding the popularity of the 
 name adapted by the whole community. We must 
 confess that nothing has equalled the rose ! which has 
 survived and thrown into oblivion all her contempora- 
 ries. Hoses were in demand 50, 60, 100 years ago. 
 Not so much as to-day, however. Now they seem to 
 be as necessary as bread itself ! I wonder if they shall 
 ever have their decadence ? Do not be afraid. I only 
 ask the question. It is not probable that the rose will 
 
 ever be supplanted by any other flower unless 
 
 God knows! we don't! One thing I know just this 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1847-54:. 31 
 
 moment. It is that I am sketching my life ! ? I 
 hope it will be considered so ! But I can not refrain 
 from making digressions right or wrong. 
 
 "Well, I can not stop here, I must continue my 
 wandering reflections. I think we are about the year 
 1850 or 1852 ; really I forget, but one year more or 
 less will not make me one day older, even if I commit 
 some anachronism, as long as what I relate is correct, 
 and I earnestly mean to do so, or my quotation about 
 straight and " short line " would be a fiction, a blunder, 
 a falsehood. On second thought I think that what I 
 am to tell happened in 1852 (but I am not certain and 
 I have no documents to confirm my doubts), an attempt 
 to revive the New York Horticultural Society, which 
 had been founded several years before, (from what I 
 had learned from Dr. Torrey, who certainly told me 
 the year, but after more than half a century I forget) 
 by having an exhibition. Messrs. Hogg, florists at 
 Yorkville, hinted to me something about it and said, 
 " when we have it we expect your presence, you can 
 be represented. We understand you have materials 
 for." I replied jocosely, " I shall not do such things. 
 1 would be afraid of distancing you in the contest and 
 that might check the growth of our friendship." Time 
 passed away and I had forgotten the incident, when 
 one day I received a formal invitation to attend the 
 
32 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 exhibition. I did not intend to do it, but when the 
 day came, my wife No ! my Phanerogyne this 
 name suits me ; it is more sympathetic, more euphonic 
 to me. Because it is Greek and of your own coining, 
 you will say. No ! it is not that ; mother and father- 
 are not entirely Greek and yet 1 somewhat like these 
 expressions better than the equivalents of my maternal 
 tongue, mere and pere. It seems to me there is more 
 sentiment in the English my mother ! my father ! are 
 so full of euphony, of fluidity from the heart ! I hope 
 you will absolve me once more for that overstretched 
 parenthesis. It was necessary to let you know my 
 feelings! My Phanerogyne I was saying, was with 
 me when Messrs. Hogg hinted to me the possibility of 
 an exhibition and heard my jocose answer. She asked 
 me are you not going to that exhibition ? I answered 
 no, I have too much to do, besides I have nothing in 
 bloom, and no foliage plants as to-day, no palms. 
 " Well," said she, " if you do not go they will say that 
 you are a vain boaster, with your fears of distancing 
 them, etc. You ought to go. If it is only for my sake, 
 do go 1" I answered, " well I will, but without 
 plants." " But it is precisely the plants which must 
 go. They can do without you, but they want to see 
 your plants." " Well, to please you I will try." So 
 I went to look over my stock, which was not quite so 
 large as that of Messrs. Pitcher & Manda to-day. I 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1855-61. 33 
 
 had only several Ixora coccinea in bloom and one Eu- 
 phorbia splendens. I forget what were the other 
 plants. I wanted six. I took twolxoras if not three. 
 At that time I had never seen an exhibition, but I was 
 reading the Gardeners' Chronicle and I knew the 
 theory of the arrangements for exhibitions, and my two 
 or three Ixoras forbade me of being disqualified from 
 competition. I knew that the plants were to be dis- 
 similar. However, I took the first prize for 6 plants 
 the prize of honor notwithstanding the duplicate 
 ixoras, but they were fine and had never been seen in 
 New York. So I at once became a hero ! Not one of 
 Homer's heroes, though I drank water with my wine as 
 they did ; that was my only affinity with them. 
 
 That exhibition was, according to what I heard at 
 the time, the most remunerative, they ever had in New 
 York ; but the receiver or treasurer forgot to give up 
 the money received and ran away. And that u Dutch- 
 man from Albany," as I heard some people designat- 
 ing me, came back home covered with platonic laurels ! 
 
 But then, I could fan myself with I won't tell. 
 
 If you are sagacious, as I suppose you are, you may 
 guess at it. 
 
 As a bisextile year I am going to leap over to Feb- 
 ruary 14, 1854, to receive a communication from a 
 committee of gentlemen, lovers of horticulture, of 
 
34: AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 Brooklyn, asking me to let them have a copy of the 
 by-laws of our horticultural society of Albany, and 
 soliciting also my co-operation toward organizing or 
 reviving their horticultural society. The New York 
 Horticultural Society was then in a state of catalepsy ', 
 that with time became a chronic disease, with intermis- 
 sions of a quasi life, just enough to show it was not dead. 
 I with enthusiasm sent them the documents wanted and 
 the promise of my co-operation as far as I could, and as 
 I was wont to, I made the remark that I wished them 
 success, that they had materials for but that they must 
 try to control the " element-gardener " and prevent 
 them from predominating their position, not let them 
 transgress, trespass its limits. I then thought of a fair 
 exhibition that took place in 1840, in Brooklyn, which 
 never had an echo until May, 1854. From that year 
 until 1861 all the exhibitions two or three every 
 year were successful, partly thanks to the president, 
 Mr. Degraw, a very liberal man, ready to put his hand 
 in his pocket when the funds were short. It was at 
 those exhibitions in Brooklyn that were seen the hand- 
 somest specimens of New Holland and Cape of Good 
 Hope plants ever exhibited in America, besides many 
 other plants such as Ixoras coccinea, javanica, Colei 
 (white),' etc., etc. I do not remember all, except some 
 fine plants, much appreciated then, that would make 
 people laugh to-day, not because they were inferior, 
 
KECOLLECTIONS, 1855-61. 35 
 
 but because they were old ! As far as I can remember 
 I attended most, if not all, of those exhibitions from 
 1854 to 1861, when the secession war put an end to 
 the society's life. It expired in the Academy of Music 
 of Brooklyn. I have said that the breaking out of the 
 war put an end to it; but even if it had not, there 
 would have been a catastrophe. The "element" 
 alluded to had transgressed, trespassed over the limits 
 of sound judgment. First by passing a resolution that 
 " foreign exhibitors " should not have the freight of 
 their exhibits paid, even if the freight should cost more 
 than all the prize money they might receive. Now, do 
 you understand who were those foreign exhibitors? 
 You do not ! Well, those foreign intruders were your 
 correspondent, the "sketcher" of the above bitter- 
 sweet digressions, etc. Secundo : that fifth element 
 had decided sub-rosa not to award any first premiums 
 to that Albany intruder who durst accept money to 
 pay his freight, a mere trifle of $35 or $45 or more at 
 every exhibition. One point to their credit, they did 
 not deny me the right to vote at the presidential elec- 
 tion. You may possibly wish to know who gave me 
 such information. Simply the president of the society 
 and its other officers, who had warned me not to mind 
 the " elements quaking," that every thing should remain 
 in the " statu quo " as before. 
 
36 ATJTOBIOGKAPHY AND 
 
 From that time the community at large seemed more 
 inclined to win laurels than to cultivate them and I 
 think they were right in that occurrence. The abolition 
 of slavery was more glorious than all the exhibitions put 
 together. " That Holy War ! " " Cette Guerre Sainte " 
 u Hoc Belluin Sanctum ! " which has elevated the 
 supremacy of the Anglo-American race, Americano- 
 Yankee progeny ! ' ' This last appellation suits me bet- 
 ter ; in it I feel the pulsation of the shaking of the hand 
 of our Uncle Sam ! sez he ! ! The supremacy of that 
 sublime monotype nation ! I say monotype emphatically 
 for which other nation on the whole surface of the 
 globe after the victory of the federal armies over the 
 old prejudices would have used such clemency, behaved 
 so generously with the vanquished ? ? \ None ! Unless 
 that magnanimous? Russia that would have done 
 something that 'Yankees ! would not have done, to- 
 wit: hang half of the vanquished and send the other in 
 Siberia for life 
 
 That war which has elevated the supremacy, the 
 glory of the grandest Republic in the world to the 
 highest altitude ; exalted the bravery of that improvised 
 army ! ! that many pygmies ! mentally speaking, said 
 was fond of playing "soldiers" Indeed ! they were 
 fond of playing, so fond of it that in 1865 our Uncle 
 Sam ! to make them give up the idea of continuing 
 
KECOLLECTIONS, 1855-61. 37 
 
 the play with that "Scoundrel III, Third," had to 
 intimate to the French army in Mexico to evacuate that 
 country, that the soil the spot was too hot for their 
 comfort, and that the sooner they would leave the better. 
 He (our uncle) was not obliged to re-intimate the hint; 
 it was readily understood, as by intuition and complied 
 with double quick alacrity 
 
 My commentaries on the resolutions of the "fifth 
 
 element " and on the war, have distracted me 
 
 from my subject the Exhibition. I do not remember 
 well, but I think it was inferior to previous ones. The 
 most attractive, strikingly so, was a lot of Coleus Ver- 
 schaffettii, exhibited for the first time, by Mr. I do 
 not know the initials Townsend of Brooklyn. The 
 plants were well grown ! and their brilliancy was daz- 
 zling, at least they produced that effect on me. As 
 I drew near them I took off my hat out of admiration 
 and sighed deeply with eager desire to get some of them, 
 or at least some cuttings. I did not know the owner or 
 else I would have introduced myself to him as a "pro- 
 fessor of cutting " and ready to give him a demonstra- 
 tion of my skill in vegetable anatomy, but he was not 
 in the Hall and I never saw him. And yet I got the 
 cuttings on the same day ! How ? you will know soon. 
 Having seen all I wanted to see I left the Exhibition 
 
 room, I mean the Academy of Music, that I had seen 
 4 
 
38 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 for the first time and the last. Then I went to New 
 York, to see the secretary of our Horticultural Society 
 to get some information. I was hardly in his office 
 when I saw a branch of our Coleus ! before I saw him, 
 standing in a glass of water on his desk. I went to 
 the desk took the glass in my hand and presenting it to 
 him I asked him where he took it, or hooked it perhaps I 
 forget. He answered me that I was very prompt in judg- 
 ing others with my own feelings .... but he said: I sup- 
 pose that you would not dislike a portion of it even if 
 stolen ? I answered in the affirmative, he took the branch 
 and cut me one or two joints ! Now, do you realize 
 how I felt when I held a section of that coveted plant 
 in my hand ? I confess that I forgot for a moment my 
 disappointment of that trinity of deceptions that 
 weighed on my heart when I left Brooklyn. The 
 transgressions of the " element " in having passed that 
 resolution on Foreign exhibitors the determination not 
 to award me any first premium, deserved or not, and 
 not expecting to get my Coleus cuttings, that I got with- 
 out cutting my fingers ! That Coleus was one of the 
 best weed that I ever had. A weed ! Will you say ? 
 "Well, this qualifying adjective is not my own coming, 
 it belongs to our old friend Mr. Wm. Grey of Albany 
 who described it " a fine ornamental nettle " (Urtica 
 urens) a lad weed in Europe, any how ! I have felt 
 its malignity on some part of my individual 
 
BECOLLECTIONS, 1855-61. 39 
 
 long before I studied Cryptogamy. At the time I got 
 it, it proved to be 6ne of the best " root of all evils " 
 this "root plant" suggests me more of this same 
 quality, but more weedy "a variegated weed" as 
 would say our friend above. It is "JEgopodium 
 podarasia" goutwort, in English, a plant growing 
 as freely everywhere as quack or couch-grass (Triticum 
 repens), it is eminently a root of all evils but it pro- 
 duces both abundance of roots and some money, which 
 to my knowledge "pays letter " than Coleus to-day and 
 gives less trouble, but I think I have said enough if not 
 too much, so I shut the valve. . . .and what next ? I 
 hardly know, for I have been led astray, wandering 
 hither and thither without I might say having the 
 conscience of what I was about. I have when on the 
 ground of the Brooklyn Hort. Society forgotten a few 
 incidents, that probably I shall never have occasion to 
 relate unless I do it now. That year 1854, was an event- 
 ful remarkable year. First, it was the advent or re- 
 viving of the Brooklyn Hort. Soc'y, which Society 
 shined for seven years, except a very few cloudy days. 
 It was the First year we saw a travelling agent from 
 a European Horticultural establishment on this Con- 
 tinent, at least to my knowledge. It was the year of 
 the Crimean War and not a Holy war but the reverse. 
 I say not Holy, perhaps because it somewhat Kurt my 
 purse^ a sensitive thing with every body. It was the 
 
40 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 first year I began to import plants (directly) from 
 Messrs. Low of the Clapton Nurseriers, the founder of 
 the establishment, his son, who died lately, was the 
 same man who came hither in 1854 and who came to 
 see me here in Albany, with Mr. Edgard Sander, now 
 a resident of Chicago, this Mr. Low who, when he 
 saw me at 15 or 18 yards distant, hallooed me : Are 
 you Mr. Menand? Yes, I answered, when he said 
 again : Mr. Menand ! the fellow who sold in Brooklyn 
 last May an Ixora coccinea, 4, four pounds, $20. 
 "When he spoke these words we shook hands. Well, 
 by God! or something equivalent, you are a lucky 
 fellow or man to sell a plant $20 ! We would be glad 
 to sell all our stock Ixora for that amount. I would like 
 to see those four pound plants. We were within 3 or 4 
 yards of them, they were in hot bed frames behind us. 
 I opened the sashes and showed them to him. I had 
 perhaps 6 or 8 dozen of different sizes when he turned 
 round and said : If our plants were as good as these 
 we would not sell the stock for 4 pounds. I answered 
 him that I believed him, and we continued to talk of 
 something else of giving him an order for some 
 plants, this was the main object of his visit. Then we 
 began to argue about the identity of an Enca^ he gave 
 it a name different from the one I had. He said my 
 name was incorrect. Then I told him you have cheated 
 me for it comes from your establishment. He said 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1855-61. 41 
 
 it did not. I said again it did. I found after that 
 he was right, but what makes me mention that cir- 
 cumstance it is not the name, but the fact that that 
 plant was dead, and none of us noticed it, and yet 
 Mr. Low was a competent judge in that matter. 
 When he and his friend left me I went with them 
 to Albany, always thinking of my plant (Ericas at 
 that time were my hobby), that it had a green look, 
 ing appearance but could not realize that it was dead. 
 As soon as I got home I went to see it with a candle 
 it was night but could not see any indication of its 
 beinsr dead no more than four or five hours before. 
 
 O 
 
 As soon as day light came I went again, then I did 
 not want spectacles to see it was gone ad patres 
 gone to heaven dead. Since that I have seen many 
 such examples. I once sold one that I knew was 
 dead, but the man had selected it among a few of 
 the same kind. That man was a gardener. I sent 
 him that plant with another alive. He got them 
 the same day I sent them, and the day following he 
 wrote me I had made a mistake, that he wanted only 
 one. He soon found out he was mistaken not I. 
 Once I sold a Cereus senilis in the same circumstance 
 and the party who got them told me the dead one was 
 the best looking of the two . That man was our friend 
 Mr. Wm. Grey ! ! So this long spun story shows you 
 that gardeners are as infallible as the Pope that is to 
 
42 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 say know as much as he does, this I call " Equality in 
 face of the Reason. 
 
 Now that I am stuck in the ruts of prolixity let me 
 continue a little longer about the events that took place 
 in the year 1854. A. few days after Mr. Low was gone 
 as I had promised him I sent him an order mostly 
 Ericas and a few other plants ; the whole not to ex- 
 exceed $70 or $75. In Sept. or October I received a 
 box containing the plants ordered, at least I think so, 
 but I guessed ! When I had opened the box I found 
 that iheplantSj the pots they were in, the soil, the whole 
 was like if having been ground by a mill stone. So 
 that one could have snuffed the whole like snuff 
 (tobacco) and strange I saved two plants, one Funkia 
 grandiflora that proved to be Funkia alba a plant I 
 had in quantity, and one Genista prostrata, a British 
 plant; one was worth 6 pence British, the other one 
 shilling that is all I had for $70 or $75 and six or seven 
 dollars for freight was not that coining ! ! I wrote 
 Messrs. Low and told them the condition of the plant 
 and added if you feel as I do when spring comes send 
 me again the same lot as you had and charge me only 
 half the price agreed ; they did and when the plants 
 came I had about for 6 or 8 dollars worth alive. They 
 gave me the particulars of the shipping in Liverpool. 
 All available (steamers) had been chartered by the 
 
KECOLLECTIONS, 1855-61. 43 
 
 government to send ammunition, troops and all kinds 
 of supplies to Sebastapol ; that they only found a small 
 steamer overloaded that would take my box and to have 
 it stowed near the engine-room that which accounts for 
 the snuff I got and that which also explains you my 
 "purse hurt'* by the Crimean War. Now, will all 
 this long rigmarole story or stories pay you for the 
 candles you will burn for reading them, if you say yes ! 
 I will be satisfied, but I have not done with the transac- 
 tion, although I did not give it up, for, from that time I 
 began to import from France, Belgium, England ; I had 
 awful bad luck, still I persisted. Some plants I imported 
 three times before I could get one alive ; of Latania 
 rubra, Phwnicophorium Scchellarum, Pandamus re- 
 nexus, I think I spent $100 before I could get any alive. 
 Pandamus reflexus was the worst but when I had it I did 
 well with it, because I could propagate it, but the Palms 
 I could not, so when I sold them I had to ask a large 
 price what made some of my friends of the element say : 
 that I charged awful prices ; it may have been so, but if 
 to-day I had nothing to live but what I realized on those 
 plants I could not have one meal every day. I could not 
 very well tell how I have made what we have, nothing 
 in particular ; but on many I always kept a little of every 
 thing in the line of horticulture, so I could supply al- 
 most any thing wanted during the Secession War. It 
 was the Golden Age in every way making money, 
 
44: AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 and emancipating one portion of human kind / / .... 
 when came the " Genesis " of greenbacks that some 
 wiseacres predicted would be good for nothing. 
 Many believed it. At that time I had to pay a 
 man $2,000; I did pay with those green gems, he 
 took some in his fingers and waging them he said : 
 They are not good for that designing a fillip with 
 his thumb but I must take them as if they were 
 gold. At that time a man of Chicago came one day 
 here in our residence and asked me with a very few 
 words of introduction : Are you Mr. Menand ? I 
 
 answered him I was. Well, he said, I am Mr. 
 
 Thompson, the man who wrote you lately to get a col- 
 lection of Azaleas. Have you not received my letter ? 
 Yes, sir, I have and here are the plants and the boxes 
 ready to pack them, but I would not send them with- 
 out letting you know the price of them and a short de- 
 scription of the dimensions of the plants. I have writ- 
 ten you to that effect. O ! he exclaimed, it was of no 
 use. I knew your plants. I had seen them before at the 
 Brooklyn Exhibition. It is all right but do not send 
 them until I come back from New York, whither I am 
 going to buy some plants for that ! and he showed 
 1,000 green-horns, if you please, for they were allnew- 
 ~borns. Then I told him in assuming a becoming at- 
 titude Well, Sir ! you are just the man I wanted to see, 
 and these 1,000 dollars will suit me better than a 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1862-65. 45 
 
 pair of kid gloves on my hands. O ! but I am not 
 going to give you all that ; I wish to keep some 
 for what I may buy in New York. Well before I 
 go to New York I want to see what you have, in 
 order that I should not buy inferior plants. Well, sir, 
 we will show you the whole of our " elephant " that I 
 have trained since I was able to understand that three 
 are not a unit no more than 2 and 2 make three, but 
 four 4. I will show you all we have, because when 
 you come back from the Imperial City you will buy 
 more, so as to let me have those 1,000 pictures to 
 adorn my office or bed room, where I brew my horti- 
 cultural notions and others .... He passed the remark 
 how do you know that I will buy more ? I know it, 
 if you speak earnestly that you want so and so be- 
 cause you will not find them there better than I have 
 and no cheaper. I do not care about cheaper I want 
 the lest f All right, sir, we agree ; it is understood 
 you come again of course I must, to give you some 
 instructions about shipping, etc. Yes ! and buy more 
 plants to absorb the balance of these $1,000 that I am 
 so eager to add to the list of my new plants. . . .He 
 did come and gave me upward of 900 dollars and be- 
 sides an order for some officinal plants, such as Laurus 
 camphora, Caryophyllus aromaticus, etc., but he never 
 had them. I heard that not long after our transaction 
 he gave up the plants or the green pictures left him 
 
46 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 divorced from him. Is not the quotation " Hodie to 
 me, Cras tibi " true ? To-day to me, to-morrow to me. 
 Some time after that, another citizen of Chicago 
 came to see me on a certain Sunday morning and asked 
 me if I allowed people visiting our establishment on 
 Sabbath Day ? I told him I did, and to convince him 
 of my sincerity I told him 
 
 " If you have never done any more harm 
 Than to visit a friend, a garden, or a farm, 
 On a Sunday, or any other holy day, 
 You are sure to go to heaven straightaway." 
 
 It was early in the morning I was going to breakfast and 
 offered him to come with me. He said he had had his 
 breakfast at his Hotel in Albany (Delavan House) 
 where he had to stay until 10 or 11 o'clock at night to 
 go to Chicago, and it was for that reason he broke the 
 Sabbath, and that he wanted to have something to do 
 to kill the time. On this "deliberate utterance" I 
 made him the observation that he was an awful man 
 to "break the days and kill the time. "Well, he said, 
 in talking, in doing so I do not think I do any more 
 harm than many who pray the whole day. I am a 
 sort of an Artist, I do admire nature and if you will as 
 you said, allow me to stay looking round the whole day, 
 I will be much obliged, for I see that you have enough 
 to see to keep me busy until dark. Please go to break- 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1862-65. 4:7 
 
 fast. I will walk through your ground and greenhouses 
 and I shall not break any thing nor kill any body. 
 Well, sir, do as you please, I shall not be long. In 
 fact I was not long when one has a temper as mine 
 and he meets such an Artistic philosopher he does not 
 miss the opportunity to take lessons of " wisdom " that 
 pay better than praying the " Supreme being" to have 
 rain when it is dry or dry when it rains too much. 
 Praying God to change the laws of nature ! ! as well as 
 to say " he made a mistake ' ' when he made them ! ! 1 
 .... I say pray God with your heart and not with 
 your lips only. He remained the whole day. I had 
 some visitors who evidently had been brought up to the 
 same school as the artist and your pseudo-shetcher. 
 Certain we had what you call often, platonically a 
 good time, but we had it practically so, abstraction 
 made, that we had hardly any thing to eat. 
 
 On Saturday, the day before, we had got short of 
 bread and we forgot to get some, so on Sunday morn- 
 ing I went in Albany to get some at the Baker or 
 rather the " Bakress ! ! " She would not sell me any, 
 but she began to give me some blessings in verba 
 canina. I dare not to tell you in English all the flow 
 of her rhetoric, for I was far off that she was still de- 
 claiming, when our horses got afraid of the noise, 
 started, not expecting any oats from such unhospitable 
 
48 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 inn. Nevertheless we enjoyed. We had some crackers 
 and cheese and wine and " Tom and Jerry " ad libitum, 
 for when we had all our crackers eaten we ate or 
 rather we cracked jokes.. It was not so indigestible, 
 besides we made up in fluid what we were short of in 
 food. After dark we broke the meeting and parted. 
 Our artist left me some specimens of his art in the 
 shape of 200 dollars. I have always been sorry since 
 not to have seen him again, and 
 
 " If lie is dead, I hope lie is gone to heaven Artistically 
 As I hope when I die to go thither horticulturally." 
 
 There is pleasure in meeting genial men with whom 
 you can exchange your ideas without "bruising any one's 
 feelings, like our shrew ! above had done to me about 
 bread. 
 
 Here a Retrospective thought strikes my mind that 
 somewhere in my lucubrations I have spoken of Crypto- 
 gamy and Cryptogamic studies, but that I have not 
 given the definitions of my ideas in reference to their 
 doiible meaning. Cryptogamia ! indeed ! they were (Hid- 
 den). I have meant to say that by Cryptogamic studies 
 I wanted to study plants deprived of sexual organs, 
 not visible to the naked eye ; and also the study of the 
 " human heart" Study a thousand times more diffi- 
 cult than to study and analyze the most microscopic, 
 impalpable, embryonic " Mucidinse " (Meldew family) 
 
KECOLLECTIONS, 1862-65. 49 
 
 for there are 75 years I began to try that or those 
 studies, and so far, to-day, I hardly know a few letters 
 of its alphabet (of the later, human heart). 
 
 As I am narrating retrospective anecdotes, I may as 
 well continue, inasmuch as they all have some relation 
 to horticultural incidents, or to the horticulturist him- 
 self. 
 
 At one of the Brooklyn horticultural exhibitions I 
 had some Ericas (Heaths). A gentleman of New 
 York, then the king of sugar dealers (I admit kings in 
 commercial affairs and intellectual notions ; beyond that 
 none), saw them and inquired for me, to know if they 
 were for sale. I was out of the city that day, as I al- 
 most always did, when the judges awarded the premi- 
 ums ; not finding me he went for the president of the 
 society, and asked him if those " Scotch Heaths " were 
 for sale. He answered him he thought that I might 
 be in want of the amount of their value in money, but 
 that I might also prefer to keep them ! Well, he said, 
 I understand that, but tell him that I want them and I 
 will pay what he will ask me. At the close of the ex- 
 hibition I took them to him ; the moment he saw me 
 he took my hand with both of his, and very sympa- 
 thetically said, yon must be a Scotchman, to grow such 
 plants "Scotch Heaths." I told him they were no 
 more Scotch heaths than I was a Scotchman. Well, 
 5 
 
50 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 he said, it does not matter, they suit me and will take 
 the whole of them. How much do you want and what 
 money, gold or bank bills ? As you please. He paid me 
 in gold. Then asked me if I had any children ? Yes, 
 sir ; I have a fair collection of both sexes, and in pairs ; 
 four boys and four girls. Do you want to buy some 
 (he had none) ? They are not for sale. No, he said ; 
 / have ~been wishing some but I did not want to l>uy 
 them. The reason I ask you is, that children are as 
 fond of candies as we are fond of Heaths. So he 
 called one of the young ladies attending the retail 
 store to give me three or four pounds of the best can- 
 dies. Then he shook my hand, telling me, Mr. Menand, 
 when you get some more of such plants as you have 
 brought me I will take them. I have never sent him 
 any, but the same year or maybe the year after, he and 
 his wife came to Albany to see the State Fair. It was- 
 very warm and he could not find anything fit for him 
 to drink on the Fair ground, when he remembered that 
 I was living on the Troy and Albany road, he inquired 
 and he found that I lived close by, so they came. He 
 no sooner saw me that he said, " we are perishing for 
 want of a drink ; can't you give us some, a Frenchman 
 must have claret ; have you not got any ? Yes, I have ; 
 but it is not Scotch Wine ! He laughed and said, no- 
 matter, it will do ; so I took them in the house and 
 went for a bottle of Burgundy or Bordeaux wine, I for- 
 
RECOLLEQTIONS, 1862-65. 51 
 
 get, he took the bottle and filled up a quart of his 
 glass and degusted it " en connoisseur," and told me 
 it is very good, but mine I have home is better ! it is 
 older ! I felt like telling him, as I heard once a French 
 priest telling a man who had brought hime some fowls 
 from a friend. He, the priest, had given that man a 
 bottle of wine and something to eat, as it is the custom 
 in the country. When he had taken a glass or two of 
 that wine, the priest asked him, how do you like my 
 wine ? The fellow seemed to me as if he knew some- 
 thing about wine, or at least he had pretensions. He 
 said, " Monsieur Le Cure," it is very good, but if it 
 was one year older, it would be much better ; it was 
 good wine, but the fellow wanted to show his knowl- 
 edge of wines, but the priest got so much vexed of that 
 man's impudence that he took the bottle, corked it 
 again, and said to that churl, holding the bottle under 
 his nose, you will coine next year, it shall be better 
 now ! go home. I did not do like the priest, but I told 
 him the story ; he and his wife laughed heartily. That 
 man and his wife were well-bred people, and when he told 
 me his wine was better, because he had paid $30 per 
 case, and mine only cost me about fifty cents a bottle. I 
 bought mine by the cask of sixty gallons ; then I asked 
 him if he found his wine $2 a bottle better than mine ; 
 his wife said cur's is not fifty cents better, the differ- 
 ence was in the social standing of that gentleman, he 
 
52 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 was a millionaire, and I was wise for want of money . . 
 He told me, I suppose that wine and you come from 
 the same locality. Yes, sir ! and I am trying to im- 
 prove myself by old age as wine does. It is an old 
 proverb, or aphorism of our ancestors, the " Gaulois " 
 that 
 
 " Good old wine and young women 
 Give you the illusion of going to Heaven." 
 
 Now that I have told you more or less edifying 
 stories no ! stories but histories (authentic) I may have 
 committed some chronological errors or expressed my- 
 self with too much enthusiasm, but all I have said is- 
 truer than what is often termed " Sacred History." 
 
 Just this moment I think of the history of a plant 
 of great intrinsic value, as far as mere money is con- 
 cerned, but also for the gratification it gives, by its 
 frequency in blooming several times through the whole 
 year, Summer and Winter. 
 
 This plant is Yanda tricolor variety and tricolor 
 " Corningina n dedicated by his friends to Mr. Erastus 
 Corning, President of " Albany Orchid Club " Orchid 
 Club ! I have never heard of such an Association ! 
 It may be so, nevertheless it has existed and gloriously 
 for many years and some of its members are still alive 
 and ready to vindicate and praise its doings, collectively y 
 
KECOLLECTIONS, 1865-70. 53 
 
 * 
 
 not individually, it is not here the place to scrutinize 
 the private life of any body. We leave that to the 
 "Judge of the Supreme Court above our heads!" 
 .... We probably shall have occasion to make digres- 
 sion on that Olnb and the Cltibbists so let us return 
 to our Yanda. Here I am somewhat at a loss how to 
 begin the biography of our plant and not make too 
 many errors in delineating the character of the in- 
 cidents connected with it. I will try to do my best ; 
 the subject is worthy of attention. As far as I can 
 recollect I imported the plant before the Secession War, 
 for there was no duty on plants at that time. It was 
 imported sometime between 1857 or 1859 about. It 
 was a small plant 3 or 4 leaves for which I had paid 
 $15 or $20. I had it perhaps two years, when Mr. E. 
 Corning (a great lover of plants and flowers, since I 
 knew him (1843) he was a boy then, and I had seen 
 more than one-third of my career) came with two genial 
 friends evidently, at first sight, after a good dinner ! 
 and of course with the usual irrigations of liquid in 
 such circumstances. He jumped out of his carriage 
 and came to me with a florid, lively countenance and 
 told me how are you Mr. Men and, and how are the 
 new plants doing ? and pointing out a small greenhouse 
 against our dwelling house said : You always keep 
 some good things in that hole ! It was and is still a 
 small place hardly high enough for a man with a stove 
 
54 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 pipe hat. Can I go in ? yes you can ; he was hardly 
 in when he noticed our Vanda, though he did not know 
 then a Yanda from a Dendrobium. Is not that an Or- 
 chid ? I told him it was. Have we got it ? I do not know; 
 you ought to. No! but you know better than I do 
 what we have, for we get almost every thing from you; 
 how much is it worth ? I d id not believe he wanted to 
 buy any thing any more than I wanted to drown my- 
 self, so I told him I suppose that to-day you could buy 
 one in London for about what I paid, $15 or 20. Well, 
 he said I will take it ; very well ! but I do not want to 
 sell it. I have only this one ; I keep it. By J . . . . or 
 some other expression, I ask you how much it is worth; 
 I give you the maximum price, $20, and you say you 
 do not want to let me have it. It is mine ; so saying 
 he put his hand in his vest pocket to pay me, but he 
 had no money. When I saw him in that mood I thought 
 it was no use arguing, and I told him you will pay me 
 with a few other items you owe me. No ! I want to 
 pay it right away, so he called one of his two friends 
 and said J. B. C. lend me $20. What ! he answered, 
 you must have a good reputation for solvability if yon 
 cannot be trusted for such an amount. He will trust 
 me, but I see that if I do not pay him he will not send 
 me the plant ; he was right ; when I found he had no 
 money I made up my mind at once that I would not 
 send the plant, thinking after he would be gone he 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1865-70. 55 
 
 would forget it, but he insisted to pay ; he read in my 
 face as I read in his mind, but he had the advantage 
 over me, so he asked his friend again for $20 ; the 
 friend told him from outside, for he was out and we 
 were inside : Erastus ! you know me well enough ; I 
 never lend money to any body without knowing what 
 use he is going to do with the money. By .... I have 
 told you already to pay for that plant. What plant > 
 I want to see it ; he walked in, looked at the plant for 
 one second and went out backward, so that he knocked 
 his head against the top of the door, turned round, 
 picked up his hat, took his cigar out of his mouth and 
 assuming a theatrical attitude, as an actor acting the 
 part of Hamlet when going to recite the monologue : 
 To be or not to be ! and said by ....!! 25 dollars for 
 a plant ! ! do you know that with $25 we could, the three 
 of us, get completely .... intoxicated with Lord Byrorfs 
 Intoxication (in a measure). As Lord Byron's intoxi- 
 cation is, " par excellence," the triplicate effusion of 
 the heart, of the soul, and of the most sensitive part of 
 the human intellect ! A Trinity of thing celestial, an 
 union of bliss ! " E pluribus unum spiritual^. ! " 
 
 After that tirade I was going to tell him, you are 
 right enough and you cannot improve your condition ; 
 but I kept my tongue and I began to reconsider my 
 visitors. The senior of the trio had been, during all 
 
56 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 the time of our transaction, walking to and from, but 
 always keeping at a distance from us. He was a very 
 eminent man, by his individuality, being connected 
 with the Hudson River R. R. and IS". Y. Central R. 
 Road, and besides a member of congress ; so he had to 
 take care of himself, and he did. It was plain to me 
 that his two young copartners tried to get him out of 
 his centre of gravity ! but so far had failed ; for I 
 have never known how they reached Albany, but I had 
 good reasons to think when they got in the city our dis- 
 ciple of Aristotle did not continue his exercise of peri- 
 patetic in walking in the streets of Albany, as the fol- 
 lowers of Aristotle did, in the Lyceum ot Athens. I 
 learned the day after that Mr. Corning had been to his 
 farm at Kenwood to see Mr. Grey, his gardener, and 
 let him know that he had stuck the Frenchman in buy- 
 ing a plant that he would not sell, etc. When our 
 friend Grey came, after he had shaken my hand, he 
 asked me if it was true, that I had sold my unique 
 Yanda to Mr. Corning, for $20 or $25 ; for I am not 
 sure. I have said somewhere that I could never learn 
 arithmetic, and it would be no wonder if I have con- 
 founded three or four for four and five. Grey told me, 
 you must have been out of your mind or drunk 
 when you made such a silly bargain, for a few 
 months before I had offered you $40 for it, and as much 
 for an ^Erides crispa majus, and you would not sell 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1865-70. 57 
 
 them to me. Now, said Grey, so that you cannot re- 
 pair the blunder you have done, send ns that ^Erides 
 for $40, and $20 you have had for the Vanda, will 
 make your loss lighter. Mr. Corning has told ine, as 
 soon as that plant produces an offset we will give it to 
 you. And, mind ; nobody at that time knew what it 
 would be until it bloom. Now, if I was asked how 
 long it was before it bloom, I could not tell to save my 
 life. From the time the plant left me until 1880, all 
 is confusion in my mind. All I know is what our 
 friend Grey has told me, that they gave me a plant ; 
 but when, I can't tell. But it must be, because in 
 1873 I sold a plant to Mr. K S. Rand, who is now at 
 Para, Brazil, but who lived in Boston then ; and I sold 
 that plant without knowing it was Yanda Corn- 
 ingiana ! ! You sold a plant without knowing what 
 it was? Yes! Well, it is carrying the jokes a little 
 too far. It seems so ; I admit it. It will be a little 
 lengthy to explain, but I cannot avoid explanation, or 
 else everybody would call me an idiot, if nothing else. 
 In 1873 Mr. Rand bought a Yanda snarls. He picked, 
 selected it himself, among a few plants. I had the 
 plant in the shed to be packed, with all the other ones 
 he had selected, orchids and other plants, when my 
 wife came and looked at them, especially to the Vanda 
 he had selected, and told me, you are not going to send 
 that to Mr. Rand ? It is a mean looking plant. It 
 
58 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 was not bad, but when compared with the other Yandas 
 I had, it did not look well. Why do you not give him 
 one of those good looking 1 I would. I have offered 
 him one, but he would not have it ; they are Y. tri- 
 color, and he wants Y. suaris Veitchii, which were 
 and are all tri-color ! ! in varieties with different ad- 
 jectives, as Messrs. Yeitch have demonstrated in their 
 admirable ! ! Manual of Orchidaeous Plants. My 
 wife said so much about that mean plant to be changed 
 for one of the other good looking, that I did it, but I 
 felt I was doing wrong, although it was my conviction 
 then, as to-day, that all these Vandas were all tri-color, 
 strictly, botanically speaking. Four years later we 
 found that plant to be Y. tri-color Corningiana, and 
 not thought much more than the other varieties. We 
 had not had time to appreciate it, at least 7, who ought 
 to have known as much as anybody else, except Grey, 
 and as I have said, I have not begun to appreciate it 
 before 1880, as far as I can recollect. When I had a 
 splendid plant, perhaps two and one-half or three feet 
 high, with three shoots starting at the base of that 
 plant, the only one I had ; it was in bloom ; when one 
 of our neighbors, a newly sprung orchidophile, who 
 had caught the orchid fever to exacerbation, to the par- 
 oxism ! asked me if I would sell it to him. I said that 
 I would not sell it until I had separated the young ones ; 
 he asked me again how long it would be ; I told him I 
 
EECOL LECTIONS, 1865-70. 59 
 
 could not say exactly, but as soon as they would break 
 root he could have the plant for $100. It was agreed, 
 but he was so impatient to get it that two or three 
 times a week he was after me to know when I would 
 send it to him. A few days later he came again, when 
 I just cut two of the three ; then he said, I hope you 
 will send it to me to-day. No ! there is one more to 
 cut ; in a few days you will have it. He went grum- 
 bling that I wanted the money and keep the plant. 
 I did not hear him, but my phanerogyne (wife) 
 heard him, and when he was gone she told me, you 
 have better send it to him; he is like a child. I 
 know he is like a child, yet, I can not to keep him 
 from crying give that offset which is worth at least $25> 
 and more. Well, she said, he is a good fellow, a good 
 customer, he always pays you what you ask him; you can 
 afford to let him have it as it is, and she used a rather 
 homely expression, but at the same time very ex- 
 pressive incisive. She said, you " you may give 
 him the young calf, you have charged him enough for 
 the cow" You will soon see that I had not charged too 
 much for the cow, and to give the calf into the bar- 
 gain ; in less than two or three weeks he sold the CALF 
 for $50 to a Florist in Albany, who, two weeks later 
 sold it to Mrs. Morgan of New York, for $100. One 
 year later the man who had bought my cow plant, sold 
 it by auction in New York for $225, to the same man 
 
60 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 who had bought the calf, and he sold it again to the 
 same lady, Mrs. Morgan, for $300. In less than one 
 year, or two, I don't know exactly, I sold the two calves 
 
 first weaned, to a Drover of Orchids in Troy, for 
 
 $225, and at that price because he was my friend, and 
 he is so yet, in 1892 .... I have an idea that some will 
 whisper in each other's ear ; that " Albany Dutchman 
 must be an awful boaster with his rigmaroles ! I accept 
 the expressions, Albany Dutchman and rigmaroles, but 
 not boaster. I am not a boaster, unless you understand 
 by boaster, a man who tells the truth without meta- 
 phor circumlocution, then I am a boaster, and proud 
 of it 
 
 " Now yon may possibly ask yourself if that over- 
 stretched history of a plant will close the dams of my 
 overflowing vein ? I would do it at once if I thought 
 you were tired of trampling in thickset of obscure, and 
 often unmeaning digression s. ... but my vanity 
 prompts me to go on, for I have not yet exhausted my 
 stock. After this, another. 
 
 Don't you say in English, " the more the merrier ? " 
 Well then, you can not complain if I understand a lit- 
 tle of the genius of your mother tongue, and try to 
 apply it, that is my way of learning abstruse philoso- 
 phy, and the English into the bargain. Some day 
 when I have leisure, and if I do not slip off from that 
 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1865-70. 61 
 
 slippery, steep slope we call life, I will ask you some 
 questions of English language that I have not been able 
 to learn to my satisfaction, in half a century. For the 
 present I will make some reflexions on what I can say 
 that will relieve your "Ennui " to hear always the same 
 song. What could I say that would keep you awake ? 
 
 I think I have spoken of our Orchid Club and its 
 members, how would you like a diagnostic of the 
 clubbists ? If they were not the best of men, they were 
 not either the worst, they were so, so, collectively as 
 I have hinted before, they were all gentlemen, although 
 of different types, as regards tastes, of moral and mate- 
 rial things, and as I have told you and tell you again. 
 We I ought to say to be polite. They were all good 
 men, and I was trying to be so also. I must tell you 
 between ourselves. They all had the tools to behave 
 gentlemanly, though the tools do not always do good 
 work, they often "kind o' fails if used improperly, in 
 the wrong way, you may try any way, but mus' n't 
 
 take the wrong one, " sez he," or else They had 
 
 different tastes in the line of Orchids, for instance : 
 Our President, Mr. Corning, said he liked better Odon- 
 toglossum Orispum, etc. Mr. Dinsmore, not having 
 the same optical faculties, preferred Cattleya; an- 
 other inclined to Vanda cmrulea, Yanda Corningiana, 
 Angraenm citratum, etc. Another said he liked 
 
62 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 Orchids, but would rather have Champagne ! ! An- 
 other liked The Spectahile (he meant : C ypripedium 
 spectabile), with Mrs. Menand's Punch, flavored with 
 cherry bounce (cherries preserved in brandy). Another 
 said he would like to see pretty Orchids, sweet scented, 
 very fragrant, fasten on the bosom of a pretty young 
 woman, and been allowed to smell them on that spot, 
 so you see how tastes differed. I suppose you would 
 like to know what I preferred ? primo : I preferred 
 my " phanerogyne " secundo : I like BOTH, the whole 
 Cypripedium family, and all the other genera spoken of 
 above Odontoglossum .... Cattleya, etc., etc. ... I for- 
 got I like also good Sauterne Wine, and I do not dis- 
 like Champagne nor any good company, this to my mind 
 is preferable to all the others, but both good company 
 and good refreshment will complete the festival, 
 and make a man happy if he is a man who can con- 
 trol his will. And here I must say that during sev- 
 eral years we kept together, I never saw one out 
 of the way of decency but once. We were almost 
 all present at the meeting. We had to welcome a lot 
 of New Orchids and other plants arrived from Eng- 
 land. Among them was a variegate species of Agave 
 that will deserve a special notice that I probably shall do 
 if I live long enough. On that remarkable day in the 
 history of our Club we irrigated so much our no- 
 tions that when night came and we had to return to 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1875-80. 63 
 
 Albany in two or three carriages waiting for us 1 no- 
 ticed that we were all, I thought what you call in 
 English " half seas over ; " No ! not quite so, but what 
 the French call to be " Dans les Yignes du Seigneur " 
 literally in English " In the vineyards of the Lord." 
 When we left Mr. Coming's place and before we got 
 in the carriages I cast a look at the whole company and 
 I concluded that not one of. our company of Trojans 
 of whom I was one of them, were in a condition to 
 think to give a gratification to the drivers who had 
 been waiting for us perhaps an hour or more so. I did 
 it although I thought I was not much better than all 
 the rest, but you will see when men are men and de- 
 termined to be so what they will do. When we arrived 
 to Albany we found we had missed the train we wanted 
 to go by, so we had to wait one hour. You probably 
 suppose that during that one hour we would to kill the 
 time, to irrigate ourselves again. Well, we did it, we 
 went in a restaurant where I had never been, where we 
 drank every one of us a cup of tea, nothing else. Was 
 not that heroic ! ! ! This happened 10 or 12 (or more) 
 years ago. From that time our meetings became lees 
 frequent and our enthusiasm followed the same pro- 
 gression i. e., went backward. Our last proselyte, 
 neophyte, had to give up his collections ; that which 
 cooled our energy; for he was a powerful stimulant, 
 two strong for his constitution for his own good, 
 
64: AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 and it somewhat re-acted on us. Yet, after that the 
 Orchid fever did not abate at once. Another amateur 
 (not of our locality) stepped on his track for a few 
 years then collapsed as any undertaking conducted too 
 recklessly will come to sooner or later. 
 
 This digression reminds me that I have not con- 
 cluded my description of the different tastes of our 
 conclullists for different kinds of Orchids. I have not 
 given entirely the enumeration of what I liked or did 
 not. After having said that I liked good company 
 above all I ought to have said that I was a sort oipan- 
 tophile (" lover of every thing," ) with many exceptions 
 such as ill-treatment, hypocrisy, counterfeit money, 
 foul language, the smell of rank tobacco, the polemics 
 of politicians who are to-day protectionist when they 
 have goods for sale at home inferior to foreign goods, 
 or free traders , when they have to import what they 
 have not or cannot produce. I suppose you have a 
 *" quantum sufficit " of what I like and do not. Now 
 you know a little about our peculiarities. To complete 
 your knowledge, I must (notwithstanding my modesty) 
 tell you that I was somebody in that association of good 
 fellows. I was a sort of a sub-honorary^m'tor, a connect- 
 ing link between the dissident parties when there were 
 
 (* Quantum sufficit plenty enough, too much.) 
 
KECOLLECTTONS TO 1890. 65 
 
 any ; and there had been one in which I acted a very 
 important part in, I reconciliating two of the best men 
 (every one in his way) I have ever seen or known and 
 I have done it unknown to them, until done but not how; 
 the matter between them was of a very delicate nature 
 and the parties more sensitive yet. I had to use a great 
 deal of diplomacy or maybe of vice ! according to my no- 
 tions (etymological) for I did not think I could practice 
 diplomacy, which expression conveys to my mind the 
 fanciful idea of " double maker " of mischief as it has 
 done often in international affairs causing bloody wars 
 between two friendly nations and all that caused by 
 diplomatists set at work by miserable wretches not 
 worth the ROPE or the AXE they ought to have been dis- 
 patched to hell with such as that ne plus ultra debased 
 scoundrel, Napoleon the Third, that arrant, nefarious 
 "beastly human being, sustained by such worthies as 
 " Bazaine" and "tutti quanti" of the same breed. 
 Excuse me this onslaught on venomous wild or rather 
 civilized wild beasts. I could not refrain making this 
 explosion of my bile choler .... 
 
 Let us return to our litigation of our friends again ! 
 and more intimate than ever before, until one of them de- 
 parted, the one who stuck his preference on the " Spec- 
 tabile " and Madame Phanerogyne's punch flavored 
 with cherry bounce the one ever ready to plan an ex- 
 5 
 
66 A[JTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 cursion to the haimts of Spectabile the main spring of 
 our complicated mirth machinery and always with the 
 countenance of a judge presiding a criminal court or 
 as Mr. Corning defined him: As an undertaker who 
 
 would have lost his wife If ? he had loved her 
 
 when she lived. That genial man whose seriousness 
 was so rigid in appearance, could be dissolved with the 
 simple chemical preparation of two or three good jokes 
 and one or two glasses of good Sauterne wine, or in 
 presenting him with a bouquet of spectdbile, or any 
 other flowers, and in presenting him the flowers or a 
 French " Bouillon " and a glass of cherry wine, and tell 
 him, " This for fraternity's sake ! " This word, that 
 I think I used for the first with him, would literally 
 galvanize him. Let him " Requiescat in pace." All 
 thy friends will remember thee as long as they live, 
 especially thy " connecting link " L. M. Here I 
 only speak for myself, and very likely the other links 
 of our chain feel the same. So, Adieu ! adieu ! ! per- 
 haps ? resurgamus in Cypripedibus ! We shall " Re- 
 suscitate in Cypripediums !!".... 
 
 Shall I continue to give the diagnosis of our mem- 
 bers ? Mr. Corning, our president, was in some respects 
 a fit match for our departed friend, the " spectdbile" 
 to whom Mr. Dinsmore, of Staatsburgh-on-the-Hud- 
 son, could be added to complete a triumvirate of con- 
 
KECOLLECTIONS TO 1890. 67 
 
 summate experts in theoretical jokes, and occasionally 
 practical ones. These three together, could have en- 
 tertained our company a whole night. Alas ! of those 
 three genial men two are gone forever, and at this 
 very moment one of our most eminent members, our 
 old friend Mr. Wm. Grey, Mr. Coming's gardener, is 
 very dangerously sick .... To close these sketches of 
 our friends, and for the "Bonne Bouche," delicious 
 morsel, I will introduce you to my our friend, Mr. 
 A. R. Smith, the Trojan drover of calves- Vanda Cor- 
 ningiana, the brothers and sons of the cow and calf 
 that were sold to Mrs. Morgan, of New York, the : 
 personified Providence of the Orchids dealers of both 
 continents, American and European. 
 
 Our last link, for being the Omega, the last, is not 
 the less important for hia collection of orchids, but is 
 next to Mr. Corning, and at one time Mr. Corning 
 sighed for the possession of some orchids he had, espe- 
 cially for a specimen of " Phalsenopsis grandiflora 
 aurea" as we have never seen its equal since, and even 
 to-day he has specimens of Cymbidium eburneum, 
 Cymbidium Mastersianum, Cymbidium Lowianum, 
 Lowianum, from three to six feet in diameter, Coelo- 
 gyne cristata, Coelogyne Occllata maxima and Coelo- 
 gyne, Massangena, etc., inferior to none. Of Mr. Cor- 
 ning's collection of all kinds of orchidiacse. It is useless 
 
68 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 to enumerate, they are too well known. Just now he 
 has Cypripedium, Spiccrianum, cardinale, Schroder- 
 ianum. For one of them I would give my head if I 
 could see, the plants, after it would be off my shoul- 
 ders. 1 hope f you will understand that this last phrase 
 
 of mine is platonical / old as my head is I would 
 
 not give it for an orchid, and besides, if I was willing 
 to make such a bargain, nobody would accept it ; one 
 Would rather have a large pumpkin, or .... anything 
 else. 
 
 I have mentioned somewhere that our club had its 
 meetings once in a while, here and there ; that is, with 
 one exception, at Mr. Coming's suburban villa, or here 
 at our " rus in urbe," bicoque, or shanty, in English. 
 I say bicoque or shanty, paltry house, because I have 
 heard that Caesar (that heroic butcher), had said to his 
 satellites and company, that he preferred to be tiie first 
 in a shanty than the " second" in Rome. So do I ; I 
 prefer to be living in a shanty paid for, than in a pal- 
 ace mortgaged for more than its value ; or drink a cup 
 of tea or coffee, than the best champagne drunk before 
 paid, and often never paid at all. I don't remember 
 if when our, meetings met here at onr nest what 
 nest ? will you say, the nest where I kept my rara 
 avis, that flew from Astoria to Albany do you for- 
 get ? I do not know if our members found the recep- 
 
RECOLLECTIONS TO 1890. 69 
 
 tion we gave them equalled to Mr. Coming's ; but I 
 am sure we did the best we could in our sphere of 
 action, and I recollect well that at one time we had a 
 certain wine named Barsac, that loosened the tongues- 
 amazingly, in spite of you. 
 
 I forget that some years before that Barsao episode, 
 we, my friend, Mr. A. K. Smith and I, had bought a 
 cask of white wine, German or French, I forget, that 
 was so exhilarating when you had drunk a small glass 
 full, you felt like flying ! Any how, it made one talk 
 more than he ought to, telling you what he had done> 
 and what he would in the future. The color of that 
 wine was so seducing, so bewitching, so sympathetic, 
 that when you had enough you wanted more ! like 
 " Oliver Twist ! ! " only the former had too much and 
 the latter not enough. 
 
 That wine was so tempting I cannot find Eng- 
 lish expression to describe its influence on one's system, 
 all I can recollect to-day is that Mr. Smith and I decided 
 in our wisdom it was the best preparation you could 
 administer to a man on whom you wished to make 
 some psychological observation. Finely we baptized it 
 " Rayons du Soleil ! ! Rays of the Sun ! ! We never had 
 since so good. The next we had after was so inferior that 
 we called it the "Rays of the Moon," and it hardly de- 
 served that name. Since I am born I have never seen 
 
70 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 such wine. When you had a small glass on your stomach 
 it immediately went to your head, just like a pan of 
 milk on the fire, ran over and set instantly the moment 
 you take it off. The sensation you felt in your head 
 was celestial / . . . . but of short duration but ! . . 
 
 From this lengthy dissertation I expect that those 
 who may read it will think that I am a worshipper of 
 wine, naturally. Speaking so enthusiastically of wine 
 and drinking it. I am no more a devotee to liquors than 
 you are of drinking cold water to excess. This sort of 
 apology made let us speak no more of it. But of what 
 shall I speak of ? Not of the Orchid Club, although I 
 have another sitting to recount, but not immediately. 
 "We have had enough of Orchids, too much, for since 
 many years I have often, in a measure, cursed them, for 
 they have been the principal cause of the neglect in 
 which all other kinds of plants have fallen, and there 
 are many more interesting that good many Orchids 
 hardly worth the water they drink ! ! I pray you ! in- 
 feverished orchidists or orchidophiles or both, do not 
 take it too hard if I jeer your hobbies ! Our orchido- 
 mania, it has hurt my pantomania if I am permitted 
 to use such an expression, seemingly " far-fetched and 
 dear bought ! " "With reason I say dear bought; for 
 many of the plants I have bought of late years are 
 now commercially speaking worthless ! and I charge 
 
EECOLLECTIONS TO 1890. 71 
 
 your monomania to have worked that plague that 
 ostracism against any thing which is not Orchids or 
 Roses. 
 
 I shall have soruetning more to say about Orchids, 
 etc., etc. I am trying to remember if I have not 
 forgotten some incidents connected with my intimate 
 life, and I find that I have overlooked perhaps the 
 most important event of my life, except my binding 
 with the chains of matrimony. It is the celebra- 
 tion of the anniversary of my seventieth birthday in 
 1877, epoch of the most flourishing of our Club and also 
 of our business, and every thing else connected with 
 private horticulture. We were all under the impression 
 of that first grand international exhibition in Philadel- 
 phia, 1876. At that time our lover of Spectabile, and also 
 our proselyte who bought the Vanda ! were both alive. 
 These two, with probably some others unknown to me, 
 had a consultation with my wife about their mutual de- 
 sire to have me celebrating my birthday without letting 
 me know what they intended to do, and asked her if 
 she was a woman who could keep a secret. She an- 
 swered them she thought she could, but wanted to know 
 what it was before BINDING- herself. They did, and she 
 kept the secret so well that I did'nt know any thing but 
 the day of the ceremony. The preparations could not be 
 kept secret for me, but the details nothing. Only one 
 
72 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 day or two before the 2d of August my wife asked me if 
 I would pay a bill of $30 or about she was about to make. 
 I said I would but I ought to know. She said she could 
 nor would not tell me. You will know after. I want 
 " carte blanche" for every thing, and she had her own 
 way, and I have never had such a day since. We had one 
 of our greenhouses empty that one of our friends dec- 
 orated with palms, etc., where a table had been fixed 
 for fifteen or more persons ; and next to that house 
 another separated from where we sat, that we could 
 not see inside of it. My wife had a band of music 
 that none of us clubbists and others knew nothing about. 
 It was only at desert, when we began to drink cham- 
 pagne that we heard the band of music playing the 
 Marseillaise, Yankee Doodle, etc. And at that time, mo- 
 ment, minute, our friend the Spectalile ! placed in my 
 plate a little box, containing a splendid gold watch, with 
 the names engraved of same of the members of our 
 club. I was so much surprised that for a few seconds 
 I was speechless. I could not say yes ! and yet, as a 
 rule, I talk too much. The hearing of that music and 
 the presentation of that watch galvanized me for many 
 seconds, for I did not expect any such things for a sur- 
 prise ; it was a surprise ! ! that made me feel proud 
 of being seventy years old, although it is the age of the 
 decline of life, when a man is considered no longer a 
 man in the real acceptation of the word man ! But 
 
EECOLLECTIONS TO 1890. 73 
 
 after I had recovered from the commotion, and being 
 able to analyze my feelings and retrospective thoughts, 
 I felt half intoxicated with delight, and considering 
 that all those friends were men with religious creed 
 and principles diametrically opposed to mine in many 
 respects, and with some in politics also ; and yet .... 
 any one can draw his conclusions ; as for me, Ifdt, 
 and to this day I feel, in the deepest recess of my soul, 
 of my heart, a sensation of more than delight, but that 
 I cannot define to my satisfaction. I can feel, but I 
 can't describe, how, I have received so much respect 
 and devotion from men so different of me, in many 
 respects. All that I can tell is that I feel something 
 like of an immense vanity for attentions paid to me in 
 many circumstances in the course of my life, and that, 
 several times from people who had calumniated me in 
 a scandalous manner, and who after rendered me jus- 
 tice so spontaneously as they had defamed me. One 
 instance, in which I take pleasure in relating. When 
 I was corresponding with the leing ! who became 
 my consort for fifty years, she lived with some luke- 
 warm friends in Albany who did not like my corre- 
 spondence with the above person, because it thwarted 
 their views in some ways. The lady friend told her 
 that she ought not to correspond with such a man, that 
 they knew (they had been told) that I was an awful 
 'bloody Kepublican, who would kill a man like a fly ; 
 7 
 
74 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 that besides being a Kepublican ! that I had a wife and 
 several children in France. ... and. the rest of the 
 eulogy ran in the same direction. Was not such a 
 recommendation fit to help me in winning the heart 
 of that woman ? However, she listened to the advice 
 but continued to correspond with me, without giving 
 me information of the ' ' platonic wife and children ;" 
 but she wrote me about some things she wanted to 
 know. I answered the letter immediately, with the 
 alacrity of a lover lona fide ! but at the same time a 
 little wounded in his dignity. I wrote a letter of four 
 pages of large paper, where I gave a rapid sketch of 
 my life (not as this one I am writing to-day, but one 
 that would carry conviction in any soul who would 
 have had a doubt). I have that letter yet, and many 
 others from both of us. As she had received that let- 
 ter and just done reading it, the lady friend ! f came, 
 while she had the letter in her hands. She said, Miss 
 Jackson ! notwithstanding what we have told you, you 
 continue to correspond with that man ! f ! f The Miss 
 Jackson, the timid lird, but with a strong mind, an- 
 swered her, yes, madam ! I have ; and I was going to 
 show you the letter, to read it with care ; then to give 
 me your impression, after reading it ; and according to 
 your answer I shall break the correspondence or con- 
 tinue it. Please read on. It must have taken her at 
 least half an hour to read it, because it had been writ- 
 
KECOLLECTIONS TO 1890. 75 
 
 ten in wonderful agitation, excitement, wrath, indigna- 
 tion, despised love I thought, but I soon found I 
 was mistaken. That letter was a specimen of Egyptian 
 (hieroglyphs). Written in French ! as we corre- 
 sponded. When she had read it she stood in front of 
 that Miss Jackson and said : 
 
 Mon enfant ! Fhomme qui a ecrit une lettre comme 
 eellq-ci n'est pas un homme ordinaire ! et vous n'avez 
 pas voulu le croire, cette homme 14 sent vivement et 
 vous avez doute de sa veracite, vous avez en tort ! . . . . 
 
 ENGLISH OP THE ABOVE : My child ! the man who has written 
 such a letter is not an ordinary man ; he feels vividly, he ex- 
 presses his emotions with warmth ; and you have doubted his 
 veracity ; you have been wrong ! 
 
 You understand this spontaneous confession ? Com- 
 pare it with the bloody Republican ! etc., and draw 
 your conclusion .... 
 
 Now, I'll tell you; I felt ten times more gratified of 
 that candid confession than I had been vexed, indig- 
 nant, of the calumny. In plain English, my vanity 
 was high flattered . Some other time I shall tell you 
 another historical anecdote almost similar, with a very 
 eminent man in his "sphere, at the time, in Jersey City. 
 But it was not a love quarrel, but a horticultural non- 
 sense, as we are all liable to do. 
 
76 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 Since that anniversary of mine in 1877, our " Spec- 
 tabile" Mr. Pierson of Troy, managed to induce us to 
 have another, in 1879, under the pretext that we ought 
 to have an opening ! on account of having built a new 
 greenhouse, and by doing so we should kill two birds 
 with one stone. We did it, and our cl ub association pre- 
 sented me again with a token of their friendship, in 
 presenting me, not a watch, but something as valuable, 
 if not more ; a sort of " pabulum animi ;" ' ' food for the 
 mind," the American, Appleton's Encyclopedia. Two 
 or three years later they presented me for the third time, 
 with a handsome set of crystal glasses, in all varieties, for 
 all kinds of wine and other liquors. I, of course^ 
 expressed my gratitude, but, I made the observation 
 that they had made a mistake; they ought to have 
 presented me with as many varieties of wine and liquors 
 as they had given me of different shape glasses ; that 
 we could drink good wine in ordinary glasses, if we 
 had anything to drink ; but we could not drink with- 
 out some liquid. "Well ! he said, always our promoter, 
 the " Spectdbile" we might have done so, but we did 
 not want to trust our tastes in such a delicate matter 
 as a choice of leverage. "We thought it would be bet- 
 ter to leave that to you, a man who had spent thirty 
 years of his life in the two best provinces of France, 
 producing wines, such as " Burgundy and Cham- 
 
RECOLLECTIONS TO 1890. 77 
 
 pagne." "We know the value of crystal ware but not 
 of wine. So you see that we have acted wisely, is it 
 not ? Besides, when wine is drunk there is nothing 
 left but empty bottles, useless ; but the glasses may be 
 used " ad libitum ;" " when you have something to 
 put in." Anyhow, these glasses might be used for 
 the future generations of orchids' clubs, who could 
 drink your health when you will be gone to Heaven, 
 where we sincerely hope you will go when you will 
 leave us, unless you should prefer to go whither you 
 may meet your* nightmare Mr. Linden who swindled 
 you "on that" line bifurcated line you said,. in 1877. 
 
 Here ends nearly our Orchid club frolics sub- 
 scientific evolutions. Some of us had tried to keep up 
 the "Sfacredfirt" but our combustible was exhausted, 
 and our last neophyte, proselyte who had the "stimu- 
 lant " had given up his office where he kept the holy 
 matches to light the sacred fire, which burned his fin- 
 gers, then later our " Spectdbile " had also departed (sud- 
 denly) ; then another member, Capt. of a steamboat on 
 I W as going to say the " Styx ! " that river " Lethe " 
 makes me forget every thing ! I meant the Hudson 
 river, so we hardly had a quorum left. So that since 
 we have been living on our former reputation. Yet 
 we have a few remainders of our laurels. " Sic transit 
 gloria Mundi." " Thus fades the glory of the world." 
 
78 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 Here I beg permission to introduce a parenthesis on 
 a foreign subject to the one above, but which is a remi- 
 niscence of my individuality. 
 
 A few persons of my acquaintance have made me 
 the remark that they like enough my digressions on any 
 subject I write upon, but am too imaginative, my al- 
 lusion and quotations are too cloudy, obscure, in short 
 to speak as I do too cryptogamic (hidden.) Maybe it 
 it is so, but I cannot very well refrain myself from 
 doing it. It is inherent to my way of expressing my 
 ideas. When I write I do so exactly as I feel, as I 
 think, just to suit my vague notions, always going ahead 
 and anxious to get at the end of what I have to say, 
 that often I leap over many words, and probably you 
 have noticed it. I know it but I cannot help it, yet I 
 try hard. Next another peculiarity I have, when talk- 
 ing of men, I always or almost take it for gran ted that 
 all men are men, more or less endowed with a certain 
 amount of intelligence. It seems to me that to think 
 differently would be a disguised insult. In my opinion 
 the best way to make a man is to let him under- 
 stand he is so ! And if he sees and is convinced he is 
 deficient, he will likely try to get what he is deprived 
 of ; if not you have lost your time .... but you have 
 not offended his pride. I know there are men gen- 
 erally styled smart ! (I use the word as I have heard 
 
KECOLLECTIONS TO 1890. 79 
 
 people using it, but it does not exactly touch the chord 
 of my understanding in many ways) who would make 
 a dollar where others could not make the fraction of one 
 cent, but in intellectual affairs are quite green although 
 with white hair. I just remember a very pleasant in- 
 stance to illustrate what I have said above. 
 
 Once I had a correspondent in New York to whom 
 I wrote that since I had seen him, I had seen two of 
 his friends. Both are now dead; both were or had the 
 reputation of being smart, but one was smarter; he 
 had much more money than the other, and of course 
 was superior and perhaps he was really so ! Both came 
 to pay me a friendly f f visit ; for what I did not 
 know. They were both antipathetic to me as I was to 
 them, in a measure. I had absolutely nothing to in- 
 terest them for one was almost physically Hind and the 
 other only morally so, but both had what you call a 
 "fellow-feeling" both were well matched. I felt like 
 to ask them what the devil has induced you to come 
 and see me ? But according to what I have told you 
 supra I did not ; on the contrary, as it was a warm 
 day, I offered them refreshment. They did not accept. 
 So far all right. They thanked me and I went away. 
 It was the same day I wrote to my correspondent the 
 word "subrosa" not to mention the above "pane- 
 gyric of his friend above." He could not very well 
 
80 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 read my handwriting, so he went to see a friend of 
 him who could decipher my hieroglyphics, Mr. T. 
 Murkland, who explained him the contents of my 
 letter, but he was not satisfied ; he maintained that I 
 wanted roses, but did not say how many I wanted nor 
 the kind. Mr. Murkland told him I wanted none at 
 all. By God ! he said : look at the word Rosa / does 
 it not mean Roses ? No ! it means for you not to tell 
 your friend what he has written to you, but he add 
 that you can do it if you feel so ; he does not care. 
 
 Now you will perhaps believe that I think that man 
 was an ass, not a bit of itj he was as smart as any 
 one called so; he was ignorant of the meaning of that 
 word, but he had no pretensions. Ignorance is not 
 stupidity but if he had any pretension to know things 
 that he did not he would be stupid, that's my. way to 
 define ignorance. I do not not know Hebrew, yet I do 
 uot consider myself an idiot because I am not a poly- 
 glot. See what it is to have too much modesty. I say 
 that I do not know Hebrew language when I do! 
 Amen! is Hebrew and I know it in English and 
 French, etc. So I am a polyglot also ! 
 
 Now I have better to return to my subject, digres- 
 sions on smartness as a rule the community judge by 
 the label in the scale where the merits of men and 
 things are appreciated according to their specific weight 
 
KECOLLECTIONS TO 1890. 81 
 
 (in money) not in sterling value. The why ! they 
 came to see me has always puzzled my mind. It was 
 not love for certain. I am at a loss unless they wished to 
 see if I was always the same animal of old time. For 
 many years and perhaps to-day yet, I have been a sort 
 of curious beast, not mischievous, and not willing to 
 bark with all sorts of hounds for them I was al- 
 ways the " Albany Dutchman." It is not everybody 
 who can be a Dutchman and being born in France ! 
 and besides claiming to be a Yankee ! in the good sense 
 of the word ; I feel proud to be a Yankee, at least 
 Yankeefied morally, if not physically. I am proud to 
 be ever so Yankeefied when I hear our Uncle Sam say: 
 
 God means to make this land, John 1 ! 1 
 
 Clear thru, from sea to sea ! ! 
 Believe an' understand, John, 
 The wuth o' bein' free ! ! ! 
 
 Ole Uncle S. Sez he, "I guess, 
 
 God's price is high," sez he ; 
 
 " But nothin' else than wut He sells 
 
 Wears long, an' thet J. B. 
 
 May learn like you an' me ! ! ! " 
 
 Amen ! 
 
 " Vive la Republique ! ! ! 
 The Sun God and liberty ! ! ! 
 And down with politic iniquity." 
 
 Here in this moment I drop my pen and rub my 
 forehead to rest, to meditate on what we have done 
 since I came to light. I could not see the light, but 
 
82 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 the light saw me, and I think has since lighted me 
 through my accidental life, which I suppose is now near 
 to its end, and yet I do not think I have stored much 
 wisdom in that lapse of time 84 years I cast a retro- 
 spective look on the time past ; I consider in bulk, en 
 masse, all that we have done, and seen since nearly a 
 century and I cannot realize all the wonderful, mar- 
 vellous events that have been accomplished in the 
 human life. It bewilders my understanding. The 
 discovery and application of electricity, steam naviga- 
 gation, railroad, the velocity with which we live and 
 also die ! I wanted to rest, and I perceive that I am 
 philosopHASTRiNG (for philosophizing) like if I had the 
 conviction to moralize the whole world. I come to 
 think I have better to continue my digressions on use- 
 less matters that give me an occasion to prate, to exer- 
 cise my pragmatical notions after all I think it is 
 
 my privilege, the privilege of old folks, to be loqua- 
 cious, besides with me, it is a hygienic necessity to let 
 off the superabundance of foolish ideas which condense 
 in what takes the place of my brain. So pray ! be in- 
 dulgent for old men ; you may also get old and wish- 
 ing to babble as I do. I will rest a little, then perhaps 
 I shall recollect some anecdotes to relate. Amen ! for 
 the time being. 
 
 Now that I have rested a little I can resume the cur- 
 
RECOLLECTIONS TO 1890. 83 
 
 rent of iny spinning phrases that I am afraid will wear 
 out the patience of those who may try to read them. 
 I have given the diagnosis of several of the members 
 of our Orchid Club, but I have forgotten one of 
 Mr. Dinsmore of Staatsburgh on the Hudson, a great 
 lover of all kinds of vegetation, trees, shrubs, orchids, 
 roses, foliage, plants, and above all jokes in which he 
 was a specialist. One day he came with two friends ; 
 
 one was a Mr. Wells, of Buffalo. I believe the 
 
 other one a Trojan, not of the ancient city of Asia 
 Minor, but Troy, K Y., named Virgil, not Yirgil the 
 Latin poet, but an expressman living in Troy. Mr. 
 Dinsmore with his cheerful and dignified manner told 
 me, Mr. Menand I have the pleasure to introduce these 
 
 two gentlemen friends of mine, one is Mr. Wells 
 
 belonging to an express association of Buffalo, who 
 does not care much for plants except the fermented 
 juice of the grape vine or the distilled seeds of rye or 
 wheat. The other one is Mr. Yirgil to whom you can 
 tell all your jaw-breaking names of plants ; he under- 
 stands Latin as the author of the Bucolics, etc., then 
 burst into an inextinguishable laughing, in which the 
 four of us participated, Mr. Dinsmore and I par- 
 ticularly. I did not know if Mr. Wells understood the 
 joke, but Mr. Yirgil' s laugh was bitter sweety for I do 
 not think he knew what was Virgil the poet. I thought 
 from his look that he had an idea he was the laughing 
 
84: AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 stock, but I was not sure. However, Mr. Dinsmore 
 and I enjoyed. As we are at it I may as well finish 
 my evening in introducing you to Mr. Dinsmore, and 
 let you know his humour. As we were walking through 
 our green houses looking at plants, he said : Menand ! 
 you have very fine plants but by God ! he said you 
 charge for them like the devil you skin you rob 
 people ! ain't it ? Maybe I do, " but one thing is cer- 
 tain, if you had never robbed your customers any more 
 than I have robbed mine," to-day you could not afford 
 to buy any ! Why ? because you would have no money 
 to pay for ! He laughed and said : An expressman is 
 not a gardener ! I know it, a gardener can only rob his 
 customers in retail and only once in a long while; 
 whilst the express man robs the public Daily Whole- 
 sale and retail all the year round. You probably think 
 he got mad ? Not the least, for in less than half an hour 
 I had sold him for $200 or more, and every time he 
 came he acted about the same ; he lived upon jokes as 
 bees on honey. Many persons have told me he was a 
 rough, coarse man ; perhaps he was in words but not 
 in actions as far as I have known, and I have dealt 
 with him 25 or 30 years and I have known some of his 
 deeds in philanthropy that many sanctified hypocrites 
 would not have done unless every body had seen them 
 doing good, when he would do good in secret ! ! ! I 
 have known a philanthropic lady, Mrs. Miller, in his 
 
EECOLLECTIONS TO 1890. 85 
 
 immediate locality, Rhinebeclc, Dutchess county, N. Y. 
 who told me she did not like him ; that he was what I 
 have said above. I tried to talk with her to change 
 her convictions, but she would not hear, and yet she 
 was a 'benevolent woman, exceedingly so ! but she had 
 preventions against him, she was prejudiced. It is only 
 many years later that I got the knowledge of Mr. 
 Dinsmords occult charity without ostentation. That 
 lady was dead or I would have told her what he had 
 done with his " rough bark." When talking of good 
 actions I must mention this lady I am talking about. 
 It was during the Secession War. I had sold her a 
 lot of plants, and I had promised her to go and set 
 them in the greenhouse. When done she said, do you 
 not think it would require a few more to look good, 
 they are too far apart. I agreed with her of course. 
 Any one, a gardener or an expressman do not object to 
 receive money. Well, she replied, I can afford it ; I 
 have so much money to spend for my pleasure ; now, 
 I ask your advice ; which is the best to spend the money 
 I have in buying more plants or dispose of that money 
 for the poor wounded soldiers and other needy people ? 
 That argument was ad hominem.* I answered, Madam, 
 I would be glad to get that money for plants I have to 
 sell, but your appeal to my judgment is such that I 
 
 * Argument that goes to heart, conscience of a man. 
 
86 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 say : Dispose of that money for what you propose, for 
 the soldiers and other human beings, suffering, from 
 thai fratricide war; be benevolent to loth the vic- 
 torious and the vanquished. They all are our brothers, 
 fathers, mothers, without distinction of race, creed in 
 religion or in politics. " The moral in action " or re- 
 ligion if you please, although/b^ me, there is an Ocean! 
 of difference between both, but for many it is probably 
 synonymous, so we are all right in our intentions only 
 we differ in our ways of worshipping God ! or going 
 to Heaven ! This is only an affair of aesthetics, as all 
 roads go to Rome ! only I think the straight line is the 
 shortest, don't you ? "If strong minded, charit- 
 able people, philanthropists go to Heaven the above 
 lady 'Mrs. Miller' ought to have a double selected 
 seat there. 
 
 N. B. I began the above episode on digression or 
 divagation on gardener's and expressman's swindling, 
 and I conclude on moralizing. The extremes meet 
 and we progress .... slowly in moral affairs. 
 
 In the period of 1856-58-59, when the Brooklyn Hort. 
 Society, erat floruit, was flourishing, I got acquainted 
 with a very sympathetic gentleman in good many ways, 
 but with exceptions. He was very fond of plants, and 
 a refined taste, always with some exceptions ; he was 
 enthusiastic and liberal ; when he took a fancy to a plant 
 
RECOLLECTIONS TO 1890. 87 
 
 he did not stop for a few cents or dollars. He lived in N. 
 Jersey city; he had a good collection of choice plants, 
 even Orchids, that began to attract attention. He was 
 jealous of my few laurels and told me that he would soon 
 compete against me and meant to distance me. I an- 
 swered him that it was just what I wanted, I wished, 
 opposition, " as to vanquish without danger was a vic- 
 tory or triumph without glory. I do not recollect the 
 particulars of our first contest. I only remember that we 
 had a prize offered for a single plant for one foliage or 
 variegated plant ; he had " Rhopala corlovadensis " and 
 I had "Dioon edule" a Mexican species of Cycadese; both 
 we were absent when the prize was awarded ; he got 
 second, I got first. That little skirmish seemed to dis- 
 turb his equanimity, for when we met he asked me if 
 I did not think the judges had made a mistake ; that 
 his plant was the lest. I told him I could not help it, 
 to ask the judges and perhaps they would rectify then- 
 mistake. Well, he said, you know better ; perhaps I 
 do, but even so, I am not a judge; I cannot alter 
 their decision. Both plants were new and had never 
 been exhibited before. He said his plant was newer; 
 both had been imported from England and Belgium ; 
 he said his plant was more valuable, he had paid 2. 
 I told him mine cost me 5 (was not that a silly dia- 
 logue for two seemingly sensible men ?) The current 
 of events went on, and came another Exhibition ; we 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 competed for six Variegated plants, and he competed 
 for one Single Yariegated with somebody else. He 
 defeated me for six, but got beaten for one single plant, 
 and that exasperated him; he was furious all that 
 day ; he waited until evening to see me, to have my 
 opinion, and when arrived at the Athenaeum building, 
 where was the exhibition, he took me with one arm as 
 a policeman would have taken a pick-pocket caught 
 in flagrante delicto, and told me come ! I will show you 
 what your judges have done! We were in front of 
 the table where the plants stood, and a crowd discussing 
 about the award. He said : Here is a man for whom I 
 care more than all of you, a judge of plants ; if he says 
 you have acted right when you gave me the second 
 premium, I will confess I am wrong. They had taken 
 off the labels so I could not see which was first or 
 second; I did not want it. During all these preliminaries 
 I stood stern and grave as Solomon, when he decided 
 between the two mothers. They asked me which was 
 the best plant ; I put my finger on the Anoechtochilus, 
 I now forget the specific name, it had golden leaves, 
 it was a pretty plant, it had the 2d prize, Caladium. 
 Caladium Chantini the 1st, the 2d prize was his plant. 
 When he heard my decision he said : It is all right now, 
 I know what I wanted to know, so saying, he went 
 out. Here I see that I have made a lapsus, after hearing 
 that C. Chantini had the 1st prize; I asked who were 
 
RECOLLECTIONS TO 1890. 89 
 
 the asses who had awarded the premiums ? The chair- 
 man of the committee who was behind me, pulled by 
 a sudden jerk the skirt of my coat, so as to say, "keep 
 your tongue, but it was too late, so I uttered again the 
 same expression, so that the audience could see I did 
 not want any misunderstanding ; that chairman was a 
 nice quiet man, a German gardener a florist of 
 Brooklyn, called Rauch ; he had a great knowledge of 
 plants, he was well educated, but he was too fond of 
 PLEASURE ! ! and his income did not permit him to culti- 
 vate such a common plant, but expensive to grow in 
 specimen ! ! In that circumstance he was what the 
 French call " Tirer le Diable par la queue," " Pulling 
 the Devil by his tail," to be hard up / that is to say, 
 not independent. Our owner of the Ancechtochilus 
 was gone, but the litigation about the awards of the 
 two plants was not settled yet ; after our owner of 
 Anoechtochilus was gone the chairman of the committee, 
 tried to justify himself. He said: Mr. Menand ! you 
 have been too rash in your decision ; had you known, 
 the whole affair you would not have talked as you did. 
 We gave the 1st prize to the Caladium because we 
 found out that the Anmchtochilus was not his plant, 
 he had borrowed it from Mr. P., his friend, a few 
 days before the exhibition. Well, my friend ! Your 
 justification is worse than your fault. If you had found 
 discovered the trick you ought not to award him any 
 
90 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 prize at all, but have him disqualified ! He would prob- 
 ably have done it but he durst not. You understand 
 the reason ? that gentleman Borrower of plants as I 
 have said, was a liberal man and as I understood very wil- 
 ling to oblige his friends, and our chairman was deeply 
 under obligations to him. Hence the award, jump- 
 ing from the frying pan into the fire. But it seemed 
 that they had not discovered the whole series of tricks 
 used at that exhibition. In the lot of six variegated 
 or foliage plants exhibited against me there were two 
 that came from the same place at the Ancechtochilus ! 
 The owner afterward confessed to me that it was a 
 mean trick and would never do it again. In the 
 morning, after all our plants were arranged on the 
 table, I gave a look over the whole exhibit, and I 
 thought I knew some of the plants as not belonging to 
 the man who had them exhibited, but of course it 
 never occurred to me that either of those two men 
 would resort to such mean tricks, for both men ap- 
 peared to me as gentlemen, one, at least, as any, 
 farther I can not tell, both men were intimate friends f 
 as it is generally understood, but the Lender was a 
 subaltern to the Borrower and you know ! " Borrow- 
 ing dulls the edge of husbandry " and also the edge of 
 friendship in the occasion ! ! 
 
 Both of those friends had shown me a great deal of 
 
RECOLLECTIONS TO 1890. 91 
 
 deference in many ways, notwithstanding our diverg- 
 ence of opinion in many things. 
 
 Later, in the course of horticultural events, etc., I 
 had some difficulty with one of them, even with both. 
 Yet, if this day I had any trifling influence in the 
 Celestial Regions, to open to them the gates of the 
 kingdom of Heaven, I would do it, although I do not 
 know what has become of them since that time. 
 
 From that exhibition of good plants and dirty tricks, 
 our Amateur No. 1st had resolved in his liberal mood 
 and sub-wisdom to have a special premium, " to be 
 offered" by the Brooklyn Hort. Society to the best 
 collection of all kinds of plants, foliage, or flower- 
 ing plants, which had never been exhibited in America. 
 That prize to be a large silver pitcher and half dozen 
 
 goblets of the same metal, worth $500 or $600 ! 
 
 He was willing it seemed to pay for, but, with the 
 understanding it would be awarded to him. A meet- 
 ing to that effect was held in Jersey City, 1 think in 
 his own residence, I am not positive, having lost the 
 document that my informant, Mr. Alexander Gordon, 
 gardener to Mr. Hoyt of Astoria, L. I., had given me 
 of the proceedings of the meeting. My friend A. 
 Gordon had been delegated by the Brooklyn Hort. 
 Society. After the reading of the resolution he rose 
 and said, Mr. Y. W. : I understand that you want to 
 
92 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 offer a premium which "you will pay for" and take a 
 mortgage on our Bond fide. "Willingness to support 
 your seheme ! that's plain English, and, We, I under- 
 stand, shall have to compete against you, with our 
 pennies against your dollars f That " Gordian Knot " 
 can not be untied by any one of us, our spades are not 
 sharp enough to cut it, and we have not "Alexander's " 
 (the great) sword to cut it, unless it be mine ! ! 
 Alex. Gordon and I am not willing to lend nor send it 
 neither to our Hort. Soc. nor any body else. 
 
 That practical oration closed the meeting. The day 
 after my friend sent me an abridged account of the 
 proceeding, and I immediately wrote to our Lender of 
 plants of what I knew about the Premium Silver Goblet 
 and Pitcher that was to be awarded at our next exhi- 
 bition in Brooklyn. I told him that I had made up 
 my mind, and I was preparing my energy for the con- 
 test, and that I was confident to annihilate the "Jersey 
 Blues " and bring the Pitcher and silver goblets to Al- 
 bany, and that when they would visit Albany, and the 
 Albany Dutchman, I could treat them with Albany ale 
 (then famous) served up in those goblets, etc. When 
 in my vein of joking I think I made some allusions to 
 our " Borrower No. 1," whom I supposed was a " Cen- 
 turion " in the legion of "Jersey Blues." That letter 
 was private, but somehow or another it fell in the 
 
RECOLLECTIONS TO 1890. 93 
 
 hands of the " Centurion," Borrower No. 1, by the 
 agency of the Lender, No. 2. Some explanations 
 were given to me about that diminutive scandal, but 
 I did not believe a word of it. However, a few days 
 after my onslaught on our " Centurion " I received 
 from him a letter of four pages of the size I write 
 these historical divagations, of close writings of abuse 
 rather silly, and the man was not a fool, but his 
 pride had been wounded. He began his letter 
 by " Here inclosed my check for $50, amount of bill 
 rendered to me for plant wrongly labelled," etc., etc. 
 So you can see he was honest. I liked that sort of 
 exordium, but his long epistle, and its longer and more 
 abusive and silly peroration, made me mad first, 
 then I laughed with pity for I had a foible for him. 
 Nine-tenths of his letter, if not all, was the most elabo- 
 rate theme of Billingsgate rhetoric I have seen. He 
 evidently had made up his mind to make the letter as 
 long as he could, and / resolved to make my answer as 
 short as possible. In that letter he threatened me to 
 send me one like it every week. He never did it. It 
 seemed he had told his friend he would do so. The 
 friend told him not to send it to me, and if I should 
 answer it, he would be sorry I know Menand. When 
 he got my answer, you will see below, he went to show 
 it to him. He frankly told his friend he was sorry, 
 but too late. 
 
94: AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 I cannot remember that letter. His letter, and my 
 answer to it, I kept it for a few years. Then I destroyed 
 T>oth, fearing that perhaps later I would be tempted to 
 make use of it, and be sorry after. 
 
 ME. Y. W. : 
 
 Dear Sir: Thanks for your check; receipt in- 
 closed. I have received your theme of Billingsgate 
 rhetoric. I have had some trouble to understand it, 
 as I do not profess the English Belles-Lettres as you 
 do. For instance, you tell me I do not like you because 
 you have never treated me with a gin-cocked-tail. 
 Well, sir, I did not know what it meant, but a friend 
 of mine tells me that if I want to know the meaning 
 of it, I must go to the school where you have learned 
 your Belles- Lett res, that is to say, with the company 
 you associate with, viz : Blacklegs, pugilists, cock- 
 fighters, rowdies of all sorts. Yours, 
 
 L. MENAND. 
 
 P. S. The above letter, short as it is, is twice as 
 long as the one I wrote at that date 1858-9 ? My 
 vein is too old to-day, I cannot recollect. 
 
 Those who may have read my above lucubrations will 
 probably think I have done with my of ten far-fetched 
 prose. Remember : at the beginning of these reminis- 
 cences I have said that my weak point was not lacon- 
 
RECOLLECTIONS TO 1890. 95 
 
 ism. So you must expect some little disappointment ; 
 after all, you know " the saying " There is no rose 
 without thorns " and if any spines on my productions 
 they are not as prickly as those of our modern Rose 
 growers, and do not cost as much as your " American 
 Beauties," and mine, not roses, but my productions 
 "or flowers of rhetorics," will last longer even in a 
 warm place, that is to be taken in consideration. All 
 these few words are to let you know that I have more 
 to say about my or our Amateurs Lender and Bor- 
 rowers of plants. After our exchange of amenities of 
 the four pages of Billingsgate and my answer to it. 
 We had a truce ! even peace without laying down 
 our weapons, that is to say in plain English, without 
 ceasing to grow plants with which we had fought for 
 the sake of glorious Vanity. I said we had peace ; my 
 opponent after a while, when he cooled off, thought we 
 had been foolish, and one day he came hither to our 
 headquarters with the Olive branch, by intuition we 
 shook hands, and the peace was signed. Still, the man 
 had always some of his tricky notions, though inoffen- 
 sive, ~bad habit only. "We looked all over our plants, 
 new and old, it was the time we had the monomania of 
 getting new plants often not worth the water they 
 drank. I had several plants he had never seen as 
 Latania aurea, Latania rubra, Thrinax argentea, etc. He 
 did not know the names and wanted badly to know 
 
96 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 them, but lie did not wish to ask me depending on 
 my itching for talking and that I would tell him what 
 he wanted to know without asking, but by that time 
 I had made some progress in the study of the " human 
 heart," and I guessed! by his looks what was ferment- 
 ing in his drains and I acted accordingly. I made up 
 my mind he would not know one single name unless 
 he should ask me twice or more. I suppose we went 
 three times to and fro to look at all the plants he wished 
 to know. It is rather tedious to use so many words for 
 such a trifle, but I want to edify you whether you will 
 or not, nolens-volens. I had (a variegated plant) a 
 variety of a common English weed Coltsfoot. It looked 
 very pretty as it was ; he saw it although it was some- 
 what out of the way. He said first, it is very pretty. 
 " John has it too." Do you know who was John f No ! 
 nor I either, but I guessed, I like to guess, especially 
 when I am sure, the second time he passed by he said 
 that plant will take in New York, but no progress had 
 been done in getting the name. I was dumb as a snail 
 and I did not draw my horns ; the third time he said : 
 could you spare me one, and what-do-you-call-it ? "Well, 
 I thought you told me John had it f If so it would be 
 a great deal better to get it from him, I have not many. 
 Well, he said, I would rather get it from you, send me. 
 one with the other plants I have selected. Yes, I will do 
 it. Then I told him; "What the devil possessed you 
 
RECOLLECTIONS TO 1890. 97 
 
 to hesitate so much to ask after names. Do you think 
 because a man knows more names of any thing he is 
 better than one who does not ? Certes, it is a satisfac- 
 tion to know the names of the objects you have, but I 
 don't see the necessity to be so mysterious. A few 
 more digressions on that not bad man but ill-balanced. 
 He once had asked me a list ,of the most remarkable 
 plants I had seen, new or old, and also to his lender of 
 plants. Both wanted something the other had not, 
 that I understood it .... it was a laudable idea. I gave 
 a list to both of about the same plants, but unknown 
 to each other. Some weeks or months after, I now for- 
 get, I met them in -New York. They would not let me 
 go unless I should go with them to Jersey city, to see 
 some new plants they had just received from London. 
 I was not very willing to go, but the Borrower insisted 
 so much, and the Lender also, and in addition to my de- 
 sire to see something that I had never seen, that I 
 went. I expected they would talk again about our 
 correspondence, but not a word was spoken on that 
 scabrous subject. We were hardly in the office of the 
 " Silver pitcher's originator," that he went in an ad- 
 joining room and came with a basket of champagne. 
 At that time champagne was still imported in willow 
 baskets. The moment I saw it, it produced on me a 
 sudden commotion in all my body that I cannot de- 
 scribe. My sensation then was surely a vivid pleasure 
 9 
 
98 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 
 
 and a wonderful amount of surprise mingled with all. 
 I cannot find an expression to render what I felt. The 
 famous u gin-cocked-tail " came to my mind at once, 
 and I was already comparing the two liquors together. 
 The most aristocratic with the most demagogic ! Do 
 you realize earnestly the idea to offer me champagne 
 after that anarchist gin-cocked-tail. I had not fully 
 recovered my presence of mind my wits, when the 
 wine was in the cups, when he raised his glass and said 
 to the health of our Americanized friend, L. M. ! ! Do 
 you think that was an apology for the insults he had 
 thrown in my face when he was unconscious of his 
 doings? In that moment I would not have exchanged 
 it for the whole world. When we had drunk the 
 contents of the bottle we went to see the new plants. 
 
 With new sensations but with our SAME 
 
 feelings of old, " Lupus pilum mutat, non mentem." 
 " The wolf changes its coat but not its character." 
 
 When we came in presence of the group of newly 
 imported plants, I, with reverence admiration sur- 
 prise, took off my hat, and looked at the owner of the 
 plants, and the plants also, while he did the same, ob. 
 serving the external change of my feelings on my face 
 to find what they could be internally ; he could see my 
 surprise in my eyes fixed on the plants, but I could 
 also see in his countenance, he was literally palpitating 
 
RECOLLECTIONS TO 1890. 99 
 
 with exultation, bliss, joy, to find he had something 
 I did not know or not seen; in a few seconds of 
 mutual contemplation, I exclaimed : Where have you 
 found those plants ? ! You must have had trouble to 
 get them, and you must have paid a good price for 
 them, for they are, as far as I know, rare and difficult 
 to have, even with money. Then he was to the apogee 
 of his happiness ! But it did not last long, for he 
 asked me, have you ever seen any of them ? Do you 
 know the names of any ? Quietly as it becomes a man, 
 an actor, if you please, who knows his part, I said yes, 
 I know some of them, not all. Well, then, tell me? 
 What is this ? What is that ? I looked at hjm, and 
 
 told him. Why ! Mr. , you must have a very 
 
 short memory ! Do you not recollect some time ago 
 you asked me if I would not give you a list of the best, 
 rarest, newest and most remarkable plants, old or new, 
 I had seen ? He kept silent for a few seconds, then 
 said : Tell me the names ! Instantly as a horse which 
 feels the spur, I told him, here is Lataniarubra,Thrinax 
 radiata, Cossignia borbonica gone ad patres, dead, this 
 I have never seen but once, 35 years since, this I only 
 knew the name, but could apply it. In a great deal less 
 time than it has taken me to write these names, that, 
 his arms, which rested on his haunches dropped on his 
 thiyh$, with a change in his countenance really alarm- 
 ing for any one not knowing the cause. In that 
 
100 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 moment if he had translated his feelings in words, he 
 would have said : What is the use to get pains, spend 
 money to show that Franco- American, that we can 
 get new plants as well as he does. It really pained me 
 to see him so much affected for such a trifle, but such 
 was his temper. All I have here related to you happened 
 32 or 33 years ago, and " As to-day," " As in the time 
 past," and "As in the future," "We are," " We have 
 been," and " We shall be," susceptible, apt, to appre- 
 ciate, the " Worthy," and the " Unworthy," the " Sub- 
 lime and the Base," in cents and dollars so to day. I 
 would willingly give $100 to shake hands with that 
 man if he is alive. This is my sincere desire wish. 
 If he is dead, this is my memorial, "requiescito in 
 pace ! 
 
 Rest thou in peace ! 
 
 Thy friend, L. M. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 OF RETROSPECTIVE RECOLLECTIONS, MISCELLANEOUS, OMIT- 
 TED OR FORGOTTEN IN THE RECOLLECTIONS PROPER, 
 CONTAINING ALL I HAVE WRITTEN SUBSEQUENTLY AS 
 FACTS AND INCIDENTS CAME TO MY MEMORY, WITHOUT 
 ANY CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER. 
 
 Here a few necessary remarks. When I came to the 
 decision to write my recollections it was with much 
 hesitation, though my children, seeing my deep sorrow 
 after the death of their mother, insisted persistingly, 
 telling me to write the history of plant as I had often 
 spoken of doing, or a sketch of my life from my young- 
 est days to this day, that such occupation would absorb 
 my gloomy thoughts and relieve my mental troubles, 
 and give me some gratification in reviving incidents 
 that happened 75 years ago or more. My souvenirs 
 extend beyond 1814-15 to have seen the debris of that 
 Waterloo butchery ! 
 
 Meanwhile I accidentally came acquainted with the 
 American Florist Co., Chicago, who solicited me to 
 give them a few sketches of my life connected with 
 horticultural affairs, as a man and gardener. As I have 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 said above I hesitated, fearing with potent reasons to 
 undertake a task above my capacities, knowing my 
 peculiarities not well-balanced for such a work, with 
 my prime leaping tendencies to skip over a letter in a 
 word, or words in a phrase, besides I had an idea that 
 those sketches were to be short and concise, two quali- 
 ties I am deprived of ; but amply gifted of two opposed 
 defects, prolixity and digressions at loss of sight. But 
 I found that I was laboring under a mistake, that it 
 was necessary to give the full understanding of what I 
 was at the age 8 or 10 to 20 or more, to compare what 
 I am at 85, the age of a young patriarch, as for the old 
 ones I do not think I shall never attain the age of 
 biblical Abraham, and I do not wish it even if I was 
 to have an Agar for helpmate when 175 years old, I 
 could not forget my Phanerogyne of the old times, be- 
 sides I am not constituted like Abraham was .... 
 
 By dint of speaking of religious creed, Heaven and 
 its antipode Hell, priests, etc., it has reminded me of 
 an incident that happened nearly half a century ago. 
 An individual, with whom I was slightly acquainted, 
 told me that he had met a man who knew me well 
 who had told him that I was a knowing ! one, that I 
 had studied to be a priest ! You hear spriest ! Good 
 God ! if never since I was born, any body had studied 
 any more than I had to be enlisted in that corporation 
 
RECOLLECTIONS TO 1892. 103 
 
 there would be nobody to-day, to besot the simpletons 
 except those older than I am, and I suppose the num- 
 ber is limited to-day. God have pity for me, I have 
 
 never meant to descend to that level although I 
 
 think of it, when I was 10 or 12 years old, I heard 
 an old woman telling my mother that one sister of her 
 (my mother) had told her that if I would study to be 
 a priest she would give all she had, and all she would 
 be able to save as long as she lived to pay for my edu- 
 cation in a Seminary. Was not that a strange coinci- 
 dence ? that a man I hardly knew should know such a 
 circumstance, when myself I had forgotten it. 
 
 One thing brings another. I recollect that my father, 
 speaking of that aunt of mine, said one day to some- 
 body who wanted to marry her for her money, that 
 11 she was pickled in holy water." She died a maid, 
 and I think I must have had some of her money, for 
 she died before my mother and sister, and they were 
 heirs to her, and both my mother and sister died during 
 the Secession War, and that I received from France, 
 through a notary public, some $800, paid in gold, 
 which at that time was worth $1,000. So you see the 
 caprices of Destiny ! She wanted to give her money 
 to make a saint! and she made a heretic her heir. 
 However, if any body go to Heaven those two sisters 
 ought to go !!.... 
 
104: APPENDIX. 
 
 As I arn making my confession, I will make it com- 
 plete without Jesuitic restrictions : I was 18 years, or 
 about, after my father's death ; my mother, a Saint 
 "in bona fide" when out of the presence, or of the 
 influence, occult, of the priest, but when immediately 
 after that odious auricular confession, she was .... 
 You will excuse me not to qualify my mother ! ! I am 
 not a priest. I leave to the Supreme " unknown " 
 judge, what that saint was. Suffice to say, it was the 
 holy Thursday. I had as much to do in one day, as 
 two men would have done in two days. She scolded 
 me for not going to a religious ceremony. I told her 
 that I had too much to do, I could not do it. ... "Well, 
 she said : My child ! I shall be damned, and you too ! 
 for I am responsible for your soul and mine .... After 
 that admonition of my poor minded mother, I felt 
 1 cannot attempt to describe it to you. I know no 
 English words that would give you an adequate idea 
 of my moral excruciating pain .... you understand, 
 my mother ! ! telling me I would be the cause of her 
 
 damnation ! ! for a few seconds I could not speak, 
 
 I felt paralyzed ; when I spoke, I said, 
 
 " No ! no ! mother, there will be no damnation. 
 
 " If any, it will be for the hearer of your confession ! 
 
 When I recovered from my stupor I told her with a 
 tremulous voice, but with a strong determination : 
 
KECOLLECTIONS, 1825-26. 105 
 
 Mother!! If I-knew-the-wretch who-has-confessed- 
 you,-advised you-I would-go-this-minute-and strangle 
 him, if able to do it .... She weeped bitterly, and I 
 did not feel any better, if not worse, she wept with 
 grief! and I was choking with rage //.... O ! mal- 
 ediction ! on the inventors of that odious confession ! 
 After that semi-dramatic scene, I remained about two 
 years longer with my mother and sister, but we had no 
 more quarrels, if she spoke about religion I listened to 
 her, I made no remarks, I answered by monosyllables, 
 yes ! or no ! or very well ! "We had what we say in 
 French, " Put water in our wine" that is to say, 
 every one of us tried not to hurt the other's feelings, 
 so we had a truce, if not absolutely peace. Now 
 readers, if any, allow me if you please, not to think I 
 have been too impulsive, too exalted in my demonstra- 
 tions to confess to you in -writing to your eyes, not to 
 your ears alone, not auricular. That in writing the 
 above episode, I have shed as many tears than there 
 are words in it, in this outburst of my indignation. 
 "In 1825, 66 years ago!" 
 
 After I had left my mother and sister in 1827, I 
 went to see them again in 1835. We had been corre- 
 sponding all the time. My mother was always the 
 same, but we did not have any harsh expressions to 
 exchange. I knew it was probably the last time we 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 would see each other, so I did not tell them I had made 
 up my mind to leave France, where I was called a 
 heretic and blood drinker. I wrote to them after I 
 got settled in Astoria, and a few years after we were 
 settled in Albany. I sent them our Photographs of 
 all of us, nearly one dozen ! ! as specimens of pro- 
 lific ! America ! Since, I have only seen France once, 
 in 1878 ; and only from Dieppe to Paris. I have not 
 been to the city where I was born, where I would not 
 have known anybody (43 years), and I was not an 
 " American uncle" and nobody would have recognized 
 me. I was to go, but I missed a train I wanted to go 
 by ; I had to wait three hours for another, then I made 
 reflections so sad! that I gave it up. 
 
 I do admire " France." She has produced that 
 " colossal! that " immense" revolution of 1789 ! whose 
 revolutionary commotions have shaken morally the 
 whole civilized world. She has compelled all the 
 Potentates of Europe (England excepted ; she is a grand 
 nation also) to pass under the " Furcse Caudines," i. e., 
 the yoke of the revolutionary patriotic and emancipa- 
 tory genius of France ! and that during many years, un- 
 til her "first evil genius " Napoleon I caused her to be 
 twice invaded in one year ; and, many years later, her 
 " second superimus evil scoundrel genius Napoleon III, 
 had her drowned in an ocean of ignominy .... To all 
 
KECOLLECTIONS, 1827. 107 
 
 these calamities France can say " Mea Culpa " " Max- 
 ima Culpa." By so doing she will somewhat attenuate 
 her wrongs, for her fondness of vain glory. They 
 have given you a " quantum snfficit " of glory your 
 uncle and his worthy nephew Two Emperors one 
 after the other, is it not glorious ? and cheap above all, 
 only for the bagatelle of two provinces ! it is for noth- 
 ing except mountains of shame! that will not be 
 
 levelled down as quickly as they have been created 
 
 unless the f'rencfi clergy ', who this day show so much 
 sympathy for the French republic should settle them 
 down by dint of holy water irrigations, it might 
 perhaps make the ground more fertile ? God ! knows 
 we don't France has produced a great many emi- 
 nent men of genius in all the ramifications of human 
 intelligence This country of Uncle Sam has pro- 
 duced ONE, especially, Franklin ! put him in the scale, 
 weigh his merits and compare him to any of the great 
 
 men of any country and draw your conclusions 
 
 mine are drawn if Tanlceedom should not, over-weigh 
 " overbalanced " them all, I would jump in the scales 
 so that she could do it. 
 
 When I began to write some of these sketches of my 
 life I meant to relate only the most interesting inci- 
 dents, but as I proceeded I found that I had omitted 
 many and some I had entirely overlooked, forgotten, 
 
108 APPENDIX. 
 
 and some very typical ones, connected with wisdom 
 versus stupidity, and perhaps vice versa. Does not 
 this expression sound odd, queer on iny lips! "confes- 
 sions?" It does if you take it to the letter, and with 
 its religious meaning, but that confession shall not be 
 snatched from me by any priest of any denomination 
 whatever, it will be between us, between the whole 
 community, and if it chance not to meet your appro- 
 bation, you need not give me the absolution, and I 
 promise you that I shall not be angry with you for 
 your intolerance, on condition you will not either bear 
 me any malice for what I may say to clear my con- 
 science, to have sinned in the eyes of some, but not in 
 mine, for it may happen that what one of us calls virtue 
 I may consider it as a venial vice. . . . Now that I 
 have done my introductory prayer, let us begin : In 
 1827" I was only between 19 and 20 years old, half 
 between the two. I lived in one of the suburbs of 
 Paris, within a few hundred yards of the city walls, 
 intra muros (within the walls), but I boarded extra 
 muros (outside the walls), so as not to pay double price 
 for wine, when I drank any, for I did not care much 
 for it at that time, but necessity compelled me not to, 
 yet I had to do it on account of the water not agreeing 
 with new comers. A bottle of wine that cost 16 cents 
 in Paris cost only 8 cents outside owing to city duties, 
 and when a man gets 50 francs ($10) a month he can- 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1827. 109 
 
 not very well afford to drink wine, but I had to do it 
 and board myself, it was a question of hygiene and I 
 could not afford to be sick ... 
 
 Let us come to the psychologic incident. I had a 
 comrade 8 or 10 years my senior, not exactly a Parisian 
 but born in the jurisdiction of Paris, he was a sort of 
 philosopher ! as you will see. It was on what you call 
 in English " Good Friday." We went to our boarding 
 house, where there were perhaps 30 or more people, 
 all mechanics of different trades. "We were the only 
 two exceptions, in trade, and in principles ; almost uni- 
 formly every one had beef soup, and after soup (soup 
 and a Frenchman are almost synonymous), boiled beef 
 and vegetables at your option. One word before we 
 go further. After we were all sat down and waiting 
 for the waiters I gave a glance all over the company 
 (I already began to study human kind) to see how all 
 those philosophers were going to "feed" excuse me 
 this word, it> answers my purpose. I found that the 
 majority ordered beef soup. I might say the whole. 
 After soup the waiter asked us what we wanted. I 
 don't know what he asked others. I had seen the soup 
 served up. That was all I wanted for my edification, 
 but I was mistaken. I had only seen one-half of the 
 performance, the waiter came to me and asked me in a 
 
 whisper what do you want? I told him beef and 
 10 
 
110 APPENDIX. 
 
 mashed potatoes. He brought it to me and at once I 
 began to put half of my beef in my loaf of bread for 
 my dinner, as it was the custom then, it cost less to 
 buy it from the baker than from the restaurant, then 
 I began to eat the balance left. "When my comrade, 
 who stood opposite me, rose from his chair, crossed 
 his arms over his breast and thrust in my face these 
 " flowers of rhetoric " (we were florists and of course 
 that was one of our weapons): " D . . . . savage ! double 
 brute! ! have you been brought up with wild leasts ! 
 in the woods where you ought to be and not among 
 civilised f people //.... to eat meat on such day !!.... 
 After that complimentary apostrophe, allocution as you 
 please, the utterance of which seemed to have exhausted 
 all his faculties, he could hardly draw his breath, he 
 was panting f and I was suffocating f with rage, with 
 all the most violent passions in a human body. At 
 that minute, that second, from a roaring in the room 
 you could have heard the flying of an atom, a silence 
 like in a tomb ! So spontaneous had been the frantic 
 allocution, every one was surprised and I was petrified ! 
 as to say. If at that time the terrestrial globe had 
 had a handle through it and I could have handled it 
 as my spade I would have rolled it over all in exist- 
 ence, crushing to dust every thing, then you would 
 have had a cause to say to-day " dust to dust ! But I 
 don't think I said any thing at all, unless internally 
 
KECOLLECTIONS, 1827. Ill 
 
 "Infernal stupid fools, beastly bipeds, you ought to 
 eat hay instead of bread." 
 
 Much ado about nothing some one might say ! Yes 
 it was something ! and the morality of it would have 
 been this: If that beastly man had been able to 
 strangle me as his disposition appeared to be, nobody 
 would have interfered in my behalf, for in rny honest 
 conviction they had the same ideas more or less, for 
 not one expressed his indignity of the insult to me, 
 and in such case you know the old saying * ' who says 
 nothing consents." 
 
 To end that confession, I will tell all my SINS in that 
 fanatical strife was, that when that man addressed me 
 I thought from his look that he was to . leap over the 
 table and take me by the neck. I had my hand on a 
 decanter half full of water, and if he had jumped or 
 turned round the table and touched me I would have 
 smashed it on his head, unless he had been the strongest, 
 and to-day, after over 64 years, I still believe nobody 
 would have interfered, though probably none would 
 have helped him, but 
 
 Now, I would like to ask those who may have read 
 the first part of my biography, what they think of that 
 incident "eating boiled beef" on a Good Friday, or 
 any other Friday, after other persons would have eaten 
 
112 APPENDIX. 
 
 the essence of it f And then call that beef eater a 
 double brute, etc., and thinking he, the Beefophagus 
 will go to hell for the crime of having eaten what you 
 had sucked^ and he who had absorbed the juice of that 
 beef will go to Heaven / Is not that a wonderfully 
 pious action ? One can go to heaven cheaply. Probably 
 there are some persons who would tell me that that was 
 only an isolated case, but unfortunately not, it is the 
 rule, not the exception. Long before that, I had seen 
 almost as bad in a different way. When, one, as /, 
 have seen such acts of fanaticism, in a city like 
 Paris ! when this very day the French nation hesi- 
 tates to have a separation of the State from that cleri- 
 cal breed / whose majority, to-day, would, if they had 
 the power, proclaim a new " Saint Bartholomew " of 
 all who would not believe, that confession is an igno- 
 minious aninfamous institution, to degrade human 
 species .... to corrupt young people, especially the 
 feminine sex. I wish that in this paper I am writing 
 on I could with decency unveil your turpitudes, but 
 we cannot dispose of a confessional as you do. We 
 have to observe decency .... It makes my blood "boil 
 when I think there are men that teach you you will 
 go to Hell in eating meat on certain days or in not 
 believing that they are the ministers of God ! O I 
 Impostors ! O ! French Philosophers ! 
 
KECOLLECTIONS, 1838. 113 
 
 An incident in my life, in 1838, in Astoria, L. 1., 
 N. Y. Expelled out of the railroad cars for want 
 of ten cents change, with forty dollars bills of good 
 money. 
 
 In March, 1838, I had been in the employ of Mr. 
 Geo. Thorburn, of New York, on his place, at Astoria, 
 since 1st of October, 1837, and by that time I had not 
 received one cent having no need of money I had 
 not asked for, as I had a few dollars in reserve, but to 
 try my proficiency in writing English, for as speaking 
 it tolerably I was backward. So I wrote to him that 
 I should like a few dollars, if convenient. The very 
 same day he sent me $40 in bank bills, all single dol- 
 lar bills, and probably of forty different banks of New 
 York State, but not of New York city. Those forty 
 dollars were such dirty looking in appearance, that if 
 they had been spread over the pavement in the street, 
 I would not have stooped down to pick them up. 
 True, I knew nothing about the money. The follow- 
 ing day was a Sunday. I decided to go to New York, 
 so I went to the Hell Gate ferry to cross the river, 
 thence went to Yorkville to take the steam cars to go 
 to the city. Yorkville was the terminus of the rail- 
 road. The tunnel between Yorkville and Harlem was 
 not finished then. There was no station for the railroad, 
 but close to the stairway to go down to get into the 
 cars there was a saloon, or a tavern, and I went in, riot 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 willing to wait in the open air, as it was drizzling, 
 snowing and cold, but I thought it was not proper to 
 stand in such place without taking something, so I 
 asked for " a glass of leer" only those four words. 
 I must have pronounced them in a queer way, or the 
 bar-tender was dull enough. Anyhow he took a small 
 bottle (the contents of which did not look like beer to 
 me) and filled up a large glass. I took the glass with 
 one hand and handed a silver coin with the other. I for- 
 got if it was 10 cents or more or less, I think it was 
 Spanish or Mexican money. He took it and did not 
 give me any change. I tasted the would-be-bee? but I 
 could not drink it. It was as bitter as Aloe to my 
 taste, so I put my glass on the bar again, and all the 
 time he looked at me but I did not say a word nor he 
 either, but from his look, if he had spoken, I think he 
 would have said : " What sort of a fool are you ? You 
 ask for a drink, you pay for it and you do not drink it, 
 nor say a word whether you find it bad or not. I would 
 have asked but I could not manage to find words to 
 ask him what sort of medicine he had given me. The 
 train had arrived so I went down and got in the 
 car. I do not think there was more than one person 
 and myself in the car. In a few minutes the conductor 
 came and asked me my fare without speaking, I could 
 understand his pantomime, so I handed him one dollar 
 bill of those dirty looking bills. He looked at it, shook 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1838. 115 
 
 his head and stood looking at me with some impatience. 
 I gave him another, then he said no good. I could 
 understand that without an interpreter. I gave him 
 another from the same bundle I had in my coat pocket. 
 Same ceremony. He would not take it and began to 
 wax mad and put his hand on my shoulder to turn me 
 out, but I was not willing to go. It began to snow 
 pretty heavy. I held the seat I was sitting on with 
 one hand and with the other one I pulled my bundle 
 of bills and I gave it to help himself, but he still held 
 me and wanted to drag me out. I think he had suc- 
 ceeded to push me a few yards but by that time the 
 gentleman who was in the car took his arm from me. 
 Then they began to discuss rather lively and quarrel. 
 I could not understand what they said but I could 
 understand the gestures of both, and that the gentle- 
 man who interfered in my behalf was telling that man 
 I was not a swindler, and that all those bills I had 
 offered him were good. The result of that incident was 
 I went free. When we arrived, I think 28th street, I 
 thanked the gentleman the best I could and went down 
 to the post-office to see if I had a letter from France that 
 I expected. A clerk who talked French and English 
 told me there were two. He handed them to me. I 
 took them and gave him one of those dollars. He 
 looked at it and told me " I cannot take that bill. Why ? 
 I said is it bad? No it is good, but we do not take 
 
116 APPENDIX. 
 
 any bank bill unless New York city bills or silver. 
 He took back my two letters and gave me my dollar. 
 Then I said what shall I do. Well he said go to that 
 Jew clothing-store and buy a vest or any thing else, 
 give your bills and they will give you change. I told 
 him I wanted nothing at all. Well go into the tavern 
 close by and tako a glass of beer. The devil with the 
 beer. I thought of the glass I had had at Yorkville, 
 but as I could not get change any other way I did take 
 it and got the change of my dollar. The change was 
 about as bright as the bills, some six cents, one shilling. 
 That most of them looked like little rounds of TIN. 
 You could hardly see any thing on them so much worn 
 out by long handling. The same night when I got back 
 to Astoria I wrote again to Mr. Thorburn to whom I 
 recounted my trouble. He told me to send back the 
 money (bills) and he would send me silver American 
 coin. 
 
 He did not send me silver, but quite new lank bills 
 of New York city. But, as the proverb has it " a burnt 
 child dreads the fire," I felt in doubt, and I was much 
 puzzled where to go to test their intrinsic value. There 
 was only one grocery in the village, as far as I knew, 
 and I did not want to buy any thing at all. I might 
 have asked for a glass of beer, but I had enough of it. 
 I was afraid it would be from the same brewery I 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1838. 117 
 
 drank at Yorkville, so I asked for a candle ! A can- 
 dle ? Yes. You may laugh, for when I got out of 
 the store, going back to my lodging, I laughed myself 
 at my shrewdness ! Weburned oil, and I had no need 
 of it. I laughed a great deal more than all those who 
 may read this silly story will, for after lighting my 
 flam~beau I took a book to read, to see if it was good 
 tallow or wax, and the first thing I read, was, a story 
 of a fellow of my school who went to a dry good store 
 and walked from one end to the other of the store, 
 when one of the clerks asked him what he wanted ? 
 O ! nothing, he said, I only wanted to see the store 
 "keepers daughter, and I do not see her, is she gone 
 out ? The story did not say if he wanted to buy her, 
 as I had done, with my candle .... But that incident of 
 being turned out of railroad cars for want of ten cents, 
 when I had forty dollars in my pocket, did not give 
 me a very good opinion of American money, for many 
 years later the country was literally overflooded with 
 such dirty money, and to help it, quantities of those 
 bills counterfeited. When you went in a store to buy 
 for sixpence, if you had no small change to pay for, 
 you had to wait ten or fifteen minutes, until the store- 
 keeper had looked in a sort of detector to see if yonr 
 money was good. That was not the Golden Age ! ! 
 
118 APPENDIX. 
 
 Specimen of Brutality. 
 
 Speaking of grandeur versus littleness, reminds me 
 of a circumstance. In 1841, three countrymen of 
 mine, two living in New York, and one in Albany, 
 came to pay me a visit in Astoria. One of them, a 
 splendid, tall looking man (physically speaking) one of 
 the debris of the Waterloo's cataclysm of blood, asked 
 me if I was a married man ? I answered affirmatively. 
 Married to an American lady or a French one ? I re- 
 plied an English one. English ? Yes ! Well he said 
 with a wry face, she loses seventy-five per cent in my 
 estimation ! ! Sir, I believe you, since you say so, but 
 I, in my appreciation of your high stature, and nar- 
 row-minded idea, I think .... that you .... are an ass ! 
 He changed color at hearing that apostrophe, and made 
 a motion of his right arm, as I made of my right foot 
 " to shake the kinkles out o' back an' leg, an o' rack my 
 face off from &jilip, I thought he was going to adminis- 
 ter me. But suddenly one of his friends, the Albanian, 
 another debris of the catastrophe of Waterloo, threw 
 his arms across the body of that appraiser of a woman 
 he had never seen, and of a man he saw for the first 
 time, and told him : Rioux ! (I think it was his name) 
 it is a shame for you to insult a man, and a woman you 
 have never seen, and do not know any thing about him 
 or her. If you touch him you will have to knock me 
 down first, and be sorry after. And he would have 
 
KECOLLECTIONS, 1841. 119 
 
 been sorry, for my foot and leg were braced to give 
 him a filip on his lower abdomen. I had no other 
 weapon, and I could not grapple with such a colossus. 
 His weight alone could have crushed me, although, I 
 was not lame at that time. But " all is well that ends 
 well." .... Only I should like to make some comment- 
 aries on such a man one of those satellites of the 
 uncle of his nephew, brave on the battle-field, but, 
 otherwise, most of the time reasoning as a horse ! ! 
 Can you understand that illogical, semi-brute express- 
 ing himself against a woman, who had more sense in 
 her fingers (queer comparison, but it suits my mean- 
 ing) than he had in his whole individual, to Kate any 
 one, because born in a certain country ! That man 
 ought to have admired the English for he had seen 
 them face to face on that "Abattoir! of human 
 bodies, Waterloo ! If that man had had a grain of com- 
 mon sense he would have looked with respevt with 
 profound admiration, at the sight of " "Wellington," 
 surrounded or with his aides-de-camp, Lords Hill and 
 Gordon, already killed : " General, if you expose 
 yourself to be killed, what shall we do ? As 1 do to 
 "be 'killed ! was his answer. A grand, a noble answer ! \ 
 For me that day Wellington was greater than Napo- 
 leon. I shall not qualify this last decency forbids 
 me. . 
 
120 APPENDIX. 
 
 But, here, I cannot refrain from making reflections 
 on the blindness, prejudices, irrational insane ideas of 
 nation against nation. Why those hatred, inveterate 
 feelings between two nations, France and England, 
 especially ? . . . . Who will answer those arduous ques- 
 tions? Neither of them collectively ! u L' Amour propre 
 FranQais " on one side, and the " English Pride " on 
 the other side, and both together, will, I am afraid, pre- 
 vent forever an union between them. That " amour 
 propre Fran9ais," that I incline to render it, by 
 "Amour sale bete dirty, foolish, and the English 
 pride by English u arrant nonsensicalness" are 
 monstrous anomalies, which ought to make both blush 
 with shame, if they should take the thing in earnest 
 consideration ? Inasmuch as I have the profound con- 
 viction that both, individually, not collectively, unfor- 
 tunately have among them, men who think for them- 
 selves, who have admiration for each other nation, but 
 will not confess it not to the ears of a priest. I do 
 
 not want such a confession. I wish it " Coram in ore 
 
 < 
 
 omnibus orbe" " In face of the whole world ! " 
 
 If these two nations would clasp hands with each 
 other " sans arriere pensee," " without any " moral 
 restrictions." They, even to-day, at the dawn of the 
 twentieth century ! they could have the pre-eminence 
 over the whole of Europe ! if not more That is 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1831-37. 121 
 
 my ardent wish, and I would like to see it before I 
 take my exit .... But what seas of difficulties in the 
 way, impediments of all sorts : difference of language, 
 foremost, religious creed next, and probably, as bad, if 
 not worse, rivalry, jealousies among all classes of so- 
 ciety, etc., etc .... I think, from the reflections I make 
 in sketching that dream, it will be as well for me to 
 take my exit as soon as the doors will be open and not 
 waste my illusions, though they do not cost me much, 
 yet it is a pity not. . . .not to see that dream a reality 
 
 These illusions of mine in reference to an union 
 
 between France and England have been nursed up in 
 my bosom for the last fifty years, and more ! but the 
 prospect is that I shall die with them unrealized .... it 
 is a pity ! ! 
 
 L.M. 
 
 In April, 1831, as I was going to leave Paris, I had 
 omitted to relate the particulars of my engagement, 
 which I had not thought proper to mention, but since 
 I have found it necessary to give an adequate idea of 
 the growing of my principles in religion, politics, moral, 
 intellectual affairs, etc. The man of whom I have 
 spoken as & ferocious royalist that wanted to civilize 
 people with volleys of musketry to prevent the spread- 
 ing of democratic principles, had recommended me to 
 
 a gentleman living in Paris most of the time, except 3 
 11 
 
122 APPENDIX. 
 
 or 4 months in Autumn, who wanted a gardener for his 
 mother. I went to see him, and after a little talk, 
 about wages only, for that man who would have shot 
 me in the street, had told him to hire me with his eyes- 
 shut, closed, that I was all right. As he objected to 
 pay me what I asked, I told him I would take what 
 he used to pay, but if after one or two months he found 
 I was worth more he would pay me what I had asked. 
 At the end of the month his mother paid me what I 
 had stipulated. We had all settled about the day I 
 would leave Paris. When I began to think I had for- 
 gotten to ask him if his mother was a religious woman ? 
 What makes you ask such a question, he said. I ask 
 that because I know folks in the country are fond of 
 going to church, and I am not ! and that probably your 
 mother might require me to go. Oh, yes ! he said,, 
 she is very strict for that. All right she does what 
 suits her and I want the same privilege. Oh what a 
 fool you are; I don't care for religion, any more 
 than you do, but to please her I do it. It is all right 
 for you, she is your mother, but she is not mine ! you 
 understand ? You act hypocrisy to please her, but I 
 did not wish to do so for my own mother. Well he 
 said I find it is of no use to talk any more about it, but 
 I am sorry. Your appearance, your ways of talking 
 please me, but I see you are determined. Well, I told 
 him I am as sorry as you are, and more so, for I need 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1831-37. 123 
 
 employment and you can do without me. I think of 
 one thing, and if you approve it and if your mother 
 sanctions it I will go immediately. Write to your 
 mother, tell her I am a Protestant, if she does not ob- 
 ject all is settled. Good ! you have a luminous idea. 
 I see that you have more than one string to your bow. 
 I will write her and I have not the least doubt she will 
 accept that proposition, when I will tell her that you 
 suit me. So it was all right no it was not for a 
 sudden idea struck me that perhaps when I would be 
 there among those people, who worshipped a different 
 God from mine, they would drive me away, stone me, 
 make a martyr of me, and I have not the ambition to 
 see my name in a martyrology ; as I have already 
 declined to be a simple saint ! All the time I was 
 reciting that tirade he gravely looked at me then burst 
 with loud laughing. Oh no ! they won't do that, they 
 are not as fanatic as that, you may depend upon it. 
 On the contrary the few Protestants there are more 
 respected than a great many orthodox sectarians ; you 
 may go safely, so I went, but after I had been there 
 a few days they tried to submit me at the diet of 
 spinage on Fridays and Saturdays. I winced at that 
 violation of our convention, signed by both parties, 
 etc., etc. I had a good deal of fun and occasionally I 
 waxed mad, but I soon got over it, especially when 
 the gentleman who had engaged me was present. We 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 had a good deal of fun with religious farces. We even 
 made alterations in the calendar. We used to call 
 Fridays and Saturdays " the first and the second days of 
 spinages, the other days of fast through the year extra 
 spinage day. So far as that we agreed but no farther. 
 He was unprincipled, he was what we generally call a 
 good fellow ! in a restrictive sense. A handsome look- 
 ing man, high stature. During the Peninsular Spanish 
 war he had been an aide-de-camp of General Duke of 
 jRaguse, then at the time 1 speak of he was living on a 
 pension from an uncle, a French general, and some 
 other little scraps. When talking politics if you asked 
 him to what party he belonged he answered that he 
 leaned on the " woman bosom." He had been a Bona- 
 partiste of course, and he was then a very lukewarm 
 Philippist, King Louis Philippe. On the subject of 
 woman we often wrangled with animation. He was 
 unscrupulous, even dissolute, no respect for them, not 
 even for his own mother, for several times I assisted at 
 some domestic quarrel between them (mother and son), 
 and I had to interfere in such a way that once he told 
 me : You ! if you were not in my mother's house I 
 
 would What would you do ? ? compel me to 
 
 swallow your rusted swords, jour panoply (he had one 
 in a room under mine). You know very well that 
 those antiquities do not scare me more than the pro- 
 prietor of them ! Do you not recollect lately when 
 
EECOLLBCTIONS, 1831-37. 125 
 
 I have sawed you from killing your servant or her 
 ing killed yourself by him ? Do you not see yet the 
 but end of that musket in my hand swinging over your 
 head and that of your drunken valet ? Did I look like 
 one afraid of you ? " Baron ! out of fashion ? (he 
 was called a Baron and the mother a Baroness). He 
 and that man had a difficulty. The servant was drunk 
 and insulted him without any reason whatever. He 
 was sitting eating his dinner when the fellow, drunk, 
 went to him and took him by the arm and abusing him. 
 Then the insulted man took a carving knife to stab him, 
 but the fellow was a powerfully strong man, stopped 
 his arm but could not snatch the knife from him then. 
 I was coming from my room when I saw all the women 
 in the house screaming in a terrific manner. By that 
 time they had got out of the dining room and where 
 in a large kitchen where there was a large table 10 or 
 12 or more feet long and 6 inches thick, running up to 
 a mantle piece over which were 2 or 3 fowling pieces. 
 I could not separate them, 1 would have been crushed 
 between them, both strong men. I jumped on the 
 table, took one of the rnuskets by the barrel. They 
 were wrestling at the end of the table close by me ; 
 then I shouted if any one of you move one inch either 
 way I smash his head ! I had no looking glass to see 
 how I looked, but all the women told me after, that I 
 looked like a demon, that my eyes were protruding out 
 
126 APPENDIX. 
 
 of my sockets. All I can tell is that they both looked 
 at me. They were still grappling, and I still with my 
 musket in my hand. Then for a second or two a dead 
 silence, no screaming. Then I said you Mr. Baron, 
 you are a coward to take a knife against a drunken 
 man unconscious, and you, the servant, you are a ~brute ! 
 Get out this moment and you give me your knife and 
 go and finish your dinner if you can. . . .both went out 
 quietly, in appearance. The old mother took me in 
 her arms, and the other women. Some of them kissed 
 me. I was a hero, but I felt a little uneasy about my 
 drunken fellow, but I soon found he was no longer 
 drunk. He was quiet when sober, and instead of quar- 
 reling with me as I thought he would he thanked me for 
 my intervention. What made me so terribly mad in that 
 affray is that man had got drunk in my company. We 
 had been in a village feast where he drank with every 
 body, and I was talking and also drinking as a pretext 
 to observe the company, good people enough, that en- 
 joyed perhaps half a dozen times in the course of the 
 year, and toiled hard and lived about the same the 359 
 other days. 
 
 Now let us go back to our Baron, and his panoply. 
 The day after that " Brutum fulmen," " Harmless 
 thunderbolt," he came to me and told me : Louis ! I 
 know you were not afraid of me, though you were 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1831-37. 127 
 
 trembling, but I knew it was not fear, but.choler, 
 .anger, wrath. If I had touched you what would you 
 have done ? Please do not ask me such a question, I 
 cannot tell. Yes, I understand that, but I wish to 
 know for my own edification. Well, if you had 
 touched me seriously, with the idea to hurt me you 
 would have had to kill me or disabled me on the spot, 
 or else exchange my conditions for you to be "killed or 
 unable to defend yourself. Then I would have been 
 sorry forever. Well, he said, all is over, and I hope it 
 will not happen any more. Once in a while a quarrel 
 occurred between him and his mother, and I was al- 
 ways mixed in the contest as an arbitrator. I, most of 
 the time, inclined on the side of the mother. But, in 
 my conscience, after over sixty years, I am obliged to 
 say that neither were saints. Yet both treated me 
 well, the mother especially, notwithstanding her bigot- 
 ism and venial weakness, I had sympathy for her. 
 Often when I came from my herborization loaded with 
 plants, she came and asked me what I had found new 
 during the whole day, from 3 A. M. to 4 or 5 P. M. 
 Have you been all that time looking for plants ? Yes, 
 Madame! Well, she said, you have modified your 
 love inclinations. Don't you recollect the first day 
 you came here from Paris you went in the garden with 
 one of my young servants to show you the topography 
 of the place, and the first thing you did you kissed 
 
128 APPENDIX. 
 
 her several times ! Don't you recollect, I upbraided 
 you for having done so, and you asked me who had 
 told me so. I told you some folks working in the 
 vineyards on the hills culminating the garden had 
 seen you, and you answered me as if you had achieved 
 a great feat that you had done so and would do 
 it again as soon as you would have a chance, if she 
 would permit you. Is it so ? Well, Madame, then I 
 wanted to flirt ; to " woo in naturalibus" and to-day 
 I do love platonically. I try to learn the theory of 
 expressions proper to express my love when 1 shall 
 find the person that shall inspire me. Love ! as I un- 
 derstand it until then, I will love the plants, and 
 
 both together. When coming home this afternoon, I 
 was tired, and I found a fine spot under an elm tree, 
 not far from the spot where your dear sighted folks 
 had seen me kissing that young girl. I laid down 
 under that tree, and I have learned half of the verb 
 amo ! to love. When I went out at that time I had 
 always my latin grammar in my pocket, so as not to 
 lose any time in resting my legs. 
 
 Once in a while we had little squalls about news- 
 papers. Whenever there were some bitter articles in 
 the Republican papers about the government, or any 
 thing that indicated that democracy was progressing 
 she would cut it off before she gave it to me. She had 
 
RECOLLECTIONS, 1831-37. 129 
 
 a conservative and Royalist paper. So I told her : If 
 you do not give it to me as it comes, I will get a Re- 
 publican paper. So I did, and that vexed her con- 
 siderably. I continued to be protestant in my own 
 way. 
 
 She did not believe I was, but she had to act as if 
 she had, she had to have the appearance, and she cared 
 for me and she treated me well, and so her son did, 
 also. Once in a while we had a row about my giving 
 meat on Friday to some of her folks who were eating 
 at the same table as I did. One day I had a dish of 
 several squabs (young pigeons) when all the rest, men 
 and women were eating fricasee of beans or some- 
 thing of that sort, and cheese, etc. Among them were 
 two young men, working with me in the garden, that 
 would not object to eat some pigeons. I offered them, 
 but they hesitated, but I did not. I said : Do you 
 want any? I took one and cut it in two, and gave 
 each one one-half. They hardly began when the old 
 lady came and saw them. She did not say any thing be- 
 cause she was afraid of a storm, but sometime after she 
 came to see me in the greenhouse, and she said : Mr. 
 Gardener, or Louis, she called me so when she was of 
 good humor, and she was so notwithstanding the distri- 
 bution of pigeons, she said : I do not object you to 
 eat meat on Friday, but I do not want you to give any 
 
130 APPENDIX. 
 
 to my folks. It is enough that I have to pay to the 
 Pope a dispense for ray son and you ! Well, Madame, 
 I think you might save that money, for I am willing 
 to take the whole responsibility for all of us, and more. 
 Well, that is all right, for you, but I must be respon- 
 sible I have my soul to save .... do you understand, 
 paying the Pope to eat pigeons ?! L ... What sublime 
 thing faith is ! Nothing equal, except stupidity. I 
 do not know if she has saved her soul. Nobody can 
 know that, but if she did not it was not for lack of 
 credulity, for she would swallow any thing the priests 
 would tell her. I recollect once, a tall, swarthy fellow, 
 just (he said) coming from the Holy Land with splin- 
 ters of the wood of the " Holy Cross," and something 
 rarer yet : some bones of Saint Vincent, the saint 
 venerated by the " vine dressers" probably because he 
 was a liberal consumer of their produce ! ? I do not 
 affirm, I only ask the question. He (the discoverer of 
 traps to catch the simple-hearted, with an iron-clad 
 faith, managed, with the aid of co-swindlers, to per- 
 suade her to get some and have them enshrined. She 
 did so ! and I understood that it cost her 2,000 francs 
 ($400), at a time she was so hard up that she could not 
 pay me on my salary $20. I wanted to go to Pkris. . 
 to see the philosophers drinkers of essence of beef, 
 but not eating the meat for fear of losing their souls ! ! 
 O ! stupiditas stupiditarum ! O, God !!.... have mercy 
 
KECOLLECTIONS, 1831-37. 131 
 
 upon them ! they deserve. . . .to inherit the kingdom 
 of Heaven and eat hay .... 
 
 To finish with this good hearted woman, and the 
 priest (of whom, 1 wish to be plainly understood, I 
 do not include the whole of them, for there are a great 
 number worthy of our admiration, whether believers 
 or unbelievers, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Mahome- 
 dan charity, philanthropy, exist everywhere. Virtues 
 are cosmopolitan as are vices. I do not hate men, 
 priests or others, / hate the principles, the institu- 
 tions that have a tendency to deprive humanity of 
 
 their common sense, judgment, reason ) I 
 
 must tell you something that will astound you * 
 A young "Abbe " " Abbot " not ordained as a priest 
 yet, had' received hospitality from that lady, he 
 being sickly and poor, had been prescribed by doc- 
 tors to live in the country for his health, which was 
 frail indeed, but he had a great deal of energy, 
 was quick in his movements and wonderfully intel- 
 ligent, impulsive, passionate to excess, but whose 
 senses, judgment, had been vitiated by that clerical 
 mode of torturing one's moral and mental faculties, 
 trying to make you believe that bladders are lanterns, 
 
 gas lamps, etc We had a billiard table on the 
 
 place, but nobody to play with him except the old lady, 
 who could not stand round the billiard table more than 
 
132 APPENDIX. 
 
 a few minutes and she was out of breath, then she 
 send for me. He had never held a cue in his life, but 
 in less than half a day he could handle it as well as I 
 did my spade, but of course he was apt to miss a ball 
 and that made him nervous. He wore a sort of tea 
 cup saucer cap that he took off, threw it on the floor 
 and trampled it over and said : Shall I ever be able to 
 play and beat you ? I replied, not in dancing on your 
 cap. In that very moment I had to leave him. He 
 looked at me with consternation. Will you not come 
 back ? I told him I would try, but I did not. I had 
 something to do that prevented me. He was in terri- 
 ble agitation. "Will you play again to-morrow ? I may 
 possibly, but I have some thing to do. I can't play all 
 
 the time. What do you care Mrs my priestified 
 
 lady had told him that I would, that may be but 
 
 no but you must, the lady was just coming and both of 
 them coaxed me so I did play longer than I wished. 
 I did not dislike it, but I did not want to play by the 
 day. When he could make a carombol he was a happy 
 man, but when he missed it he was like the " D . . . . in 
 a holy water pot." He had become so passionately 
 fond of playing that he would have spent the whole 
 day without eating, but always furious when he missed 
 a ball. One day he got so excited that I told him, 
 Monsieur 1'Abbe ! it is not becoming for a man of 
 
KECOLLECTIONS, 1831-37. 133 
 
 your character, a Christian moralizer, to behave as you 
 do, and if you continue I shall have to quit your com- 
 pany. But I shall not mind it, if every time you get 
 fits of impatience you will express your mortifications 
 in Latin ; he could do it as fluently as in French. 
 "Well, he said, I will do it, but as a compensation you 
 will teach me how I could beat you ! I can not do that. 
 I shall give you a chance to do it, but I can not demon- 
 strate to you technically. I am not expert enough in 
 that line. I have always been very superficial in every 
 thing except in raising plants from cuttings or procre- 
 ating defenders for my adopted country .... One 
 day he got so exasperated at my success in playing that 
 an idea got into my head, partly for fun, partly to give 
 him a lesson of Christian humih'ty, but mostly to find 
 out if he knew any thing of Voltaire's writings, that 
 nightmare of the clerical progeny. He had got in such 
 a passion when missing a carombol, that at once I 
 picked up his cap, handed it to him, and with all the 
 dignity I could assume I recited to him those four 
 verses of Voltaire (tragedy of Mahomet): 
 
 ' ' Ne sais tu pas encore, hoinine f aible et superbe, 
 "Que 1'insecte insensible enseveli sous Pherbe, 
 "Et 1'aigle imperieux qui plane en haut du ciel 
 "Rentrent dans le neant aux yeux de 1'eternel ! 
 
134 APPENDIX. 
 
 Knowest thou not yet, man weak and haughty, 
 That the insensible insect, enshrouded under the sod, 
 
 And the imperious eagle that soars to heaven lofty, 
 Re-enter into chaos in the eyes of God! 
 
 When he saw my countenance, heard my scanned 
 declamation, he threw his cue across the billiards, and 
 said : What is that \ Who has written those verses 
 they are admirable! I responded with a studied 
 calmness : Voltaire ! ! No ! he said, that wretch has 
 never written such sublime expressions. He has, Mon- 
 sieur PAbbe ! or Hie, and you are a two legged ass ! 
 But you are not an ass, nor do I lie, and Voltaire is a 
 terrestrial genius. He saw. He had seen more of God 
 in his cabinet than all your theologians have ever seen in 
 the pulpit, or from the pulpit .... I have faith in your 
 frankness, but I cannot believe that a miscreant like 
 him could have had such admiration of God and ex- 
 pressed it in such a noble style. Let us see no 
 more of your expression miscreancy. He had no 
 faith in your nonsenses, and you, have too much in 
 your theologians, in absurdo. If I show you those 
 verses, printed half a century ago, will you believe it ? 
 I did not wait for his answer, but I went for the 
 volume containing the verses. He read them, and some 
 few more. Then looked on the title page of the book 
 to see if there were no tricks, put his hand on his fore- 
 head, tucked up his hair and involuntarily said: 
 
KECOLLECTIONS, 1831-37. 135 
 
 "Sacredie ! je n'aurais pas cru." "I would not 
 
 have believed it." Sacredie, on the lips of a Catholic 
 
 priest, is an euphemism for damned, damnation, etc. 
 He looked like a dog that had been flogged. I said 
 no more but young man (I was, perhaps, a few months 
 older than he was), it is time to go to bed. No, he 
 said, we have time enough, and if you do not wish 
 to play any more, let us go in the parlor. We shall 
 talk about plants, of which 1 know absolutely nothing 
 those cryptogamic minute plants you showed once 
 on the trunk of that beach tree, where you quoted that 
 
 verse of Yirgil : ( " O Tityre patulce recubans 
 
 sub tegminefagi" under the shade of that beech tree? 
 only we were standing up, while Yirgil's shepherd was 
 reclining), have interested me much they have in- 
 fused in me the desire to know more. We went in the 
 parlor, but we did not talk long about plants, and the 
 conversation soon crept in that rather hollow science, 
 theology . It was about 7 or 8 P.M. when we went, and 
 when we quitted it was 4 o'clock, A.M. That parlor was 
 a room perhaps twenty or twenty-five feet square, with 
 ceilings fourteen feet high, and only a wood fire of 
 logs, eight or ten or more inches in diameter, that 
 roasted us in front, and we were chilled behind. It 
 was in October or November I am not sure but it 
 was not warm. The heat of our polemics kept us from 
 shivering. It was about 11 6 } clock when our lady sent 
 
136 APPENDIX. 
 
 her maid to quench the fire, dreading we should quarrel. 
 She knew our temper, and she acted accordingly. How- 
 ever, she was disappointed. We both saw her, the 
 maid, breaking the logs, half burnt, and burying them 
 in the ashes. We were so excited that neither one of 
 us would say a word to stop her perhaps she would 
 not have paid an attention because she had been ordered 
 to do it, volens nolens. So we remained as I have said 
 until 4 a. m. When we parted he told me Mr. Louis, 
 some other day we shall resume our conference. I 
 want to convince you ! "Well if that is your aim you 
 will be deceived. You ought to know it by to-night's 
 experience. You have acknowledged twice that you 
 were touched, and you did not touch me once. Be- 
 cause you are too obstinate. No ! ! but because your 
 arguments are too dull. Your best arguments were 
 the Holy Scriptures! Who has written these 
 apocryphal books ? the logicians of the Apocalypse f 
 This is another authority which is as clear as a bottle 
 of ink. . . . Good night ! Bonne nuit ! Au revoir ! 
 We met the following day. I mean at 7 or 8 o'clock 
 in the morning of that day. The following day he had 
 to rejoin his regiment in his ~barrack seminary at 
 Reims, where I saw him once more in the " grand 
 seminary" where he was Professor of Theology. We 
 began an argument but on such a high diapason that he 
 suddenly told me we must part. Here the walls have 
 
KECOLLECTIONS, 1831-37. 137 
 
 ears! So we shook hands and he ran away saying 
 Adieu ! adieu ! in aeternum ! I repeated the phrase, 
 and . . . After I reached here (America) I wrote to 
 him once. He answered me, but he had misunderstood 
 me in some remarks I had made the first Sunday I was 
 in New York, about the multitude of religious weeds 
 and what I had seen in three different churches I had 
 visited, that he had concluded that I gave the promi- 
 nence to the Oath His answer was such, that I 
 
 felt so indignant, I never wrote him again, his ultra- 
 montanism had broken all the ties of sympathy between 
 us. I suppose he had understood when I was in France 
 that my Protestantism was only platonic. It was and 
 it was not. I am according to my notions a Protestant 
 as 'ever. I protest against what does not agree with 
 my ideas, my conscience, but 1 do it silently. I try 
 not to hurt any body's feelings. I let every one do as 
 they please, and I wish to enjoy the same privilege. 
 Even in my own family, where I ought to have some- 
 thing to say, I let every one of my children do as they 
 please in spiritual affairs. I have tried, I try yet to 
 inculcate in them some principles of good behavior, hon- 
 esty, tolerance, friendly relations with every one worthy 
 of having their associations cultivated! Only one 
 thing I shall never tolerate : " A uricular confession" 
 for me one of the greatest social evils at least for the 
 30 first years of my life. Now I hear nothing of it. 
 
138 APPENDIX. 
 
 Again, I want to be understood that 1 do not think 
 that any one going to confess is wrong, not at all. I 
 firmly believe that there are immense quantities of 
 people professing that creed that are sincere, but the 
 
 exceptions do not alter the rule I do not know how 
 
 long I have to vegetate on this globe, but as long as I 
 do I shall it will be as it has been since I have been 
 able to think for myself. Respecting the religious and 
 political opinions of every one whoever they may be, 
 every one of us is responsible for one's deeds before 
 the Eternal ! . . 
 
ELUCIDATION SOLICITED. 
 
 A lady amateur scrutinize! of genesis affairs, has 
 asked me if I would be willing to give the initial 
 particulars of my first sight of that " Phanerogyne," 
 in Astoria, in 1840. I have replied in the affirmative 
 that I would do it with a vivid pleasure, for it will 
 give me a regain of those celestial sensations I have 
 experienced in that providential circumstance. Even 
 to-day, the mere souvenir of it makes me feel as if my 
 heart was melting in a sea of voluptuousness ! 
 
 The first glimpse I had of that cryptogamous speci- 
 men of vegetation, was through (rather a dim light) the 
 front sashes of a greenhouse. She, as now, I know 
 the sex which I did not then, whether it was dioecious, 
 hermaphrodite, or unisexual. She was walking in the 
 carriage road of the site we were on, looking on each 
 side, in the borders, to see the flowers. She seemed to 
 be afraid of what I could not tell ; I found it after. 
 It was that "Albany Dutchman " that had been de- 
 picted to her as a good intelh'gent fellow enough, but, 
 
140 APPENDIX. 
 
 an awful radical or red republican who would kill his 
 man ! as he would a fly, etc., etc. any qualification 
 of that sort. 
 
 My second look at her, always through the glazed 
 sashes, brought to my mind that rule of Latin and 
 French grammar : " Gallus escam quaerens, margaritam 
 reperit," anglice, "A cock searching for food, found a 
 pearl ! " That which I translated off-hand in my mind, 
 u Gallina, a hen, searching for flowers, found " an 
 admirer, a lover, or a husband ! You see that I did 
 not lack presumption. I confess it now, but I would 
 not have done it then, though, shortly after, two or 
 three days later, when we came in contact, I felt the 
 same sensation, ambition to possess her, but I did not 
 express it ; although I have always been somewhat apt 
 to blunder I did not in that instance. I kept my dig- 
 nity though, according to the friendly reports at 
 that time, I could or would 'kill a man, but at the 
 same time I would not have slighted a woman. In 
 that first encounter, we had very nearly collided. 
 She was turning round a building to see me, and I was 
 coming in the opposite direction, walking fast, when 
 we almost fell in each other's arms, or at least face to 
 face. Was not that a strange coincidence ? We both 
 looked at each other, as you may fancy, with surprise ! 
 for neither of us were prepared to such a sudden en- 
 
ELUCIDATION. 141 
 
 counter. In a few seconds we had recovered our wits. 
 Then she told me : Mr. Louis, (that was my appella- 
 tion there) I wanted to see you, to ask you if you would 
 
 sell me a flower stem of tuberose I shall not tell 
 
 you what I answered You may say whatever 
 
 you please. I have written the dots, you may write 
 the Is, just to suit you. You may guess, as I do when 
 I am in doubt. But I am willing to tell you that : 
 We had a long conversation in French. My English 
 would not have been adequate to express all I had not 
 on hand, but in my heart. I suppose you might wish 
 to know what we said to each other. I wish I could, 
 but it is impossible for me to tell you now, nor imme- 
 diately after, except we talked, perhaps, over an hour, 
 and we might have talked three or four, or more, but 
 she was called and warned that if she should delay any 
 longer she would miss the boat coming from Fl ashing, 
 to go to 'New York, then to Albany. I did not know 
 where to ; it is after, I found it. On reflection, I 
 think we talked on American, English, French morals 
 theatrical performances, practical theology, Tuberos- 
 ology, and many other topics profane and religious, in 
 logy or logics, etc. All I recollect perfectly well is 
 that we understood each other almost by intuition. 
 The sequel has proved it, for half a century, and two 
 months strictly speaking, though two weeks less in 
 reality. lt Man proposes ! God disposes ! " Human 
 
14:2 APPENDIX. 
 
 kind progress more or less successfully. The laws of 
 Nature remain as God created them unchangeable, 
 notwithstanding what may be our desires our wishes 
 to have rain when too dry, or dry when too wet .... 
 
 Let me remember, if I have not omitted some details 
 in my narrative of our henceforth discovery of that in- 
 dividuality now belonging to the community as far as 
 the name is concerned, as to the possession, Nihil! 
 The thing discovered remains to the Finder ! 
 
 O ! I remember now, the dread of that Mr. Louis 
 came from the folks who gave the " dearly paid for 
 hospitality " to Miss Jackson and her Albany friends. 
 It seems that after meals, and from taking sea baths, 
 the conversation ran on that demagogue ! I have never 
 been and never will, but even if I had been I deserved 
 some regards from those people who were continually 
 begging of me a loaf of bread, butter, etc. , when short, 
 and that was the rule, short of bread and butter, and 
 shorter of decency, and those loaves were never re- 
 turned. The head of that family was an ex of some 
 sort of French Nobility. He styled himself I forget 
 but his name was a sort of Latin " Servatius/' that 
 my employer, Mr. George Thorburn, called " Starva- 
 tion ! " a well applied name, for often he lived on 
 Lobsters he caught in the Hell Gate waters, and the 
 loaves of bread and oil and vinegar he extorted from my 
 
ELUCIDATION. 143 
 
 housekeeper, who, she told me, had not the will to re- 
 fuse his poor wife and children, half starved ; hence the 
 appellation .... " Starvation ! ! " Not being able or 
 willing to reciprocate our compassion he thought that 
 some calumnies, well contrived, would answer to repre- 
 sent me as a hero of abjections in the eyes of his board- 
 ers, who had temporarily broken his forced vigils, for 
 as long as they were with him he had enough to eat, and 
 after meals to help his digestion and make my panegyric 
 
 he told them, that Mr. Louis was ad of a fellow when 
 
 talking politics, that " The Declaration of the Eights of 
 Man " was my Mble, that I thought a man like me 
 was equal to any nobleman, according to merits, and 
 such Utopias. That when I left France I had a wife 
 and several children. I wondered he did not attribute 
 me as many as the wise King Solomon had ; it is true 
 that he could not very well do that the antithesis 
 would have been too metaphorical from a king to a 
 demagogue, and especially to make it swallow, to a pro- 
 fessor of French at the Military Academy of West 
 Point, with whom I had had a long conversation a few 
 days before, who, I understood after, told that apolo- 
 gist of my virtues, that from our conversation he had 
 had no inductions that I was such a diabolical man as he 
 depicted me, but quite the contrary, and asked him 
 who had given him such information, unless I had 
 myself, and that was not very likely. Later he told 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 me that he had no idea that man was so contemptible, 
 that he belonged to a good family, etc. However, all 
 those calumnies did not hurt me, on the contrary, their 
 exaggeration confirmed these people, and Miss Jack- 
 son, my future wife, that all those reports were to hurt 
 me, out of spite because I would not associate with 
 them, for some motives that I cannot explain here in 
 a decent manner. The conclusion of all that was I 
 got rid of their importunities, and shortly after they 
 had to leave the place, not being able to pay their rent. 
 
 I suppose that the lady who has solicited the initial 
 of the particulars of rny prowesses doings in that ec- 
 centric love affair has been satisfied, that I have men- 
 tioned faithfully the whole incidents ? I have, so far, 
 as the departure from Astoria of Miss Jackson, and 
 her friends, Mr. and Mrs. Molinard of Albany goes, 
 but no farther. 
 
 The whole and the most important object at stake : 
 The fowling of the bird, was only in its incipiency. I 
 had only seen the colors of her feathers and the out- 
 lines of the extremities of her wings, at rest, not flying. 
 Considerable time elapsed before I could have her 
 caged. I had to use some substitute for bird's lime to 
 daub her wings to keep her from flying off, though I 
 had not the slightest idea she would do it. Yet in one 
 instance, unaware, unconscious, she made an attempt 
 
ELUCIDATION. 145 
 
 to know what sort of a bird catcher I was, in writing 
 me a letter, so untimely, so indiscreetly, that I almost 
 gave up the chase, the bird, the cage and all, and more. 
 .... Had any body seen me then, when I got the in- 
 timation of that irruption would have thought I was 
 to give up the soul. It was, as if one had taken my 
 heart with a pair of nippers to pull my heart out of 
 my body .... However, I did not give up any thing at 
 all, but notwithstanding my love some one will say 
 that I was not in love, or else I would not have spoken 
 as I did I was in love, I have been, and I am yet, 
 retrospectively and permanently as long as Hive, yet at 
 that moment, I clung to ray dignity, my love despised, 
 call it what you please. . . ,!N". B. I was in Astoria, 
 and she was at Albany. Had we been both present 
 that would have been only a lovers' quarrel, which is 
 a condiment to flavor the thing !!....! wrote a letter 
 two letters. I have them yet, with her answers, also, 
 in which I fulminated, exhausted all the choicest 
 flowers of my rhetoric, to convince her, and I did con- 
 vince her deeply, so deeply that she answered me at 
 once, to come to Albany, that we could never under- 
 stand each other by correspondence, that she could 
 not tell what she felt, by writing, but she would make 
 verbally, a confession that would deserve my absolu- 
 tion without the confession, but that she expected a 
 reciprocity of generosity for her venial sin .... 
 13 
 
146 APPENDIX. 
 
 Two weeks later than the above incident we were, 
 as I now fancy, were Adam and Eve, after the lunch 
 of the forbidden apple, drinking the sweet sap of the 
 
 I do not know what to say to make an adequate 
 
 comparison. I leave it to any of those who have been 
 in similar circumstances as I was, after all my tribula- 
 tions, metamorphosed into " Byron's " intoxication 
 not from intoxication of liquors, but by the capillary 
 attractions of two souls. . . . 
 
 Now, you know all that I can tell you without vio- 
 lating the sacred laws of intimacy. 
 
 Your Birds-catcher, with only a stem flower of Tube- 
 rose and a little perseverance and cum dignitate, and 
 reciprocal esteem. 
 
 ' ' Judges and senates have been bought for gold, 
 Esteem and love were never to be sold." POPE. 
 
 L. MENAND. 
 
1874, BOSTON, MASS., HOKTICULTUEAL 
 EXHIBITION. 
 
 In my exposition of facts connected with horticulture 
 I have forgotten some, of which I have been remembered 
 accidentally by coming across some medals awarded 
 to me by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. 
 
 In 1874, for instance: a silver medal for a collection 
 of AgarcB ! for which to-day, the same society would 
 not probably allow one to exhibit, but would rather, if 
 compelled to do it, offer a gold one to keep the collec- 
 tion at home. 
 
 Why ? I cannot very well explain that eccentric idea, 
 except by some round-about way, circumlocutory com- 
 parisons, e. g. y why are the camellias since a few years 
 ostracised f f Is it because they might engender Mi- 
 crobs ? or because they are not ornamental euough, or 
 too common, like the Crotons f Or likely for some 
 other futile unavowable reason, that some know but 
 will not divulge, because the confession would not be 
 very creditable 
 
14:8 APPENDIX. 
 
 In the same year as quoted above, 1874, a specimen 
 of Croton Wiesemanni, or to be up to the progress of 
 botanical science, Codiseum Wiesmannianum or only C. 
 Wiesmanni, if the anum termination is found too long, 
 however, the two adjectives are contestable grammati- 
 cally speaking. I mean Wiesmanni or ii andtontm. 
 I was going to say that in 1874, the first prize for the 
 best variegated or foliaged plant was awarded to C. 
 Wiesmann and it deserved it. 
 
 It was a splendid plant, but not handsomer than to- 
 day, only it was younger, terrible thing to be old, I 
 know something of it. 
 
 And what can be said to-day about Camellias ? In 
 1844 or 45, two plants of one variety, I think, 6 Y . Mrs. 
 P. Wilder, came from Boston, hither to Albany, with 
 a bill of $24 for the pair! of Microbs ! No ! but Greeks 
 for all that, microscopic, they had a couple of leaves, 
 each with 2 eyes buds that promised to start in the 
 future. I was offered one by the owner of them for half 
 the price paid $12. I declined, because my means did not 
 afford to buy them, yet they were not handsomer than 
 to-day. Notwithstanding the whimsicalities of the day 
 they are handsomer than one-third, if not more so, of 
 all the plants cultivated to-day, including the Orchida- 
 ceous plants. Old Fogyism 1 hear, I admit that epi- 
 
BOSTON EXHIBITION. 149 
 
 thet, when it questions a large number of plants whose 
 only merit was to be rare and costly > but not Camel- 
 lias or many of the Crotons (not all), and great many 
 other plants, such as : Medinella Magnifica, Rogiera, 
 Toxicophlaea, Thunbergiana, Daphne, Indica rubra, 
 Araucaria pubescens, etc. , etc . I beg your pardon. I 
 
 forgot that I am preaching in the desert You have 
 
 ears but you do not want to hear, so I will close on that 
 subject, and conclude what I have to say on that exhi- 
 bition. I had also a Phalsenopsis, grandiflora var. aurea 
 in bloom on the 17th of September, rather early , I 
 understood at that time that it was the first one seen in 
 Boston. I got a medal for it and $25. I had more 
 plants on exhibition, besides those mentioned, but I 
 could not compete. The rules and regulations did 
 not allow any one out of Massachusetts to do so. 
 
 From that year they altered their by-laws, etc., and 
 it was open to all. I never went again since, it was 
 too expensive for my means. However, I take great 
 pleasure here, to acknowledge that the whole Society 
 from the President, Mr. Marshal T. Wilder (I think, 
 but I am not sure), to the last members I received 
 the most fraternal attention I have ever received any- 
 where. 
 
 Let God bless you all, I in imagination and across 
 
150 APPENDIX. 
 
 the space that separates us shake your hand with all the 
 effusions of my heart. 
 
 The young Anthophilus of nearly forty years ago 
 of old time, now an old man, a geron a senex, but 
 always cordially yours, 
 
 L. MENAND. 
 
CONFESSIONS," " GAKDENEROLOGY" 
 AND "MISCELLANEOUS." 
 
 Please, let me draw my breath for a few minutes, 
 then I shall continue my narration 
 
 Now, behold ! my friends : I begin to believe that 
 I have recounted enough of my recollections, and that 
 it is high time I should come to the peroration of my 
 long spinning digressions, more or less edifying, but 
 rather the latter, and close the sluice of my overflow- 
 ing loquacity on that subject, and by resuming what I 
 have told you of my life as a man and as a gardener, 
 etc., etc. 
 
 Have you ever been impressed with the idea that 
 the profession of a gardener is somewhat extraneous 
 in the existence oi a man ? Of a gardener ! Yes, of a 
 gardener ! ! That interjection seems to surprise you, 
 f oi 1 fancy from your hypothetical silence, that if you 
 had anything to say, you would say this : What the 
 
 d does he mean with such question ? Well, 1 
 
 mean (a& I have no false modesty, and do not wish to 
 
152 APPENDIX. 
 
 be as reticent as you are), that a gardener who has the 
 will the determination can be a very important 
 item in the community at large. 
 
 From the beginning of the world up to this day, they 
 have acted in the comedy of human life very important 
 parts. First and foremost, I must proceed by grada- 
 tions, and be careful not to say anything that would 
 exalt too much your pride, as gardeners, as well as the 
 rest of mankind, are not exempt of vanity in the occa- 
 sion. I want to convince you, as I am convinced my- 
 self, of the importance of our profession. Who was 
 the first gardener, before our grandmother Eve was 
 born ? Adam, is it not ? Well, who cultivated the 
 first garden ? The Eden garden not the Eden gar- 
 den of New York city, but the true, genuine, " Eden 
 Garden " of old time ! I now forget in what part of 
 the globe it was, exactly ; but I think it was not 
 in our Western hemisphere ; but you know what 
 I mean 
 
 Who planted and cultivated the first apple trees? 
 God ! you will say. I admit that, of course ; but who 
 took care of the orchard ? Always Adam ! And with- 
 out any attendant ; he had no foreman ; he was alone ; 
 he had no boss but God, and God had given him 
 " carte-blanche ; " he could do what he pleased ; besides 
 I understand that God did for him, when needed, what 
 
GABDENEBOLOGY. 153 
 
 he lias done for me, six thousand or more years after. 
 He, Adam, had to work hard to keep every thing in good 
 condition ; and at that time there were no ploughs, no 
 agricultural implements of any kinds, as to-day. I am 
 not sure, even, if he had a spade, and a scythe to mow 
 the lawns. Sometimes he fell asleep on the grass, and 
 it was during one of those naps that God pulled one of 
 his ribs to make our mother, Eve, in order that he 
 should have an helpmate, to assist him in his light 
 agricultural and horticultural operations ; such as pick- 
 ing up fallen fruit among the grass, and after a more 
 intimate acquaintance to become his " Phanerogyne" 
 and then to study cryptogamy pshaw ! I meant to 
 say " progeny !" for I do not believe there were any 
 cryptogamous plants then ; even the science of progeny 
 was not known ; and this last science must have been 
 known and well understood before any one could study 
 the first cryptogamy .... and a useless one, almost, 
 and an aristocratic science. While " progeny " is the 
 science " par excellence," even superior to arithmetic, 
 for one must be expert in the former before he can 
 study the latter; for without that "divine science" 
 " progeny," that " sine qua non," without which noth- 
 ing can be had, here, I feel the itching of scribendi, 
 loquendi et cognoscendi, to write, to talk, and to know, 
 especially, what was the variety of the apple cultivated 
 on the grounds of Paradise. I would be willing to 
 
154: APPENDIX. 
 
 give something to know it. The reason I speak of that 
 here, is, "that I have asked a professor of theology, said 
 to be well posted in " Genesis" affairs, and he told me 
 he knew nothing about, but suggested, with an appear- 
 ance of sound logic, that our fraternity, gardeners, po- 
 mologists, and other " sui generis " of that description, 
 ought to be more apt to elucidate that enigma than 
 theologians, who only concern themselves with God's 
 direct affairs, and not with such accessory trifles as 
 knowing the names of what he grew in his country 
 seat. I really feel much disappointed, for I expected 
 to be able to get the right name of that apple, or orange, 
 that tempted our first mother, and communicate it to 
 you. Some one has hinted to me that that apple 
 might have been an orange, but I do not believe it. 
 I know there was, in old time, a celebrated garden 
 called the " Garden of Hesperides," where the apples 
 were oranges ! That substitution of one name for an- 
 other might have answered for the Olympic Gods, but 
 it will not do for us practical profanes and rather scep- 
 tical although we have in our mottled fraternity some 
 fellows that are apt to try to make us swallow pills 
 of aloes and rhubarb ', for aperitive lozenges, and they 
 often succeed, but you may be assured that it is not 
 for those tricksters that I am puzzling my mind to 
 let them know the name of the Eden's apple. They 
 might try to change its name and sell it to some inno- 
 
GABDENEJROLOGY. 155 
 
 cent for an evergreen, ever-bearing golden purnpkin ? 
 and they would find customers ! ! 
 
 Gardeners have also acted remarkably well in the 
 city of Babylon under the reign of the Queen Semi- 
 rainis, to lay out the famous suspended gardens of that 
 city, where stood the celebrated Tower of Babei, 
 whence came the confusion of languages. I have 
 never heard of the peach, and apricot, plum trees, 
 etc., etc., trained as espaliers on the surface of those 
 immense walls, 60 miles in circumference, 87 feet 
 thick, and 350 high ! If the gardeners of that time 
 have grown trees to cover those walls on the whole 
 surface, I must congratulate them, and own that they 
 have distanced our modern gardeners by as many 
 miles ahead as their walls were higher than ours only 
 I should like to know how high were the ladders they 
 used to train the trees ? I fancy I hear some fellows 
 say : Mr. Menand ! we like jokes, but you carry them 
 too far. Now, my friends ! I wish you to understand 
 me, I have not measured those walls, as you, I do not 
 believe they were so high. But I have copied those 
 descriptions from what you name "Holy Scrip, 
 tures " ! ! ! If you do not believe in them I can not 
 help it, that is your business. Only I will pass the re- 
 marks, that if you disbelieve " Holy Writs " you will 
 compromise your salvation ? This incredulity of yours 
 
156 APPENDIX. 
 
 annoys me, because I have not got through my narra- 
 tion on the subject I am writing, and if you do not 
 believe it is useless for me to waste so much paper, at 
 all events I will finish to scribble this page. Noah, 
 also, somewhat belonged to our fraternity, however, he 
 was more a specialist, he grew grape vines, as many 
 of you only grow roses or carnations, every one has 
 his hobbies. His hobby was what to-day we call 
 wnophilist, in plain English, a grape grower, not table 
 grapes, but varieties of grapes to make wine oinos. 
 He was a good old man, but some of his contempora- 
 ries, likely jealous of his successes in grape culture, 
 said he was still more fond of the juice of the grape, 
 than of the cultivation of it, and besides that he had 
 another hobby, more scientific, but no better if not 
 studied with moderation and judgment. He studied 
 the laws of "gravitation" and with such zeal that 
 often he was found lying on the ground, trying to take 
 his centre of gravity. I do not know if he ever wrote 
 anything about that science gravitation. All 1 know 
 is that he taught our ancestors to cultivate the grape, 
 and that alone deserves his name to go to posterity, and 
 the gratitude of all those thousands of people who 
 grow the grape on a large scale. 
 
 But where gardeners have been famous it is from the 
 decline, the fall of the Koman empire. During the 
 
GARDENEKOLOGY. 157 
 
 dark days, the middle ages, until the French Revolu- 
 tion in 1792, then they became eminent, as gardeners 
 in the convents, especially convents of the feminine 
 sex, where no men were admitted, but some of that 
 craft. Is not that creditable to us ? We must be en- 
 dowed of some virtue we are not aware of. I know 
 we are somewhat expert in the way of vegetable pro- 
 creation, and, also, a little in the animal procreation, 
 but, in what, some of us, excel, it is in the procreation 
 of plants nomenclature. I wish I should know them. 
 I would, with pleasure, write their panegyric in glow- 
 ing expressions. I can not quote anything particular 
 of the prowesses of any of our friends in those con- 
 vents, but I have read a great many stories and even 
 " histories " of their capacities in many ways, but you 
 would not believe me you would think I am joking, 
 consequently I shall not say anything. But, another 
 incident in which I am concerned, and which I hope 
 you will accept as true. It is a reminiscence of what 
 you have partly read before. That Lady, for whom 
 I have been gardener over six years. She had been 
 in a convent until she got 16 or 17 years old. Then 
 her parents entrusted her to a professor of procreation 
 (a husband) who completed her education. She did 
 not give me any information about the gardeners in 
 that place, exceot that they grew excellent Green-Gage 
 
 plums " Eeine Claude," the queen of all the plums, 
 14 
 
158 APPENDIX. 
 
 by name and quality, and that it was there she learned 
 to preserve them in randy, candied with sugar ! the 
 souvenir alone of those plums makes " my mouth 
 water." I have never since " eating -drinking " such 
 delicious thing. " A Daisy" would say a certain 
 Scotchman friend of mine. I say "Celestial!" In 
 1878, when in Paris, my wife, and one of my daugh- 
 ters, searched all the most renowned confectionery 
 stores to find them, %&& failed, and I, on my own side, 
 did the same, with the same success failed. Is not 
 this long digression a sin f but a venial one, and I con- 
 fess it. Now that WE have eaten and drunk the 
 plums, in imagination, let us return to my Lady, and 
 her maid, both ez-nuns. At the advent of the first 
 empire of Napoleon, the 1st, they had lived in Paris, 
 frequenting the court, and when came the downfall of 
 that same empire in 1815, they came in that convent 
 or monastery, where 1 was monk and gardener. I 
 cumulated the professions, but I had only a salary for 
 one, and for my monkish, or monachism, I had plums 
 in Brandy. I had some, also, as a gardener. I had 
 the control of them while on the trees. O ! I forgot 
 that same blessed Lady and her maid treated me well. 
 I tell you all those little nothings, to corroborate what 
 I have said about gardeners as an exception from other 
 profession. Those two nuns of that worldly nunnery, 
 practiced hospitality to that extent, that one day after 
 
GARDEN EROLOGY. 159 
 
 I had parted from some gardeners- visitors they came 
 to me and told me : Louis, why do you not treat your 
 visitors with more cordiality ? It was the custom then 
 in the country, at that time, to offer dinner to any one 
 (in my category) who came, and always some distance 
 from their homes. You treat them very unceremoni- 
 ously ; you always give them ordinary wine ; why do 
 you not give them some sparkling champagne ? I do 
 not for many reasons. Firstly, I do not particularly 
 care for most of them, who, in the occasion, would call 
 me heretic, Hood drinker, etc. As for the other ones, 
 if I should do it, they would tell the other ones the 
 cold-shouldered, who would call me an aristocrat, with 
 accessory epithets, so in order not to deviate from my 
 principles of equality I treated them all alike : " Equal- 
 ity before my law" Not the government's laws that 
 deny me the right of voting because I paid no taxes, 
 etc., and I work for a salary ! Does anybody work 
 for or without no salary \ Yes, I did work for salary, 
 but many get salary and do not work at all ! ! How 
 
 do you call that law? 1 understood at that time, 
 
 that the lest country in the world for high salary and 
 often nothing to do was old England, but I suppose 
 there are good many other nations where they have 
 such workers where there is nothing to do, and good 
 pay 1 ! However, I did not care much for any of them, 
 not that I had any dislike for them, but their ideas, 
 
160 APPENDIX. 
 
 their principles or manners did not sympathize with 
 mine. I liked solitude, and they did not. When 
 alone I could soliloquize, even dialogize. I put a ques- 
 tion, a dilemma, and I solved them myself, without a 
 judge. Was it not like in a convent ? But it was 
 about the same. Only the few nuns were old 60, 
 65, and perhaps more, and young ones were out of 
 reach, so I was almost a saint, although I heard some 
 one, in speaking of me, say : that I was ad...., with 
 a meliorating adjective, such as a fellow good or bad, 
 but such an epithet does not disturb the equanimity of 
 young philosophers, for I already began to philoso- 
 phize, for just at that time my Lady, my employer, asked 
 
 me one day : " Mr , The gardener, or Mr. Louis," 
 
 I forget. Why, when you write to my son, why do 
 you not address your letters " Monsieur Le Baron ! 
 De Mont," Mr. the Baron of Montgenet ? Because 
 I do not know what a Baron is, Madam ! You know 
 very well what it is, but your silly notions of Democ- 
 racy forbid you from calling him by his title. Is it not 
 so? Well, Madame! I confess it is so. I know what 
 it means for me it means zero nothing, and I think 
 it is more silly than my Democracy, which means 
 "power of the people." I know all these empty 
 words, such as Baron, Duke, and so forth, but you, 
 Madame! you do not know that the "Convention 
 Rationale " that memorable^ that grandest political 
 
GARDEN EBOLOGY. 101 
 
 assembly that ever existed, that did not play ducks and 
 drakes with flat stones, have abolished all the titles ! ! ! 
 without any exceptions. But, I add, that if it or they 
 had not done it, I would do it on my own authority 
 and responsibility without paying any dispense to the 
 Pope ! When I write to your son, I address my 
 letters as the French politeness requires it " Monsieur 
 Montgenet." He has never complained of it, but if 
 he does, I am very sorry, but I cannot help it. I must 
 abide to the laws, although I have little respect for 
 many of them. 
 
 My friends ! from what I have told you of my be- 
 havior in that convent I have been thinking, on reflex- 
 ions, that you might be impressed with the idea (and 
 I am slightly afraid of it) that my doings there were 
 not very exemplary, if I have not exaggerated one way 
 or the other. I have not; all I have told, recounted 
 to you, has been to the letter except in writing. I 
 have selected my expressions but I did not change the 
 meaning of the facts or circumstances in any way or 
 manner. If I had always acted as I have told you, 
 notwithstanding they cared for me, I could not have 
 remained there over six years. The life of humanity 
 is somewhat like the atmosphere we live in, change- 
 able. For a certain lapse of time we have fine, bright 
 weather, then suddenly we get cloudy, stormy, rough 
 
162 APPENDIX. 
 
 weather, then fair again. So it was with me, but as a 
 rule the atmosphere was SERENE ! and if you should 
 analyze all I have related, you will be convinced it must 
 have been so. 
 
 I made up in devotion, zeal, attention, not solicited, 
 what I was deficient in temperament. I cannot tell the 
 particulars of many incidents, it would be too tedious 
 even for me, and much more so for those who may 
 read them. Only one instance out of many. We had 
 many thousand square yards of soil to remove two or 
 three hundred yards off to build a greenhouse, and all 
 that in wheelbarrows. No horses could be employed, 
 it had to be done by bipeds. It was the heaviest job 
 I have ever had on my hands. I had four or five, 
 sometimes six men, each one with a wheelbarrow, and 
 I filled them up as quick as they could carry them. 
 When we began the son of my Lady employer, told 
 me and those men, with me, too, that I could not con- 
 tinue steady. It was getting late in the season and 
 I was very anxious the work should be done, so that it 
 stimulated my courage, and to stimulate more effica- 
 ciously the energy of my co-bipeds our old Lady sent 
 us, on the spot we were working, a large jug of wine, 
 with bread and cheese, for the men to eat and drink, 
 ad libitum between their meals of course, when eating 
 and drinking. They had to rest of course. It amused 
 
GARDEN EROLOGY. 163 
 
 me wonderfully to see the way they twisted a piece of 
 bread and cheese and swallowing the claret. Those 
 men were feasting, and I, looking at them, so that we 
 were all enjoying, every one his own way, the son of our 
 prioress of the convent asked me several times " why 
 don't you eat and drink like those men, you work as 
 much as they do and more." That may be so, but 
 those men do not eat as much good solid food in two 
 or three days as we do in one meal. What those men 
 drink especially and stimulated them would have had 
 the contrary effect with me, " the drinking especially." 
 I have always talked a great deal and probably oftener 
 more than necessary, but never under the influence of 
 liquor. I have always been in DREAD to hear any one 
 speaking of me and saying of me as I have often times 
 heard people speaking of men under the influence of 
 liquor say " That man is drunk" It is not him who 
 speaks, but the liquor, he is drunk. I am not very 
 sure if 1 have not made the above remark about drink- 
 ing to warn you that all I have said from the beginning 
 of my prolix narrations of my recollections, digressions 
 and the rest is to let you understand that all I have 
 said comes from the heart, not from of a bottle, unless 
 the bottle of ink. 
 
 So that I will come to the conclusion that, as I have 
 told you has been, partly to indulge my notions, to let 
 
164: APPENDIX. 
 
 off the surplus of steam that would condense in my 
 head; this last is a hygienic prescription with me; and 
 to try to convince you, as I am convinced myself, that 
 gardeners have many chances to improve their material 
 and intellectual conditions ; more than many of other 
 professions, if they are a little willing to observe the 
 circumstances in which they are, and use their tact and 
 judgment, and not go forward too quick, according to 
 my observations. In that said convent, where I had 
 been cloistered over six years, I have almost always 
 acted diametrically opposed to everybody else. I was 
 surrounded with bigotry, hypocrisy, superstitions, ig- 
 norance, jealousies, etc. I have criticised, laughed, 
 sneered at many of their religious performances, would- 
 be morality, etc. I suppose that often I have hurt 
 the feelings of many, and yet after a while, on reflex- 
 ion, they have always acknowledged to me that I was 
 right. Even since I have come in contact with people 
 of all classes of society in my business, I have had some 
 difficulties with some of them, even rupture, but after 
 a few months or years, they have all come and told me 
 that We ! had been wrong. I have always said that 
 I had been sorry, but in the same circumstances I would 
 do it again. They included me in the We, but I did 
 not admit the association. I have followed my own 
 lines, like Gen. Grant did, only I have not reaped as 
 many Laurels (Laurus noliUs, sweet bay\ as he did, 
 
GARDENEROLOGY. 165 
 
 and the few I have left nobody wants them to-day. 
 I have to deck myself with, or use the leaves as a condi- 
 ment to flavor " Beef a-la-mode," or other dishes ; that 
 which is rather unglorious but \s> palatable if not as 
 glorious as a sword scar across the face. One can't 
 have everything. . . .be a Hero and have good dishes 
 though both might be .... Now, my friends and co- 
 laborers, let us (if you feel toward me as I do 
 
 toward you), shake hands, for it is probably the last op- 
 portunity we shall have to do it, at least on this sub- 
 lunary planet ; as to the one above, I have only 
 
 hope 
 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 L. MENAND. 
 
 P. S. Allow me, before we part, to salute you with 
 the French formula of the Revolution of 1792, just a 
 century this year : 
 
 " Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Forever for Eter- 
 nity 1" 
 
 ANTHOPHILTJS, 
 
 Of nearly forty years ago, alias 
 
 L. MEN AND, in 1892. 
 
THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 Candidly, I thought I had recounted every incident 
 of my life worth relating. When yesterday returning 
 from Albany, in the electric car, and in passing oppo- 
 site the original spot of ray debuts as a florist, etc. 
 the, now, Aged Men philanthropic Asylum, on the 
 Albany and Troy road, I was suddenly and forcibly 
 reminded of the legendary reputation of that building 
 as being a " Refuge " of the spooks, ghosts, and hob- 
 goblins of the town of Water vliet, in 1842, and prob- 
 ably long before. We had hired the place for five 
 years. We hardly were moved in than some of the 
 few and far apart neighbors informed me that they 
 were surprised that I had hired the place for such a long 
 lease, that nobody could live in it but a short time, 
 on account of the aforesaid progenies of the devil, 
 rather week minds, or something equal to it. The 
 speaker of the assembly of those informants told with 
 a wonderfully emphatic gesture that he would not 
 sleep in it one single night, if he was offered a 
 1,000 dollars ! ! Was not such a disclosure an appal- 
 
HAUNTED HOUSE. 167 
 
 ing calamity : in the United States of North America, 
 in the middle of the Nineteenth Century \ Hallucina- 
 tions of some poor-minded ignorant people, some per- 
 sons will say in justification of the community at large. 
 Alas ! it was not so, being obliged to live there five years 
 I had occasion to be convinced myself that the credulity 
 was not confined in a few poor country people unedu- 
 cated, but spread in all classes of society. 
 
 We had been living in that ghost's refuge for eigh- 
 teen or twenty months, I cannot exactly tell. We had 
 two persons living with us, a servant girl, and a man 
 working with me. My wife was almost every day in the 
 week in Albany from 8 A. M. to 4 p. M. About that 
 time we lost our second child, the first having died in 
 Astoria, a few months later we had a daughter, the 
 oldest one of seven boys and girls, six living with me or 
 near me now, 1892 we had to get a nurse, a large, 
 stout, immense woman, whom from the appearance 
 one could have supposed she could nurse up half a 
 dozen, still the child did not thrive well. She slept in 
 the same room with my wife on a cot bed at the foot 
 of my wife's bed. One morning early I went in the 
 room to see how they were all, mother, child and 
 nurse, when in a great excitement a flurry said 
 that she would not sleep in that house another night, 
 for any thing in the world, that the greatest part of 
 
168 APPENDIX. 
 
 the night she had been tossed or rather heaved up as if 
 by the swelling of waves under the cot-bed, not a very 
 disagreeable sensation I should think, but frightful for 
 her, understand : that, that woman must have weighed 
 225 or 250, so you may imagine what a strong ghost 
 or demL it must have been to lift her, from that time 
 she never came any more in the house but in day time, 
 but she never neglected to divulge the incident of 
 having been tossed by spooks and everybody believed 
 the story as she did herself, and every one wondered 
 how it was that neither of us four in the Louse did 
 not hear any thing, but I heard from my young man, 
 who saw all the folks round us, that we were French 
 folks who did not care for the spooks or the devil and 
 perhaps we had some fellow-feelings sympathy for 
 them, or else they would not have spared us any more 
 than our mammoth Venus. That monumental nurse 
 and her family at that time had to move back in the 
 country near the Shaker Village of Watervliet, whither 
 we had to send our child, her mother not believing in 
 the possibility of nursing a child without the breast of 
 a woman. I object strongly, in one sense, not that, 
 the breast was not the most natural in principle, but 
 that the constitution of such a nature, a mass of in- 
 flated flesh was uncongenial to the nutrition of a weak, 
 a delicate child materially speaking, and then probably 
 worse mentally speaking, nursed up by *mind haunted 
 
HACHTED HOUSE. 169 
 
 by the existence of ghosts, of spooks impalpable, in- 
 tangible things infusing her blood in the system of a 
 frail being, it was unnatural, monstrous! In a few 
 weeks the child was dwindling to nothing, when my 
 wife began to be impressed with my idea and said : 
 we must bring her home, but did not think she would 
 ever get any better, that the nursing bottle would not 
 be any better, but in a few days the progress of the 
 child regaining her health was so manifest that she 
 got almost convinced, not quite, that was natural. . . . 
 Subsequently in the course of multiplication .she 
 
 tried again herself. . but in vain and hereafter aU 
 
 the children we have had were raised by the artificial 
 breast and all have done well, never been sick except 
 as ordinary children illnesses.= Now that my hob- 
 goblin digressions are over, let us return to those be- 
 lieving in the existence of such vagaries. During the 
 four years we remained amongst those harmless im- 
 aginary beings we had the visits of three or four 
 parties from Albany and Troy, two especially I remem- 
 ber well, one a gentleman from Albany whose name 
 was Mr. Mitch el or such name. I think he kept the 
 Congress Hotel where the Capitol is now. The place 
 was advertised for sale and he had an idea to buy it 
 After a few words of introduction he asked me about 
 the location, the quality of the land, etc., to all these 
 informations I answered categorically, minutely to 
 15 
 
170 APPENDIX. 
 
 satisfy him, but I perceived by his manner, his coun- 
 tenance, that there was something else, he hesitated to 
 mention .... looking at him I began to think about the 
 ghosts, but I could not believe that such a fine looking 
 man, with such an intelligent appearance could give 
 credence to such silly stories ; but always with hesita- 
 tion he asked if the place was healthy ? if the house 
 was quiet f if no trouble in it ? etc. , then I began 
 to look at him seriously and asked him if he was serious 
 in those declamations, ultra-sensible, not to use any 
 other more appropriate expressions, I went on I told 
 him the place was healthy, at least we had never been 
 sick, that the house was a solid one, well built on solid 
 slate rock, and no trouble anywhere except in the 
 vacuum in our pockets and a well without water, but 
 any quantity of toads .... Well he replied, that's not 
 what I want, I want, then he got a litte more ex- 
 plicit Many folks say that your wife has lost her 
 
 health, etc too silly to be written here. 
 
 Only "the phrase": My wife having lost her 
 health ! I could not very well digest it without burst- 
 ing with laughing, that which I did with all my heart. 
 Then I told him in good humour and with a good deal 
 of compassion. Is it possible, sir ! that an intelligent 
 man as you seem to be should believe in such stupidi- 
 ties . . .my-wife-having-lost-her-health-through-the-me- 
 
HAUNTED HOUSE. 171 
 
 dium-of ghosts, or the devil ! ! ! Well, sir ! she has 
 never kept her bed one second, except, when she 
 brought forth young defenders to our common country, 
 and that I do not believe was or had been caused by 
 the interference of any diabolical agencies. .. .unless 
 .... I .... O ! God have pity for us ! 
 
 This first visitor went away in a very bad humor, 
 partially, because he really wanted the place and that 
 my railleries had not convinced him but half, if any at 
 all. One thing certain he did not buy it, and ulti- 
 mately I was punished by the proprietor blaming me 
 for having spread the report of the place being holy- 
 ghosted in order to prevent him selling it. If you 
 have read the story understandingly you may judge ! 
 Yet later I had to pay a forced fine for it, you shall see. 
 Shortly after the visit of that innocent man, another 
 came from Troy, equally a wide-awake one, judging 
 from the appearance, but he did not listen to my jest- 
 ings as patiently as the former, and he abruptly made 
 his exit, from a few words he was grumbling as he 
 walked away, I supposed he did not like my sarcasms, 
 but I think he had as much faith as the former, and 
 both must have come to the conclusion that my in- 
 credulity was interested, that I did not want the house 
 should be sold, for if it had according to my agree- 
 ment I would have had to give up the house and gar- 
 
172 APPENDIX. 
 
 den, with some compensations, etc. But the fun of it 
 we wished all the time to be out of it, not on account 
 of boarding the spooks gratis ; but we were tired of 
 the prospect before us of slow starvation. I must 
 abridge my narrative and tell you how I was punished 
 for my trifling with hobgoblins and for the credulity 
 of those believing in them. The whole farm, 18 or 20 
 or more acres of land, barn and dwelling-house, were 
 valued $500 rent a year, or the house and two acres of 
 garden $300, with the taxes for what I occupied, this 
 last part of the farm ; afterward the proprietor would 
 not allow me any thing, saying that the whole taxes 
 were on the house and garden ; that sort of argumen- 
 tation did not suit me, and I said that the valuation of 
 the whole concern, farm and garden, was $500, and 
 that I occupied for $300. I would pay accordingly in 
 that proportion, three-fifths, and he two. He would 
 not hear it, and stuck to his former intention. Finally 
 our lease expired, 1st March, 1847, and we moved 
 where we are now. A short time after we left his 
 place, he married his daughter to a Trojan, who came 
 to live in the house when we hardly had moved our 
 relics. That man was not a proselyte of ghosts, for he 
 came to see me to buy some shrubs, and we had a talk 
 about the spirits. " Well," he said, " I will fix them all 
 right ; if any, they must be in the crevices of the old 
 walls, and I will paper them all over (he was a hang- 
 
HAUNTED HOUSE. 173 
 
 ing-paper dealer) and fumigate the whole building 
 from cellar to garret." The fact is, that from that 
 time we never heard any thing about the house being 
 disturbed. That sensible man's reason settled the 
 whole, except my litigation with my ex-landlord, who 
 had given me an order for some flowers, I think for 
 the wedding of his daughter with my successor ; but 
 since that time he never came to me after, for the set- 
 tlement of my arrears of rent. I had sent him a bill 
 for them, but he said he would never pay me one cent, 
 for besides the money I owed him and not paid, I had 
 wronged him a great deal for spreading all over that his 
 house was haunted. You know? what had hap- 
 pened ! So you see I was punished for having laughed 
 at people's credulity. However, the difference be- 
 tween us was not much. So ended our intercourse. 
 He has gone to heaven, since many years. I may 
 see him there if I go, which is ? 
 
 L. M. 
 
SKETCH OF A MODERN DISCIPLE OF 
 LOYOLA (BORN IN 1491). 
 
 It has been, it seems my destiny (ANArKII')* as 
 Yictor Hugo has it, that from my cradle to my grave 
 I have been predestined more or less to come in con- 
 tact with some disciples of my inspirer of these 
 sketches : " St. Ignatius of Loyola," the founder of 
 the " Jesuits Order," canonized by the Pope Gregory 
 the X V. y and later suppressed by the Pope Clement 
 the XIV. in 1773, still "floruit " in 1892 ! ! 
 
 Bad institutions are as noxious weeds hard to de- 
 stroy. In consequence thereof, we must do the best 
 we can, if we cannot totally eradicate the evil, to keep 
 off from it, that which in my particular case, is what I 
 have not always done, to my bitter shame, and I hum- 
 bly confess it, and beg absolution for it rather late ! 
 true, but to excuse me if I fall back on the English prov- 
 erb " Better late than never." Perhaps that procras- 
 tination to avoid bad company has been beneficial to 
 my morality if to nothing else. 
 
 * English, Ananke Destiny, fatality, force, compulsion, etc. 
 
A MODERN LOYOLA. 175 
 
 Here I begin to feel that my exordium to my dis- 
 course in relating the incidental anecdotes I have in 
 stocks, is long enough and that I must come to facts. 
 
 In the period included between 187- and 188- I 
 cannot be precise. I had one day the visit of two per. 
 sons, whose external appearances looked to me as per- 
 taining to the clerical profession; one of them 
 especially, realizing my ideal of a Catholic priest in 
 his outlines, that is to say from head to foot, in his all 
 individual, dress, countenance, a rubicund glossy 
 looking face, and with all that a sort of intellectual 
 ? I cannot very well find an adequate expres- 
 sion to define the thing, only, I fancied that there was 
 something not genial a sort of coarseness in the whole, 
 in the course of time I found that my suspicions were 
 real, too much so, ten times under my approximation. 
 You will be able to appreciate it when we come to the 
 performance of the actor Artifex dolosus ! .... etc., 
 etc., etc. 
 
 However he introduced himself as a man well posted 
 with botanical technicalities, that which drew my at- 
 tention, and he seemed to be aware of it. He con- 
 versed fairly enough, but his elocution did not seduce 
 me, true, I was ill disposed to do him justice. I up- 
 braided myself for being so prejudiced against him, 
 but I could not help it. 
 
176 APPENDIX. 
 
 In the long run of our intercourse I always studied 
 his ways, manners, etc., in hopes to find something that 
 would touch some chords of my heart, but I never found 
 any thing but asperities, rough ^acting, and yet you 
 could not strictly apply him those monkish rhymes 
 
 ' Mel in ore, verba lactis, 
 
 ' Fel in corde, fraus in factis." 
 
 ' Honey in his mouth, words of milk, 
 Gall in his heart, and fraud in his acts." 
 
 ' For he had no honey in his mouth, nor milk in his words, 
 
 ' But he had surely gall in his heart and fraud in his acts or 
 
 actions.'" L. M. 
 
 In spite of all my efforts I could not overcome cer- 
 tain feelings, not exactly of antipathy but not of 
 sympathy as I understood it. 
 
 Nevertheless we looked all over the garden, green- 
 houses, etc. He knew good many plants and spoke 
 knowingly about them, finally we parted and he asked 
 me if he could come agaiu. I told him he might come 
 whenever he pleased. 
 
 Sometime after, I can't tell precisely how long, he 
 came again with another person, he found me at the 
 potting bench handling some Cacteacse just imported, 
 and almost before he had spoken a word to me he 
 took one of the labels off one plant read it and told 
 me : that ! is not the name of a plant ! it was a com- 
 pound name of two greek roots, I told him the mean- 
 
A MODEKN LOYOLA. 177 
 
 ing of one of them, not knowing the other one at 
 that time, and I told him next time you come I will 
 tell you the other half of the name until then you 
 have better go to school and learn before teaching. 
 I gave him that advice in a pretty rough way, he felt 
 it and I did not pay any more attention to him. 
 
 A number of years after he came again with an old 
 acquaintance of mine. I thought they were two 
 friends but they were not, the moment I looked at 
 my Loyola I said here is my teacher of names but I 
 was not materially sure, as it was a warm day and I 
 knew my old acquaintance was a sort of aquatic plant, 
 who could not stand long dry I went for some drink, 
 I just discovered that my chap was more or as much 
 fond of wine as of holy water, thus while drinking we 
 began to talk with animation, while I was analyzing 
 him to convince myself that I was right, our conver- 
 sation was waxing warm in exchanging some argu- 
 ments of all sorts. I think I had just recounted an 
 anecdote about a priest and a bishop, about Latin and 
 drinking. Here is the story. A Bishop had company 
 at his house and one priest of his diocese who was one 
 of his guests, at breakfast the bishop had some wine he 
 considered good and wished to know if his guests 
 appreciated it. So he asked his priest a connoisseur 
 in wine and also in Latin linguistic. Well, Mr. le 
 
178 APPENDIX. 
 
 Cure ! said the bishop, how do yon like my wine ? the 
 priest answered briefly " Bonus Vinum" " good wine." 
 On that affirmation the bishop said to himself " My 
 God ! " I have a priest in my flock who is not very 
 strong on Latin grammar, he does not know how to 
 make agree a noun with an adjective and only two 
 words ! but he did not say anything before the com- 
 pany, in order not to mortify the priest before the 
 whole society present, I shall question him apart. At 
 the supper on the same day and the same company 
 the bishop ordered the very best old wine he had in 
 his cellar. When the time came to drink it our 
 bishop asked again to his Cure, how do like this wine 
 it is different of what we had at breakfast give me 
 your opinion. He, the priest, rose from his chair and 
 said emphatically his glass in his hand (he had tasted 
 it before) " Monseigneur, Ecce Bonum Vinum!" to 
 the health of the whole company ! our bishop was 
 much surprised confounded to hear his priests drink- 
 ing his wine with so much enthusiasm and praising it 
 in good Latin, he could not stand to wait longer, so he 
 asked : Monsieur le Cure ! Will you please tell me 
 why this morning when I asked you how was my 
 wine you said "Bonus Vinum" and to-night you say 
 " Bonum Vinum " f 
 
 He the priest answered coolly, " Bon vin, bon 
 Latin " good wine, good Latin. 
 
A MODERN LOYOLA. 179 
 
 (Bon vin and Ion Latin rhyme in French.) This 
 morning I have said bonus instead of oonum because 
 the wine was of inferior quality, and to-night the wine 
 being superior I say bonum, not bonus, just at that mo- 
 ment 1 was like the Bishop, I could not wait longer so 
 I asked : Are you not the man who came to visit me 
 many years ago? No, he said, Mr. Menand, I have 
 never come to Albany or Troy before to-day ! So in 
 face of that affirmation I could not tell him he LIED, 
 notwithstanding my moral convictions. "We continued 
 to drink and talk and I recounted the incident of " my 
 Latin Post scriptum" I have related before in my 
 recollections. Then he put his hand on my shoulder 
 and said : " You ! Mr. Menand ! you have done such 
 thing as destroying a letter of a priest. I answered 
 that I had done it and was proud of it. His remark 
 convinced me he was a priest, but not that he was the 
 man who had visited me twice before. It was not a 
 very long time after, that in a moment of mental aber- 
 ration^ for Jesuits ! who seldom forget themselves, al- 
 ways on the lookout to entrap any body body and 
 soul ! and more than loth if you have it, little or much 
 (money). This last article is equal to God in their re- 
 ligious statutes and dogmas. " Nervus belli pecunia," 
 " Money is the nerve of war," whether you wage it, 
 (war) to nations or to consciences ! it does not matter as 
 
180 APPENDIX. 
 
 long as you can get what you aim at. It will be right 
 if crowned by success. 
 
 " Craftiness and shame from all conditions rise. 
 "Act well your part, there all the success * lies." 
 
 Parodied from Pope. 
 
 Night came and my visitors left, and nothing but 
 empty bottles, but as a compensation my head full 
 of fragments of conversation that were revolving in 
 my brain as to suggest to me what I should do to 
 elucidate the darkness of my ideas in reference to our 
 visitors. 
 
 The following week one of the two (my old ac- 
 quaintance) came and gave me explanations about their 
 meetings, etc. Shortly after they came together again 
 or separately, I am not positive they were three, one, 
 the third, was, I suppose, a companion some asso- 
 ciate of the young Loyola, as I have always understood 
 Jesuits do, having so much confidence in each other's 
 uprightness.... As customary with gardeners who 
 always want to keep their ideas damp lest they should 
 
 wilt I brought some wine, then, talk about plants, 
 
 principles, morality, etc., etc. At once, as quick as 
 lightning, our Loyola had a large clumsy -looking pipe 
 in his hand and filling it with tobacco 1 Need I telling 
 you that I felt somewhat queer ^ quirer ! even a little 
 mad ! and I foresaw a coming storm but the flash 
 
 * Honor is of no account in priestcraft affairs 1 
 
A MODERN LOYOLA. 181 
 
 produced, lighted my dormant philosophy and reason 
 and instead of exploding one of my mental torpille 
 (torpedo), it instantly made me calm as a tomb and 
 waiting for sensations. I had not to wait long, in a 
 few seconds our unceremonious follower of the worthy 
 St. Ignatius was sat on a rocking-chair that was in one 
 corner of our office communicating to a hot-house, and 
 began to puff his not overfragrant tobacco smoke, 
 whose stinking effluvia were going up to over a 
 window in the top of which I had my " Motto 
 
 " Deus Nosque etiam nobis hac otia fecerunt." 
 
 " God and we also have given us this leisure " 
 English of above. 
 
 He sat directly opposite the visual angle where was 
 the name of God ! . . . . and seemingly enjoying seeing 
 the smoke almost obscuring the name of God from 
 reading. When, in a voice and diapason I shall not 
 attempt to describe, not being a musician, I asked 
 him if that motto in Latin and English was correct ? 
 He hardly took his pipe out of his mouth to tell me, 
 he thought it was, and added " you have found that 
 phrase in some books !! .... you hear ! readers if 
 any ! but you cannot hear the roaring of my soul, in 
 that moment, if I had not contained with all my energy, 
 
 my wrath that man would not be alive to-day, and yet 
 16 
 
182 APPENDIX. 
 
 / kept cool, relatively speaking, and having my heart 
 burning. Then I told him " do you think if 
 during all my life time I had been 
 smoking a dirty pipe and worse tobacco* 
 God would have given me given us these leisures we 
 enjoyed in this very room ? ? he made no answer, but 
 I continued my bitter-sweet admonition rather caustic, 
 burning my heart: Ministers of God, if you will 
 show me any book where you have seen this expres- 
 sion of my veneration to the supreme " Unknown " 
 God ! I will furnish you all your life-time with your 
 dirty occupation, tobacco and wine also. Though it is 
 not so many years that immoral incident happened, I 
 cannot recollect the sequel, I think the whole party 
 went away and that he never replied a word, dreading 
 an explosion . . 
 
 A long time elapsed before he came again, but he 
 did that which I did not expect. Now I cannot help 
 to think that many who may have read these lines I 
 have written about such a man, and continuing an 
 intercourse with him, may think I am not much more 
 dignified than he was. I have said so myself more 
 than once, yet his visits here continued sometime later, 
 even after I had discovered his lying to me, when he 
 said he had never come to Albany or Troy before that 
 day he had confessed it to one of ray sons by asking what 
 
A MODERN LOYOLA. 183 
 
 had come of a certain plant he had seen in such place 
 years ago, that lie could not see it any where. My 
 son knew nothing of it ; he had never seen nor heard 
 of the plant, besides, two of his friends came hither 
 and told me that he had come hither many years ago 
 and that they ought to visit me that they would see 
 many things they would not see any where else. Now 
 I must finish my confession, and that man's doings as 
 a priest. He would not eat meat on a Friday, even 
 on Wednesday. I once, without knowing what day it 
 was, I offered him some Italian dainty called 
 " Mortadella," some prepared ham he would not 
 eat it, because it was Ash Wednesday, yet he would 
 not hesitate to lie any day in the week without scruple. 
 However it is the recollection of that circumstance 
 that brought our rupture for ever. I had very nearly 
 taken him by the arm and shown him the gate of our 
 grounds and tell him to clear as quick as he could walk 
 but my reason, my philosophy, if you please, but more 
 than that, my sudden remembrance of my long shame- 
 ful intercourse with him prevented me kicking him 
 out, for I found in my conscience I had been as wrong 
 as he was, in my tolerating him, true, only on account 
 of his being fond of plants, and that I could discuss 
 linguistic with him. His ultramontane theories had 
 become so intolerable that I made up my mind to turn 
 
184: APPENDIX. 
 
 him out in a gentlemanly way, that which I did. The 
 last word I addressed him as he was going out with 
 my maledictions, but no kicks (material) but some 'men- 
 tal ones as Jesuit ! Tartuffe, Loyola ! finis Sternum 
 Vale ! Adieu forever Then he went off. 
 
 A few hours later when I went in the house I wrote 
 to him a short but ^accented) letter, in which, I told 
 him can't recollect the expression, but here is 
 pretty nearly the sense. . . . 
 
 I hope God will forgive me for having acted so 
 long such a shameful part. You with your coarse, 
 vulgar manners, hypocrisy, hellish Jesuitism, etc., and 
 I with my complacent, stupid behavior listening to 
 your sophisms like. ...from this day all intercourses 
 between us are at an end .... Finis Improbus ! ! 
 
 It is all over, wretch ! ! 
 
AN ESSAY. 
 
 (Extract from the New York Horticultural Society's Report, 1883.) 
 
 BY L. MENAND. 
 
 Mr. J. Y. MurMand, Serfy: 
 
 DEAR SIR : I regret much that the reading of the 
 contents of the Philadelphia " Florist " has not con- 
 vinced you that I ought to refrain from, writing any 
 thing on horticultural subjects for publication. You 
 wish an essay on a special popular plant, the very thing 
 I am incompetent to do, for many reasons. Firstly 5 
 I have no propensities to be an essayist, in general, 
 and in particular on a specialty. I am no specialist, 
 but, on the contrary, I am a staunch eclectic therefore 
 I could not confine myself to discuss on one subject 
 alone. I would be very apt to jump from one to the 
 other, and let my vein overflow my reason. And that 
 you do not want. But supposing I could and should 
 try to bind my mind to talk about one single topic 
 plant. What plant? All popular plants have been 
 more or less ably treated. Hoses, bulbs, ferns, orchids, 
 etc. Nothing left but one of my hobbies, the ostra- 
 
186 AN ESSAY. 
 
 cised cactece, or other succulents, more, or equally in- 
 sipid things to the aesthetic palates of your epicure 
 philophytes ! ! lovers of plants and flowers, with 
 wooden legs (stems) and other ornamental ligaments. 
 
 And these last are specialties, if any, especially the 
 cacti. Yet, their protective spines would give us flor- 
 ists a good supply of vegetable pins to prop our floral 
 productions. An essay on our Horticultural Society, 
 that has been done. All I might do, and that which 
 is more congenial to my feelings and turn of mind, 
 would be to try a few digressions on what I think the 
 best ways and means to promote the success of the 
 society. But to elucidate one's ideas on such a delicate 
 theme, and as I understand it here, means : improv- 
 ing the MORAL of the society and at the same time to 
 teach how to grow the " root of all evil " and good, too 
 (that PLANT EOOT belongs to my school, eclecticism^ on 
 a large scale. For, without that sine qua non, that 
 nervus belli, that universal panacea ! no success to be 
 expected, and even with that somewhat doubtful to 
 realize. For, before cultivating that universally ap- 
 preciated vegetable, we must prepare the compost in 
 which it will have the chance of thriving, without 
 bruising the feelings of sensitive people. There is the 
 stumbling-block to avoid. .But, it strikes me that my 
 preliminaries are getting lengthy enough. Shall I con- 
 
AN ESSAY. 187 
 
 tinue? If you answer affirmatively I shall try 
 " mind " I don't say I will, to be less confused and 
 enigmatic in my narrative, and "If you choose that, 
 then I am yours withal." 
 
 It occurs to me that before preparing the materials 
 for the cultivation of our BOOT, it would not be out of 
 place to recall to mind an episode a reminiscence of 
 a " Horticultural Exhibition" the first one I have 
 attended in my life in America in Brooklyn, in 
 1840. I now forget the locality and even partly the 
 plants exhibited. There were not many, but passable, 
 even good for the time. Then, the Camellia and 
 Dahliomania, fever fanaticism, which you may pre- 
 fer, were reaching their paroxysm. It was a furor, a 
 rage, as the Orchidemy, Orchidomania, epiphytal 
 fanaticism of our days. Nothing was worth looking 
 at but a newly grafted camellia, with one or two leaves, 
 and occasionally a few more, or Dahlia cutting, in 
 three or four-inch pots, selling $1, $2, $3 to $20 apiece. 
 We saw one plant (a dahlia), named Ne Plus Ultra, 
 sold for twenty dollars to a gentleman still living in 
 Boston. That Ne Plus Ultra was, and proved to be, 
 a first-rate humbug. The possessor of that plant, 
 Mr. George Thorburn, of New York city, had bought 
 it in England for the moderate price 10, for one root. 
 .Does not that make a dahlia grower's mouth water! 
 
188 AN ESSAY. 
 
 After seeing the plant in bloom he ordered it to be 
 thrown away. He did not wish to deceive anybody 
 any more. By the way, the six best plants at the ex- 
 hibition spoken above came from his place, Astoria. 
 I only recollect the name of one : Pimelea decussata, 
 a rare plant then, and perhaps rarer to-day. That plant 
 found warmer admirers than wished for, for some one, 
 through distraction, I suppose, took it away with an- 
 other plant, and the year after he found both plants in 
 Fulton Market, New York, and bought them again 
 from a woman selling plants. The art of prestidigita- 
 tion was already flourishing, and we think it has im- 
 proved since that time. These digressions do not help 
 me very materially in exposing my views on the means 
 of ameliorating the elements of success of our Horti- 
 cultural Society. The truth is that I don't know how 
 to begin without ruffling the equanimity of our friends, 
 if I have any ; however, I live in hope to have some, 
 even if I castigate " qui bene amat bene castigat."* I 
 understand that we are going to have a new hall for 
 our Horticultural Exhibition, without depending on 
 anybody. This will be of much more importance to 
 success than my overdrawn phraseology, but every one 
 does what he can, or thinks he does. If so, we gard- 
 eners, nurserymen, florists, and all parties interested in 
 horticultural affairs ought to understand each other 
 when we meet at exhibitions, or elsewhere, not to keep 
 * Who loves well chastises well. 
 
AN ESSAY. 189 
 
 our energies, our vital powers, in too much excitement, 
 in too moist an atmosphere, if I may use a technical 
 gardener's expression, but ^p ourselves as we do 
 orchids when they have perfected their growth fe^> 
 comparatively dry, until the blooming season, then 
 
 And above all, let us not indulge in boasting of what 
 we could have done, and what we shall do, but do it 
 to the best of our ability, and never tell any one : I 
 will beat you, but if you chance to do it, let us wait 
 until the defeated parties tell you so, and we will find 
 it much more gratifying than self-praising, and if by 
 chance, what may very probably happen, we should be 
 disappointed with potent reasons, let us not show our 
 displeasure, if we can ! and swallow our mortification 
 and prepare our energies for a new contest. Mankind 
 is not infallible judges, from want of knowledge or 
 otherwise, may err, that is human. 
 
 One supreme recommendation I would propose. It 
 is : as nine-tenths of us gardeners are foreigners, 
 Yankeefied Americanized, of course, and assuming 
 that in the emergency we would like to wrap ourselves 
 in the folds of the star-spangled banner, and the eagle 
 soaring over this immense continent, that home to all 
 of us, never say : We have done this or that in the 
 old country at home, at Lord's So-and-so, but let us 
 
190 AN ESSAY. 
 
 do it here, in this earnest home, not a home by virtue 
 of a short or a longer lease, but by virtue of liberty 
 and industry. Where liberty dwells there is our 
 country ! 
 
 One word more to the address of gentlemen's gard- 
 eners. Do not indulge too much in saying that your 
 employer does not like or care for such and such plants, 
 merely because you do not like them yourselves, and 
 he has never told you so. He has got the plants and 
 he pays you to take care of them, that is sufficient 
 reason to do it. A man does not keep a gardener to 
 do exactly what he likes. He, the proprietor, also 
 wants something some compensation for the money 
 he pays, and for which sometimes he does not get one 
 cent of satisfaction for hundreds of dollars spent. I 
 speak ex cathedra from experience. 
 
 It is not very long since I heard a certain chap say 
 he wished such rubbish, plants he did not like were 
 on or under the manure heap, that he could not bear 
 their sight, and would be glad to see them all dead. 
 And he has in a measure acted accordingly. There 
 would not have been so much harm if he had taken 
 good care of those he did not dislike and his employer 
 cared for, but they were all treated alike. To kill a 
 plant, a palm, an Araucaria, or such, because they do 
 not bloom in winter, to cut flowers from, or such irra- 
 
AN ESSAY. 191 
 
 tional remarks, is about as sensible as if the possessor 
 of a fine picture threw it away because the personages 
 represented in it do not speak ! In another instance 
 I have heard one of those plantioide gardeners, in 
 presence of his employer, who had just bought an 
 orchid in bloom, that he was lovingly carrying on his 
 arm when he passed the remark, in looking at a Pim- 
 elea Henderson i he also wanted to buy : "If 1 buy 
 them, that fellow," pointing to the gardener, " will kill 
 it ! He will kill them ! " To that remark iheplanti- 
 cide replied quietly : " I would rather have a plant to 
 which I could apply my knife than that Pimelea and 
 Orchid." It seemed that man preferred to apply a 
 knife to a plant than his skill. But likely he had the 
 former and did not possess the latter, and did not care 
 to. However that man had the courage to express his 
 opinion in a very frank manner. It appeared to me 
 that he had some good qualifications, for when he had 
 killed a number of plants, his employer said that he 
 would readily dig up a hole to bury them, or if in 
 winter and the ground was frozen too much he would 
 resort to cremation. 
 
 Having had the presumption to give friendly hints 
 to my confreres, I feel the velleite the temptation 
 of offering some to gentlemen keeping gardeners, and 
 on the "ground" that I have occasionally heard some 
 
192 AN ESSAY. 
 
 of the former expressing their desire of cultivating 
 certain plants orchids, for instance, but that they 
 only had one greenhouse or hothouse, and not a special 
 one, as required for orchids, at least their gardeners 
 said so, and they seemed to believe it themselves, and 
 especially when they may have heard that half a dozen 
 houses are necessary to grow with success that family 
 of plants. Orchids well ? it may le, after all, that 
 I am wrong, and that a series of such plant dwellings 
 would greatly facilitate their cultivation. But how 
 many lovers of those plants CAN and would afford the 
 means to do it on THAT LINE ? Yery few, indeed. I, 
 for one. I would be scared, even if I had the means 
 to do it. Six houses exclusively for orchids, without 
 the admixture of other plants ! That gives me chills ! 
 
 fits of " cacoethes loquendi " itching of talking 
 
 of expressing my opinions, as our friend iheplanti- 
 cide, spoken above. Why should I not express my 
 Yankee notions or Yankeefied ideas, as well as any 
 one ? Well ! if this privilege, no ! right! is granted to 
 ine, / here, emphatically and with all my profound 
 convictions based on a little experience, and with all 
 due regard and deference to all parties, including the 
 elucubrations of theorists on that specialty, I affirm, I 
 maintain, that orchids can be cultivated in a mixed 
 collection of plants tropical or others. Of course, 
 tropical orchids with miscellaneous tropical plants, and 
 
AN ESSAY. 193 
 
 so on, for all categories of plants. And if any one 
 imbued with the contrary idea will pay me a visit I 
 shall try to convince him, or them, of their error, not 
 in idle talk, in which I perhaps indulge too much, but 
 by and with material facts. 
 
 I have said that orchids can be grown in a mixed 
 collection of plants and (if no other way of heating) 
 heated with the old antiquated flue system (if properly 
 constructed). Old fogyism, I fancy I hear some one 
 murmur. OLD ! 1 admit it, no matter what sympathy 
 I may cherish for old things. I dortt recommend it. 
 But I say that with a little good will, a little more 
 "brain and intellectual oil, and, above all, not depending 
 too much on "biped machines on your assistants" 
 on your men, but try to be men yourselves to be the 
 " deus ex* machind," and you will find the machinery 
 will run smoothly enough, abstraction of unforeseen 
 accidents, of course. 
 
 Here I was to close my verbiage, when a sudden 
 idea seizes me, reminds me that I must follow the un- 
 dulating current of my conceptions and fill up the sort 
 of hiatus, chasm in my above digressions. My mere 
 affirmations that orchids may be grown in a mixed col- 
 lection of plants, etc., is too loose, too indefinite to 
 convince people who think for themselves. I feel I 
 must explain myself in a more explicit manner. "We 
 
 * The main spring of the machine. 
 13 
 
194 AN ESSAY. 
 
 have been told that half a dozen or so of different 
 structures are necessary to cultivate orchids success- 
 fully. This number of residences for one single family 
 of plants seems to me too extravagnant, too lavish. 
 The mere enumeration of the names of those dwellings 
 congeals the blood of my, perhaps, overheated under- 
 standing, as much so as do the long lists of florists* 
 flowers, myriads of unmeaning names to fill up cata- 
 logues of " capita mortua" dead-heads, or next to ; a 
 difference in names and prices only, a catch-penny 
 trap. I think I will be liberal, generous, in allowing 
 this aristocratic family of plants three residences (un- 
 less it should be composed of many generations in 
 that case it would require more room), and on one con- 
 dition that it will live in peace with other hetero- 
 geneous families, such as Crotons, Dracwnas, etc., etc. 
 a hot-house for Phaloenopsis Yandas, Angrsecum and 
 congeners, kept as recommended minimum heat by 
 night in winter, 60, 65. A few degrees, more or less, 
 will not hurt any thing, unless it should be the notions 
 of some horticulturists ; but this will not injure the 
 plants if well taken care of. One intermediate house 
 (with the same reserves as above, sociability with each 
 other) kept 50, 55, 60. This sort of half-way house 
 will answer for resting or retarding some plants, if not 
 kept too moist .... And one cool house, i. e., 
 that you will keep as cool as you will be able to do it, 
 
AN ESSAY. 195 
 
 from June to September. This last REFUGE, will not 
 require more than 40 degrees in winter (and occasion- 
 ally less); a few degrees less will do no harm. In this 
 house we have had some few degrees below freezing 
 point for a few hours, and Cypripediums and Cselo- 
 gyne cristata were not hurt. But we wish to be un- 
 derstood that we do not advocate the practice to let the 
 frost in the house. 
 
 I shall not go into more particulars about the man- 
 agement of orchids or other plants, because I sup- 
 pose that any moderately intelligent gardener knows 
 the A B C of cultivation of plants in pots, etc. I do 
 not suppose they need to be instructed how to sharp 
 their Jcnives when paring cuttings, or how to arrange 
 draining materials in a pot, etc. These stereotyped, 
 silly dictums can be found in all elementary Books on 
 Horticulture. But I would like to bring to the at- 
 tention of every one the SACRED as well as the pro- 
 fane the facts or sentences mentioned in the " Essay 
 on Orchids." " That in many instances the proper 
 treatment of plants (orchids) and others, I suppose, 
 has been arrived at by accident ' chance." Potent 
 words to be pondered on, as well by professors, theor- 
 ists, as by students and learners of all classes. To study, 
 to analyze, if possible, the causes of accidents and fail, 
 ures, as well as those of successes, and compare the 
 
196 AN ESSAY. 
 
 former with the latter, and then, by synthesis, try to 
 frame what you know of practice and theory in a sort 
 of vade-mecum, to guide you in dayly 1 (or daily ?) 
 routine, and not say, "It does not or will not pay?' 
 For, how do you know if it will or not without you 
 try ? You might say you have heard men of business 
 say so, or that you guess. It is very well to guess, but 
 it is much better to be certain. Besides, one may fail 
 in an undertaking while another will succeed. Since 
 some twenty-five years or more my brain feels sore 
 from the frequent concussions of that phrase, " It does 
 not pay " words that most of the time have no more 
 meaning than a " How do you do " exchanged between 
 parties who care as much for each other as all of us 
 care for Buddha or Buddhism. An acquaintance of 
 mine has often thrust that saying in my face with the 
 remark, that if I had done so and so, as he had done, I 
 suppose, I would be much better off, etc. 
 According to that principle, the one who HAS NEVER 
 DONE any thing but what pays, and another who has 
 ALWAYS done what does not, it would follow that the 
 former ought to be "better off than the latter ; that which 
 I have not been able to see yet, although I have ob- 
 served with a MOKAL MAGNIFYING glass / but probably 
 my sight is not like that of a great many people, who 
 can see an atom in their neighbor's eye. Now, my 
 friends, if I was not afraid to have already abused the 
 
AN ESSAY. 197 
 
 privilege of talking beyond the limits of reason, I would 
 like to tell you some little stories that have some little 
 connections with the cultivation of the evil's root. 
 You will see, if you allow me to go on. It may pos- 
 sibly edify you. I have always, and I have not done 
 what does not pay or pays. But the truth is, that I 
 have for the last half century spent many days, weeks, 
 months, one, two, three, ten, twenty-five and thirty 
 years in growing plants, in rearing, besides plants 
 (some intellectual notions and a number of other things 
 that need not be described here), that have taken me 
 two, three, five, twenty, twenty- five years to raise a 
 customer to buy them. As to the other notions, they 
 have not been raised in view of making money, for I 
 was convinced beforehand that all the benefit I would 
 derive would be some moral gratification ; but, since, 
 I have made retrospective reflections, that the best pay- 
 ing of the two was the " not paying undertaking / '' 
 and DO NOT BELIEVE this a PAKADOX, but A POTENT 
 
 TRUTH. 
 
 And, if you please, I will exhibit some facts to cor- 
 roborate what I have said. At the time the Brooklyn's 
 Hort. Society was flourishing thanks to the zeal of 
 the President, Mr. Degraw not to the gardeners, 
 who, partially, with the breaking out of the war, 1860, 
 knocked it out of existence, about 1855 or 1856, I for- 
 
198 AN ESSAY. 
 
 get, I exhibited some few plants. Among them were 
 some large Polygalas and Laurustinus, etc. One of the 
 last was a plant some 7 to 8 feet high, with its tub, 
 and a stem perhaps 3 feet high, and of the diameter of 
 a spade's handle, and the head 20 to 21, or perhaps 22 
 feet in circumference, with flowers enough to totally 
 eclipse the foliage. That plant I had COAXED for about 
 fifteen or sixteen years. By the way, I forget to tell 
 the variety. It was Yiburnum nitidum, whose foliage 
 and flowers, when well grown, are about double the size 
 of tinus, which is " a good plant" notwithstanding the 
 declamations of some moral, invalid, gardeners, who 
 wittily say it is played out, used up, it does not flower, 
 which is about right ; but whose fault is it, the plant 
 or the gardener ? 1 incline to the latter. Poor excuse, 
 when a plant does not do well to say that it is a lad 
 plant. Why not say " a lad gardener" as I do when- 
 ever I fail. I do not know if Nature has created bad 
 plants, but I am pretty certain she has in her evolutions 
 produced men with very weak minds. Excuse me this 
 overflow, and I come to our topic. A gentleman in 
 Broolyn fell in love with that plant, and asked me if I 
 would sell it. I answered affirmatively. Then he in- 
 quired the price. I told him $100. He said he would 
 take it, and he thought that I could afford to give him 
 a couple of Ixora Coecinea into the bargain, which 1 
 did. On hearing the result of the transaction, a know- 
 
AN ESSAY. 199 
 
 ing embryo gardener passed the remark that in England 
 one could get a Laurustinus for two-and-six and three- 
 and-sixpence apiece. I heard some one asking Mm if 
 they were of that size. Oh ! no, but they would grow 
 to that size. When I left Albany with that plant I 
 had four or five more large ones two Polygalas and 
 two Laurustiuus, but of inferior size. A gentleman of 
 Albany who saw them on board the steamboat told me, 
 " Mr. Menand, if nobody in Brooklyn or New York 
 has sense enough to buy those plants, when they come 
 back to Albany, 1 want them" He saw them again 
 on our wagon, coming home. He stopped the men, 
 and told them to bring the plants to his house, that he 
 had bought them before they went to Brooklyn. 
 They did not mind, as I had not given any orders to 
 that effect. In less than twenty-five minutes he was 
 with me, and told me he wanted those plants that / 
 did not care much to sell, although I wanted the money 
 as much as he wanted the plants. He added, " 1 do 
 not ask you how much you want, but / must have 
 them." 1 think I got $140 or $150, I forget now. 
 Was not that cultivating the rootf And every year 
 since that time up to to-day I have sold contemporaries 
 of those plants, and I think it has paid. 
 
 . . . However, successful as I may have been, I 
 would not advise any one to follow my example in rais- 
 
200 AN ESSAY. 
 
 ing such plants alone, as I have done, and in view of 
 making money only. But, IF you want, if you wish 
 and feel like growing, cultivating both the " utile dul- 
 cis" the useful and the agreeable, two very different 
 crops one the crop-food for the body, and the other 
 crop for the mind, the moral then I say Go ahead ! 
 Forward ! ! En avant ! ! Help yourselves and heaven 
 will help you 1 
 
 I have in store many more remarks more or less 
 edifying, or perchance soporiferous / but discretion 
 forbids me to say any more sat prata biberunt. . . 
 You have listened long enough. 
 
 Wishing all the members of our Horticultural So- 
 ciety, all who love Nature in all her various aspects, the 
 fields,* the woods, even Orchids, for I am not exclusive, 
 I am a sort of pantophile in the vegetable kingdom's 
 LINE understood ! 
 
 Au plaisir de vous revoir I 
 ALBANY, January 1, 1883. L. MEN AND. 
 
 * Qui fait aimer les champs fait aimer la vertu (Delille). 
 
 * He who inspires the love of nature inspires the love of virtue. 
 
As it has been so often observed to me that my 
 name is an odd, queer name, that I think it necessary 
 to elucidate it, though it is as plain English as fluid, 
 as limpid as the light of the sun when it shines. It is 
 so much plain English that one cannot utter but very 
 few words without using half of it, and the tail of it 
 too. 
 
 An anecdote about that transparent obscurity 
 (etymological): The first time I had the observation 
 made to me on that my name, it was by a cadet 
 from West Point Academy or Polytechnic School- 
 I told him it was all English! He said he could not 
 see any English in it. Then as I had to do with a 
 scholar and a young man of twenty at least, I tried 
 to explain the enigma grammatically : Cut or divide 
 the name in two parts and read it you will have the 
 word men plural of man, homo, vir ! sometimes ! 
 then and, et, a conjunction without which you can- 
 not connect y ur expressions, sentences, etc. 
 
 He looked and stared at me, with his mouth half 
 opened, but never spoke a word. "Whether he under- 
 stood me or not I cannot tell. Yet the man appeared 
 to be an intelligent man probably with some restric- 
 tions as all appearances are apt to be, in linguistic, 
 honor, probity, morality, etc., etc. Subject to inter- 
 pretation .... 
 
A PROLOGUE BEFORE THE PERFORMANCE, 
 
 AN EPITHALAMIUM. 
 
 My FRIENDS, OUR FRIENDS. 
 
 There is to-day exactly half a century 
 
 We Tiave been bound with the chains of matrimony. 
 
 My good half ? oft has said with verity, 
 
 These chains though indissoluble to eternity 
 
 Seem light enough, even pleasant to wear ! 
 
 For her, I dare say, they are gold ware, 
 
 But for the other party, who drags the fetters ? 
 
 Don't you think his lot might have been better 
 
 Than to have been more or less, for years, 
 
 Obliged to listen to her would-be fears, 
 
 Of leaving too numerous a posterity; 
 
 Which, after all, is less than that Adam had the priority. 
 
 P. S. 
 
 Here: I intended to say nothing more of my tribulations, 
 Although I have many more in my recollections, 
 Therefore, I will close my narration, fear of being checked 
 For divulging that I have often been henpecked ! 
 Henpecked, have I said ? this is a hard word, I think, 
 Even when used jocosely, but when written with ink 
 It seems outrageous, if one considers that indiscretions 
 May have been the cause of the above castigation; 
 However, such is a long usage of subjection, 
 That I am wiUing to submit to a repetition 
 Of 
 
 So let us rivet the chains again. 
 
 L. M. Oct. 31, '90. 
 
NOTE ON "EPITHALAMIUM." 
 
 The enclosed lines have been written some two or three years, 
 more or less, I cannot tell exactly; in idle moments, in the long' 
 evenings in winter time at the time my wife began to talk about 
 celebrating our Golden Wedding. I had only shown them to her 
 a few days before she died. She read them twice and said " that 
 suits me " I will get the document copied in plain handwriting, 
 then.... I passed the remark, what then? She answered me: 
 You shall know it in time. A few days after I received a 
 proof copy, with the additions suggested by HEK, of the allegoric 
 Chains, which I had forgotten or rather not thought of. She 
 was much excited with the idea presenting a copy to every one 
 she should invite, but she was especially so, ' ' to comment " the 
 point of doubt affixed to the words "my good half? 1 ' to prove 
 she was and had been good without a * but with / / /. Alas ! ! 
 she has not; destiny, fate, had decreed it should not be. 
 
 By sending the above document I fulfill her desire and also 
 
 mine. A desire much embittered. . . ., 
 
 L. M. 
 
MEMORIAL 
 
 " Thou know'st 'tis common, all that live must die, 
 Passing through nature to eternity." 
 
 *' At death we enter on eternity." 
 
 So Adieu ! adieu 1 for ever ! 
 Adreu ! adieu ! pour toujours ! 
 
 A broken soul 
 Une ame brisee. 
 
 L. M. to A. M., Oct. 17, '90. 
 
ADELAIDE JACKSON MENAND. 
 
 OCTOBER 15, 1890. 
 
 Not in the freshness of life's early morn, 
 When hope was high and fair life's pathway shone 
 With promise of bright days to be, 
 A golden glory of futurity 
 
 Not then the summons came. 
 
 Not when the noonday sun was high o'erhead, 
 When summer days fast to the autumn sped, 
 When from the hurry of youth's flying feet 
 The rest of noon was to the spirit sweet 
 
 Not then the summons came. 
 
 Years had rolled on and brought that sweet repose 
 Which, duties well performed, the spirit knows; 
 Peace, rest and freedom from earth's anxious care 
 Age only brought, with crown of silvery hair 
 
 And still no summons came. 
 
 Yet, all unseen by us, her nature grew 
 Nearer to heaven our spirits never knew 
 How thin the veil concealing from her sight 
 The golden portals bathed in heaven's blest light. 
 
 Nor heard the summons come. 
 
 She heard, the veil was lifted, all around 
 Flowed pleace eternal, not a sigh no sound, 
 No pain no fear no anguish earth was gone 
 And to the raptured soul its heaven was born 
 
 When the blest summons came. 
 
 No tears no fears let every grief be stilled 
 Why weep for her, who every task fulfilled, 
 Goes to her rest ? pray rather thus may be 
 Life's blissful close for us for thee for me 
 
 When the last summons comes. 
 
 PARA, December, 1890, EDWARD S. RAND, JR. 
 
"REMINISCENCES" 
 
 1878. 
 
 ALBANY, N. Y., United States of North America, January 25, 1878- 
 
 To the Citizen VICTOR Huao, Paris. 
 Sir ! or Citizen ! 
 
 I know not how to address you to be heard from the 
 obscure station where I am, to attain the summit ! where you are. 
 It is half a century (there are forty years I have left France, 
 and I shouldnot hurry to visit her, were it not that the Republic 
 begins to shine there, though with a very dim light, just bright 
 enough to read the name of the thing) that your name sounds 
 in my ear, and when it is not the name, it is the vibration, that 
 induces me to write you to ask you a great favor for me, for us, 
 I and my wife, species of Philemon and Baucis, intend to visit 
 the Urbs par excellence, Paris. When there, we wish to press 
 the liand that has written the chapter ("in the Miserables") 
 " Une Lumiere Inconnue " " An Unknown Light," and very many 
 things besides, " Gaumn ! and Cimourdain ! " 93, ! ! ! etc., etc. 
 I hardly hope that you will answer us. At all events, permit us, 
 at least in imagination, to press your hand with our hearts united* 
 Your sincere admirers, 
 
 L. MENAND AND A. MENAND. 
 
 ALBANY, March 15, 1878. 
 To Citizen VICTOR HUGO. 
 
 Thanks ! many thanks ! our project ta 
 
 visit France, Paris, this year shall be realized since you have de- 
 cided it, by your answer. I was afraid you had taken me for a 
 hunter of autographs, it was not that, nevertheless I am very 
 proud to have it in such a circumstance. 
 
 We shall not abuse of your time; just one minute to shake your 
 hand and to receive a cast of your flame! and our desires shall be 
 accomplished. Yours sincerely, 
 
 L. M. 
 
THIS FAC SIMILE is THE AUTOGRAPH LETTER OF VICTOR HUGO TO 
 L. MEN AND, WRITTEN 22 FEBRUARY, 1878. 
 
 X' 
 
 xv~ 
 
 M 3* 
 
 Si vous realisez votre projet, je serai charme de serrer vos mains dans 
 les miennes. 
 PARIS, 22/evrier. VICTOR HUGO. 
 
 If you realize your project, I shall be charmed to press your hand in 
 mine. 
 PARIS, 22 February. VICTOR HUGO. 
 
" KEMINISCENCES." 
 
 ALBANY, October, 1878. 
 
 A Whim / on my return from France. 
 To Citizen VICTOR HUGO. 
 
 Veni, Vidi, Vici. 
 
 Vent ! Oh ! yes 1 I have surely come to see you, 
 
 But the Vidi has lied I did not see you,* 
 
 And the most mortifying of my deception 
 
 Is that, I shall never have such an occasion. 
 
 As to the Vici 'tis a word too elastic, 
 
 Which reminds me of a certain faith catholic, 
 
 However, I have conquered, the deep conviction, 
 
 That no matter what shines in any old nation, 
 
 And any where, beyond the Atlantic, 
 
 Is less fit to make a philosopher than a sceptic. 
 
 I close, begging you to excuse a semi-Vandal, 
 
 Who dares to address himself to the modern Juvenal. 
 
 P. S. Always more and more Philemon less the faith in 
 Jupiter. 
 
 L. M. 
 
 * He had gone to Jersey not to return till November. 
 
LOUIS MENAND. 
 
 1807 AUGUST 2 1877. 
 
 I. 
 The golden light of August beamed 
 
 O'er fair Burgundian hills, 
 The farewell glow of summer streamed 
 
 O'er meadow, woods and rills. 
 The fruit blushed warm beneath her touch, 
 
 Grapes felt the mellow glow, 
 Kind nature gave with lavish hand, 
 
 'Twas seventy years ago. 
 
 II. 
 There, just as sombre night withdrew 
 
 Before the golden morn, 
 As the first sun beams drank the dew 
 
 A little child was born. 
 Fair nature bent above his bed 
 
 A loving sponsor, kind, 
 To claim the infant for her own, 
 
 To guide the dawning mind. 
 
 III. 
 She gently led him by the hand 
 
 Thro' valley, field and wood, 
 Told how the secrets of the flowers 
 
 Are known and understood. 
 From when the violets of the spring 
 
 Bloom in the year's young day, 
 Till the pale Christmas roses beg 
 
 The shortening days to stay. 
 
 IV. 
 She opened wide her secret books, 
 
 And in his boyhood's hours, 
 He, eager scholar, learned by heart 
 
 The lessons of the flowers. 
 
Louis MENAND. 
 
 Made them his loved, his bosom friends 
 
 Friends that the dearer grow, 
 As years roll on; loved now far more 
 
 Than seventy years ago. 
 
 V. 
 For him, were not life's crowded marts 
 
 The din without surcease 
 Of noisy camp, but nobler far 
 
 The gentle arts of peace. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Adieu, adieu, fair sunny France, 
 
 Home of his boyhood's day ! 
 Where the Atlantic's billows dance, 
 
 The man pursues his way. 
 
 VI. 
 To the new land beyond its tide 
 
 The wandering feet have come, 
 And where fair Hudson's waters glide, 
 
 Content he finds a home. 
 Content for nature still his friend, 
 
 Yields her abundant store; 
 There, as his years roll calmly on, 
 
 He knows and loves her more. 
 
 VII. 
 Rich blessings spring around his path, 
 
 And as his locks grow white, 
 After the heat and toil of day 
 
 Life's afternoon is bright ! 
 God grant him, in His own good time, 
 
 When conies the close of day; 
 To the fair calm of starry night 
 
 His life may melt away. 
 
 VIII. 
 That, in the garden of our God, 
 
 Where flowers never fade, 
 Where nought that harms, has ever trod, 
 
 Where none can make afraid; 
 Where welcoming angels shall entwine 
 
 Immortelles for the brow, 
 My friends, may we all meet him there 
 
 Say seventy years from now ! 
 
 EDWARD S. RAND, JR.