40 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 



went from the Illinois river to Chicago. He came too late 

 for the steamer and chafed a week in vexatious delay. It 

 was forty-five years before he saw Chicago again. 



His travels abroad were often topics of our talk and 

 when my own at length outwent his, he was curious con- 

 cerning my adventures. It gave him pleasure that I was 

 reminded of his screw-pine in the Sandwich Islands and of 

 his papyrus on the sea of Galilee. Were he here to-day 

 how much he would ask about my recent pilgrimage beyond 

 the Hesperides and in gardens among the antipodes. 



Our departures gardenward from Locust street were 

 notable. The iron-gate in front was first so secured that no 

 hand could reach the bell. Then the carry-all was laden in 

 the yard with garden needments, usually with a bag of sil- 

 ver,— and always with a huge horse-pistol tied into the 

 holster with a string. « Always ready," he used to say, 

 " and never wanted." 



The Shakespeare mulberry on a spot selected by Madam 

 Neilson has become celebrated. Mr. Shaw's first meeting 

 with that incomparable Juliet was in the following way° 

 We were talking together one Sunday afternoon ^in the 

 back parlor, when a card was brought in from a lady who 

 begged leave to dry her feet at the fire. It bore the name 

 Adelaide Neilson, who was cordially greeted. The Garden 

 she said had so charmed her that she had forgotten her 

 thin shoes. She took them off and warmed her feet at the 

 grate, she sitting one side, I the other and Mr. Shaw be- 

 tween. Our trio was the more genial as we had both been 

 in Saragossa where she was born, and she was exultant at 

 having finished her hundredth impersonation of Juliet. 



When we last lingered in the Garden we halted at the 

 Nuttall cenotaph in honor of the first botanist who ventured 

 up the Arkansas. We passed on to the massive shrine of 

 victory writing on a shield - to show the conquests of 

 science. I proposed a Shakespearian inscription, " Ignor- 

 ance the curse of God, knowledge the wing wherewith we 

 % to heaven." - Too many words," said he, -for the 



