INTRODUCTION xv 



Her garden was not only a source of delight 

 to her, as long as she could work or even walk in 

 it, but it supplied her with subjects for her brush, 

 and her friends with many flowers and choice old- 

 fashioned plants. Botany, with its questions of 

 adaptation, of connection, of reversion, of protective 

 defence, was always of interest to her ; and it was 

 to her that friends often turned for information or 

 suggestion in solving any botanical difficulty. In 

 this, as in other subjects, it was not the accumu- 

 lation of isolated facts that attracted her so much 

 as the large schemes of thought into which the 

 facts fitted the lines of theory on which they 

 could be threaded in orderly sequence. 



The verses are chosen from a large number in 

 my possession ; they show but another branch of 

 that deep-rooted love of the beauty of the world 

 about her which was to her a tree of life. 



Although the intention of making painting 

 the main occupation of her life was to a great 

 extent frustrated by ill-health, she still accom- 

 plished a good deal. Her brush was always at 

 the service of her friends, and she was often very- 

 successful in giving the character of the head she 

 was painting. In 1853 she had no less than six 



