240 IN PRAISE OF THE WE Y MOUTH PINE. 



will undertake to explain the occult "elec- 

 tive affinity " by which this rosy orchid is 

 made so much at home under the heavy 

 shadow of the Weymouth pine ? 



According to the common saying, there is 

 no accounting for tastes. If by this is meant 

 simply that we cannot account for them, the 

 statement is true enough. But if we are to 

 speak exactly, there are no likes nor dislikes 

 except for cause. Every freak of taste, like 

 every vagary of opinion, has its origin and 

 history, and, with sufficient knowledge on 

 our part, could be explained and justified. 

 The pine-tree and the orchid are not friends 

 by accident, however the case may look to 

 us who cannot see behind the present nor 

 beneath the surface. There are no myster- 

 ies per se, but only to the ignorant. Yet 

 ignorance itself, disparagingly as we talk of 

 it, has its favorable side, as it is pleasant 

 sometimes to withdraw from the sun and 

 wander for a season in the half-light of the 

 forest. Perhaps we need be in no haste to 

 reach a world where there is never any dark- 

 ness. In some moods, at least, I go with 

 the partridge-berry vine and the lady's-slip- 

 per. It is good, I think, to live awhile 

 longer in the shadow ; to see as through a 



