SELECTION. 125 



As to any scientific arrangement, ethnological, 

 genealogical, or physiological classification, I am 

 helplessly, hopelessly incapable. I have as " poor 

 brains" for these studies as Cassio for strong 

 drinks. The very words make my head ache, 

 and I long to break them up, as one breaks up, in 

 wintry days, some big black coal with a poker. 

 " I am no botanist," as the young Oxonian pleaded 

 to the farmer who reproved him for riding over 

 wheat. I confess that I failed miserably in an 

 attempt to understand the rudiments of his 

 science, as set forth in Dr. Lindley's School 

 Botany. I honor him, but I do not envy, because, 

 strange as it may seem, he is very rarely an en- 

 thusiastic gardener ; because I never remember to 

 have seen a scientific botanist and a successful 

 practical florist under the same hat. Wherefore I 

 am content, when I put on my own " Christy," 

 made for me by one who loves Roses, and grows 

 them well, to confess meekly that it covers a skull 

 void and .empty of scientific treasures, but the 

 property, I trust, of a true gardener. 



But how am I to begin with the Roses ? I 

 fancy that I hear a hiss or two, a shuffling of 

 impatient shoes, as when too much preliminary 

 fiddling goes on before the play. And here, posi- 

 tively, in the very crisis and nick of time, my 



