Preface 



to think such things can be done, and that one has never 

 yet succeeded in doing them oneself ; comes away also 

 uplifted by the encouragement of the garden's wizard, 

 as well as weighed down beneath the precious treasures 

 he will so casually lop off and pile into your crowded 

 basket, until at last you grow quite bashful in your efforts 

 to avoid the crowning generosity of a Nettle with variegated 

 foliage, or a Plantain mottled with some perennial leprosy, 

 which may have kept this nature-worshipper kneeling in 

 an ecstasy for a quarter of an hour upon the mountains 

 in the teeth of a bitter snow-gale, and despite the hardly 

 less bitter cries of his escort, not in the least enthusiastic 

 for such things, and longing to exclaim " Excelsior ! " did 

 not a certain lingering knowledge of Latin forbid. 



REGINALD FARRER. 



xv 



