202 THE EVOLUTIONIST AT LARGE. 



that of a delicate shell cameo, with its dainty 

 gradations of semi-transparent white and in- 

 terfusing pink. But the inner effect can be 

 no more designed with an eye to beauty than 

 the outer one was ; and the very terms in 

 which I think of it clearly show that my 

 sense of its loveliness is largely derived 

 from comparison with human handicraft. A 

 farmer would see in the convolvulus nothing 

 but a useless weed ; a cultivated eye sees 

 in it just as much as its nature permits 

 it to see. I look closer, and observe that 

 there are also thin lines running from the 

 circumference to the centre, midway between 

 the dark belts. These lines, which add 

 greatly to the beauty of the flower, by marking 

 it out into zones, are also due to the folding 

 in the bud ; they are the inner angles of the 

 folds, just as the dark belts are the over- 

 lapping edges of the outer angles. But, in 

 addition to the minor beauty of these little 

 details, there is the general beauty of the 

 cup as a whole, which also calls for explana- 



