RECOLLECTIONS, 1829-30. 13 



I was a down right fool. I admitted the epithet, but 

 did not change my mind. What a stupid idea, will 

 say my acquaintances of to-day, to study " crypto- 

 gainy " to be a florist ; " it is absurd !" Be it so, but 

 paradoxical as it may be, it has been more beneficial to 

 me than growing coleus at seventy-five cents per 100 ! ! 

 It has in the first place given me self gratification ! 

 It has systematized my ideas, in theory ancr*in practice. 

 It has brought me in contact with people that would 

 otherwise never have looked at me. When later I 

 made up my mind to cultivate exotic plants, such as 

 Ericas, Banksias, and all kinds of New Holland plants, 

 I was saluted with the same reverence I was a fool ! 

 such business would not pay, etc., etc. 



But I perceive that I am overflowing on rny subject. 

 I am anticipating upon the future by fifty years. So 

 I return to the first reading of my French Flora, and 

 the cryptogamic ideas it wove in my brain ! Crypto- 

 gamic indeed ! since they were not understood. In the 

 beginning of 1830 I had to leave my library and its 

 books to settle a short distance further, but always in 

 the precincts of Paris. It was my third year of grav- 

 itation around that luminous terrestrial planet, that 

 was soon to be more luminous by kindling that " Three 

 days' revolution !" Revolution that I wished and ex- 

 pected since two or three years, at the time I laid 

 2 



