RECOLLECTIONS TO 1890. 97 



to hesitate so much to ask after names. Do you think 

 because a man knows more names of any thing he is 

 better than one who does not ? Certes, it is a satisfac- 

 tion to know the names of the objects you have, but I 

 don't see the necessity to be so mysterious. A few 

 more digressions on that not bad man but ill-balanced. 

 He once had asked me a list ,of the most remarkable 

 plants I had seen, new or old, and also to his lender of 

 plants. Both wanted something the other had not, 

 that I understood it .... it was a laudable idea. I gave 

 a list to both of about the same plants, but unknown 

 to each other. Some weeks or months after, I now for- 

 get, I met them in -New York. They would not let me 

 go unless I should go with them to Jersey city, to see 

 some new plants they had just received from London. 

 I was not very willing to go, but the Borrower insisted 

 so much, and the Lender also, and in addition to my de- 

 sire to see something that I had never seen, that I 

 went. I expected they would talk again about our 

 correspondence, but not a word was spoken on that 

 scabrous subject. We were hardly in the office of the 

 " Silver pitcher's originator," that he went in an ad- 

 joining room and came with a basket of champagne. 

 At that time champagne was still imported in willow 

 baskets. The moment I saw it, it produced on me a 

 sudden commotion in all my body that I cannot de- 

 scribe. My sensation then was surely a vivid pleasure 

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