AN ESSAY. 189 



our energies, our vital powers, in too much excitement, 

 in too moist an atmosphere, if I may use a technical 

 gardener's expression, but ^p ourselves as we do 

 orchids when they have perfected their growth fe^> 

 comparatively dry, until the blooming season, then 



And above all, let us not indulge in boasting of what 

 we could have done, and what we shall do, but do it 

 to the best of our ability, and never tell any one : I 

 will beat you, but if you chance to do it, let us wait 

 until the defeated parties tell you so, and we will find 

 it much more gratifying than self-praising, and if by 

 chance, what may very probably happen, we should be 

 disappointed with potent reasons, let us not show our 

 displeasure, if we can ! and swallow our mortification 

 and prepare our energies for a new contest. Mankind 

 is not infallible judges, from want of knowledge or 

 otherwise, may err, that is human. 



One supreme recommendation I would propose. It 

 is : as nine-tenths of us gardeners are foreigners, 

 Yankeefied Americanized, of course, and assuming 

 that in the emergency we would like to wrap ourselves 

 in the folds of the star-spangled banner, and the eagle 

 soaring over this immense continent, that home to all 

 of us, never say : We have done this or that in the 

 old country at home, at Lord's So-and-so, but let us 



