TV. THE FLOWEK. 79 



or tutor leaves, the group which, in stronger and hum- 

 bler temper, protected them in their first weakness, and 

 formed them to the first laws of their being. But the 

 poppy casts these tutorial leaves away. It is the finished 

 picture of impatient and luxury-loving youth, at first 

 too severely restrained, then casting all restraint away, 

 yet retaining to the end of life unseemly and illiberal 

 signs of its once compelled submission to laws which were 

 only pain, not instruction. 



19. Gather a green poppy bud, just when it shows the 

 scarlet line at its side; break it open and unpack the 

 poppy. The whole flower is there complete in size and 

 colour, its stamens full-grown, but all packed so closely 

 that the fine silk of the petals is crushed into a million of 

 shapeless wrinkles. When the flower opens, it seems a 

 deliverance from torture : the two imprisoning green 

 leaves are shaken to the ground; the aggrieved corolla 

 smooths itself in the sun, and comforts itself as it can ; 

 but remains visibly crushed and hurt to the end of its 

 days. 



20. Not so flowers of gracious breeding. Look at these 

 four stages in the young life of a primrose, Fig. 7. First 

 confined, as strictly as the poppy within five pinching 

 green leaves, whose points close over it, the little thing is 

 content to remain a child, and finds its nursery large 

 enough. The green leaves unclose their points, the lit- 

 tle yellow ones peep out, like ducklings. They find the 

 light delicious, and open wide to it ; and grow, and grow, 



