340 STUDIES IN LIFE AND SENSE. 



been much more uncomfortable there than, say, a railway navvy, 

 whom Smith, in a moment of mistaken philanthropy, might have 

 invited to form one of his dinner party. The navvy would at least 

 have swallowed, by faith, the delicacies which Smith had provided, 

 and might have made sad havoc with every course that was set 

 before him. But my fern would have been unable to find anything 

 on Smith's dinner-table which it could ingest at all ; and, unlike the 

 navvy, it would have proved itself a total abstainer, and have con- 

 tented itself with aqua pur a throughout the evening. In a word, the 

 fern demands food of an utterly different order from that on which 

 Smith and his friends subsist. Its wants are modest, like those ot 

 the immortal Mrs. Gamp ; but, unobtrusive as they are, they must, 

 like Mrs. Gamp's demands, be supplied, if plant life is to jog along 

 on its accustomed course. 



The fern, as type of the plant world at large, demands simply 

 lifeless or inorganic matter for its support. For instance, it requires 

 water, and my housemaid daily anticipates its wants in this respect. 

 Its menu, if Smith had invited it to dinner, and if he had consulted 

 Caudal (who is believed to know all about the proclivities of animals 

 and plants, and especially the wants of the human animal in the way 

 of food), would have been limited to four courses. Firstly, the fern 

 would have taken water as its potage. All plants require a constant 

 supply of water, which circulates through their tissues, and provides 

 them with the means for dissolving and elaborating the solid parts 

 of their food. These solid parts, it may be added, are always taken 

 in solution that is, are dissolved in the watery parts or constituents 

 of the plant food. A plant has no mouth, hence its food must con- 

 sist of liquids and gases. In this respect, it is the opposite of that 

 eminent scientist Caudal, whose bodily presence is indicative of a 

 reliance upon food constituents of solid kind ; a peculiarity, it should 

 be remembered, which of course is shared by our race at large. It 

 is true that certain poor relations of the fern, like the corresponding 

 connections of humanity itself, are given to grope and grovel for food 

 in anything but aesthetic pastures ; and it is also true that these same 

 poor plant relations may, like animals, absorb solid nutriment. For 

 example, what are we to think of a host of lower plants which have 

 not a particle of green about them, and which, like ^Ethalium^ or 

 the " flowers of tan," growing in tan-pits, not merely absorb solid food, 

 but creep about their habitations as if they mimicked the lower forms 

 of animals ? In truth, such plants do resemble the lowest animals 

 in many aspects of their existence ; but my fern might retort that as 

 mere masses of living jelly, these lower neighbours of tan-pit society 

 are not to be regarded as typical developments of plant life any 

 more, indeed, than a street Arab or a gutter child can be held to 

 represent the genteel part of human existence. 



