IV. THE FLOWER. 8 1 



it. But this little rough-bred thing, a Campagna 

 pony of a poppy, is as bright and strong to-day as 

 yesterday. So that I can see exactly where the 

 leaves join or lap over each other ; and when I 

 look down into the cup, find it to be composed of 

 four leaves altogether, — two smaller, set within two 

 larger. 



12. Thus far (and somewhat farther) I had written 

 in Rome ; but now, putting my work together in 

 Oxford, a sudden doubt troubles me, whether all 

 poppies have two petals smaller than the other two. 

 Whereupon I take down an excellent little school- 

 book on botany — the best I've yet found, thinking 

 to be told quickly; and I find a great deal about 

 opium ; and, apropos of opium, that the juice of 

 common celandine is of a bright orange colour ; and 

 I pause for a bewildered five minutes, wondering if 

 a celandine is a poppy, and how many petals it has : 

 going on again — because I must, without making up 

 my mind, on either question — I am told to " ob- 

 serve the floral receptacle of the Californian genus 

 Eschscholtzia." Now I can't observe anything of 

 the sort, and I don't want to ; and I wish California 

 and all that's in it were at the deepest bottom of 

 the Pacific. Next I am told to compare the poppy 

 and waterlily ; and I can't do that, neither — though 

 I should like to ; and there's the end of the article ; 



6 



