A SHARP LOOKOUT. 29 



luxurious feeling of early summer, and this is, of 

 course, the main thing ; a good reader cares for little 

 else ; I care for little else myself. But when you 

 take your coin to the assay office it must be weighed 

 and tested, and in the comments referred to I (un- 

 wisely perhaps) sought to smelt this gold of the poets 

 in the naturalist's pot, to see what alloy of error I 

 could detect in it. Were the poems true to their last 

 word ? They were not, and much subsequent inves- 

 tigation has only confirmed my first analysis. The 

 general truth is on my side, and the specific fact, if 

 such exists in this case, on the side of the poets. It 

 is possible that there may be a fragrant yellow violet, 

 as an exceptional occurrence, like that of the sweet- 

 scented, arrow-leaved species above referred to, and 

 that in some locality it may have bloomed before the 

 hepatica ; also that Lowell may have seen a belated 

 dandelion or two in June, amid the clover and the 

 buttercups ; but, if so, they were the exception, and 

 not the rule the specific or accidental fact, and not 

 the general truth. 



Dogmatism about nature, or about anything else, 

 very often turns out to be an ungrateful cur that bites 

 the hand that reared it. I speak from experience. 

 I was once quite certain that the honey-bee did not 

 work upon the blossoms of the trailing arbutus, but 

 while walking in the woods one April day I came 

 upon a spot of arbutus swarming with honey-bees. 

 They were so eager for it that they crawled under 

 the leaves and the moss to get at the blossoms, and 



