106 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINN^US 



sitting at the windows of the Stadhuset dining with a 

 professor ; it was hard to feel that they two would be 

 known for the handsomest young men in Upsala had 

 they but had new coats and white silk caps. Carl's 

 shoes, too, he had had them soled thrice ; he thought he 

 had better have upper leathers put to them this time for a 

 change. At last nothing was left of them but the strings, 

 he tramped so much ; and there were irreparable defects 

 in some parts of his equipage which could not be con- 

 cealed by ' all sorts of coaxing, darning, or sitting 

 cross-legged.' 



A blasted bud displays yon torn 

 Faint rudiments of the full flower unborn. Sordello. 

 But who divines what glory coats o'erclasp of the bulb dormant. 



Paracelsus. 



There was a certain grim humour in seeing these 

 two ragged students portioning out the animal, vege- 

 table, and mineral kingdoms between them ; dividing, 

 as the Eomans had done, the domination of the world. 1 

 They who could not buy an oxstek 2 or a juicy turnip in it ; 

 yet were they victors. Like Alexander, they had whole 

 provinces to their hand in little epitomised on their 

 study shelves : collections of rubbish, valueless in them- 

 selves, valuable in their classification; their mineral 

 collection, complete in granite, and gravel, and iron- 

 stone ; the cells for gold and silver empty ; rubies 

 would come by-and-by ; meanwhile there was their 

 place ready and their analysis neatly written out. As 

 Elia says of Captain Jackson, ' with nothing to live on 

 1 BaecU. 2 Beefsteak. 



