158 PROSERPINA. 



notion of their gifts to men into the three elements, flour, oil 

 and wine ; and have instantly and always intelligible names 

 for them in Latin, French, and English. 



And I think it best not to confuse our ideas of pure vege- 

 table substance with the possible process of fermentation : 

 so that rather than ' wine,' for a constant specific term, I will 

 take ' Nectar,' this term more rightly including the juices of 

 the peach, nectarine, and plum, as well as those of the grape, 

 currant, and apple. 



Our three separate substances will then be easily named in 

 all three languages : 



Farina. Oleum. Nectar. 



Farine. Huile. Nectare. 



Flour. Oil. Nectar. 



There is this farther advantage in keeping the third com- 

 mon term, that it leaves us the words Succus, Jus, Juice, for 

 other liquid products of plants, watery, milky, sugary, or 

 resinous, often indeed important to man, but often also 

 without either agreeable flavor or nutritious power ; and it is 

 therefore to be observed with care that we may use the word 

 ' juice,' of a liquid produced by any part of a plant, but * nec- 

 tar,' only of the juices produced in its fruit. 



6. But the good and pleasure of fruit is not in the juice 

 only ; in some kinds, and those not the least valuable, (as 

 the date,) it is not in the juice at all We still stand abso- 

 lutely in want of a word to express the more or less firm sub- 

 stance of fruit, as distinguished from all other products of a 

 plant. And with the usual ill-luck, (I advisedly think of it 

 as demoniacal misfortune) of botanical science, no other 

 name has been yet used for such substance than the entirely 

 false and ugly one of 'Flesh,' Fr., 'Chair,' with its still more 

 painful derivation * Charnu,' and in England the monstrous 

 scientific term, ' Sarco-carp.' 



But, under the housewifery of Proserpina, since we are to 

 call the juice of fruit, Nectar, its substance will be as naturally 

 and easily called Ambrosia ; and I have no doubt that this, 



