CHAPTER XIV 



FOTHERGILL AS A BOTANIST HIS GARDEN 



The Friend is cut off from many of the sources of enjoyment open 

 to others ; the ballroom, the theatre, are forbidden to him. He is 

 neither a pessimist nor a misanthrope. The earth abounds in beauty, 

 all of which is open to his chastened senses. He revels in the sunlight 

 and the breeze. The songs of the birds fall, welcome, into his ear. 

 The colors of the flowers attract him. Dr. Jos. T. ROTHROCK on 

 Humphry Marshall. 



Vous travaillez pour ainsi dire a cote de Dieu, vous n'etes que les 

 collaborateurs de la loi divine de la vegetation. LAMARTINE, Discours 

 aux Jardiniers. 



THE record of Fothergill's scientific pursuits sets us 

 wondering how he found time for them in the midst of his 

 incessant medical work, his labours in his own society, 

 and his American correspondence. Only a habit of 

 despatch and a methodical ordering of the hours of the 

 day could enable him to do so much. His gardens and 

 his collections supplied indeed a by-play, in which his 

 faculties, strained by constant dealing with the problems 

 of life and death, found a welcome exercise in paths where 

 he was freed from the weight of responsibility. He was 

 careful not to allow these pursuits, delightful as they 

 were, to interfere with his primary duties in the world, or 

 with the allegiance he owed to a higher Power, the sense 

 of whose behests was ever with him. He pleased himself 

 with the thought that in his cabinets and his flower 

 borders he had a solace in sj:ore for old age, to fill up the 

 hours, and to call him out to a little exercise, when his 

 strength should no longer allow him to fulfil the duties 

 of an active life. That period of leisure never came. 

 But in the meantime it was a pure pleasure to his orderly 



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