London to John O 'Groat's. 139 



with a new gallery of paintings for every square mile 

 of land and sea, and new dissolving views for every 

 hour she, with all these artistic antecedents, tastes, 

 and faculties, comes modestly into the conservatory of 

 the floriculturist, and takes lessons of him in shaping 

 and tinting plants and flowers which the great Master 

 said were "all very good" on the sixth-day morning 

 of the creation ! This is marvellous, showing a prero- 

 gative in human genius almost divine, and worthy of 

 reverent and grateful admiration. How wide-reaching 

 and multigerent is 'this prerogative ! In how many 

 spheres of action it works simultaneously in these latter 

 days ! See how it manipulates the brute forces of 

 Nature ! See how it saddles the winds, and bridles and 

 spurs the lightning ! See how it harnesses steam to the 

 plough, the flood to the spindle, the quick cross cur- 

 rents of electricity to the newsman's phaeton ! Then 

 ascend to higher reaches of its faculty. In the hands 

 of a Bakewell or a Webb, it gives a new and creative 

 shaping to multitudinous generations of animal life. 

 Nature yields to its suggestion and leading, and co- 

 works, with all her best and busiest activities, to realise 

 the human ideal ; to put muscle there, to straighten 

 that vertebra, to parallel more perfectly these dorsal 

 and ventral lines, to lengthen or shorten those bones ; 

 to flesh the leg only to such a joint, and wool or 



