66 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



quiet Swedish town < after having so long conversed 

 with the first men of the first cities of the world.' He 

 was too broad for them, his enviers, as well as for the 

 narrow-minded honest folk, who really wished him well : 

 they were alarmed for him, regarding as they naturally 

 did all innovations with distrust. 



Whoso wanders like Ulysses 

 Soon shall lose his prejudices. 



They still hugged theirs fondly. But his old friends 

 were still his friends ; the envious were few in compari- 

 son with his friends at Falun. And this point shows his 

 tact ; for, as Ben Haydon says, l One of the most diffi- 

 cult things in this world is the management of the 

 temper of friends when you first burst into public repute 

 and leave them in the rear/ Probation ended, Linnasus 

 was now a master and doctor of his craft. The only 

 question was, What was his craft ? Botany did not seem 

 to be a business. 



His chief occupation was making love and picking 

 flowers the flower called love-in-idleness. He was 

 now thoroughly restored to health by repose and the 

 prospects of his future happiness, which hardly seemed 

 future while he was walking with his Elizabeth in the 

 exquisite woods not at ugly Falun, but at Sveden, her 

 father's country house near by, which here and there 

 show that nature's beauty has not been entirely destroyed 

 even by the poisonous exhalations of the copper-mines : 

 love called, and poetry awoke, and together they found the 

 lovers a home in nature, embowered by the birch trees. 



