LIFE AT STOCKHOLM 67 



With tremulous silvered trunk, whence branches sheen 

 Laugh out, thick-foliaged next, a-shivcr soon 

 "With coloured buds, then glowing like the moon 

 One mild flame last a pause, a burst, and all 

 Her ivory limbs are smothered by a fall, 

 Bloom-flinders and fruit-sparkles and leaf-dust. 



He stood beneath her window, by the hawthorn-tree 

 that looked like a ghost at night, being so full of bloom ; 

 while the nightingale warbled the serenade. But ' idle- 

 ness, except as the condition of renewed labour, is culp- 

 able and base,' and Linnaeus felt no temptation to this 

 sin. He was too eager to realise his happiness to have 

 Elizabeth all his own; and she had too much practical 

 good sense to try to keep him and still longer delay 

 their marriage ; so he set out for the capital. 



' Stockholm received Linnaeus in September 1738 

 as a foreigner,' which so disgusted him that he would 

 have gone abroad again had not the love of his country 

 detained him. He compared himself to the floating 

 islands of the Swedish lakes. His pretensions were 

 backed by neither university, as he was not attached 

 solidly to either of them, and Harderwyk had only given 

 him his degree. He ' found himself treated with neglect 

 and dislike. His abilities created envy rather than in- 



}d confidence.' A prophet is seldom honoured in 



own country. ' At every place abroad he had been 

 scognised as princeps botanicorum, and in his own 

 country he was looked upon as a Klim, arrived from 

 the subterranean world.' l Was Stockholm also too 



small for him ? 



1 Stoever. 



F 2 



