94 CULTURE OF CHARACTERISTIC EXOTIC PLANTS. 



Greek tragedy led my brother to compare the charm of the 

 chorus in its effect with the sky in the landscape. ( 127 ) 



The multiplied means which painting can command for 

 stimulating the fancy, and concentrating in a small space the 

 grandest phenomena of sea and land, are indeed denied to 

 our plantations in gardens or in hot-houses ; but the 

 inferiority in general impression is compensated by the 

 mastery which the reality every where exerts over the seiises. 

 When in the palm house of Loddiges, or in that of the 

 Pfauen-insel near Potsdam (a monument of the simple 

 feeling for nature of our noble departed monarch), we look 

 down from the high gallery, during a bright noonday 

 sunshine, upon the abundance of reed-like and arborescent 

 palms, a complete illusion in respect to the locality in which 

 we are placed is momentarily produced; we seem to- be 

 actually in the climate of the tropics, looking down from the 

 summit of a hill upon a small thicket of palms. The aspect 

 of the deep blue sky, and the impression of a greater 

 intensity of light, are indeed wanting, but still the illusion is 

 greater, and the imagination more vividly active, than from 

 the most perfect painting : we associate with each vegetable 

 form the wonders of a distant land ; we hear the rustling of 

 the fan-like leaves, and see the changing play of light, as, 

 gently moved by slight currents of air, the waving tops of 

 the palms come into contact with each other. So great is 

 the charm which reality can give. The recollection of the 

 needful degree of artificial care bestowed no doubt returns to 

 disturb the impression ; for a perfectly flourishing condition, 

 and a state of freedom, are inseparable in the realm of nature 

 as elsewhere ; and in the eyes of the earnest and travelled 

 botanist, the dried specimen in an herbarium, if actually 



