Dem] AND SYMBOLS. 77 



and which through this cause also resembles water. It is then 

 that the ignorant or inexperienced traveller, overwhelmed with 

 fatigue and devoured by thirst, hastens his eager steps to reach 

 more quickly that limpid water where he hopes to refresh and 

 reinvigorate himself, but which flies before his advance, and 

 speedily vanishes altogether. Sometimes it is an inverted re- 

 presentation of terrestrial objects which appears in the air; 

 or rather these same objects, several times reflected, appear to 

 multiply themselves. D. 



Delusive Daintiness. 



There is a hot-house plant, Pilea allitrichoides, of tender, 

 brittle, and juicy aspect, which looks as if it would be good to 

 eat in a cooling salad, but which is really of so explosive a 

 temperament that it might fairly be called the pistol plant. 

 When near flowering, and with its tiny buds ready to open, if 

 the plant is either dipped in water or abundantly watered, each 

 bud will explode successively, keeping up a mimic Sebastopol 

 bombardment, sending forth a puff of gunpowder smoke or a 

 little cloud of dusty pollen as its stamens suddenly start forth 

 to take their place and form a cross. Some charming acquain- 

 tances, whose appearances promise us great pleasure, turn out to 

 be as explosive and delusive as this useless plant. v. 



The Democratic Principle. 



The political atmosphere is most healthy when composed of 

 a variety of elements. We know that the theory of the philo- 

 sophical democrat is, that in order to have a perfect political 

 constitution you must have a proper representation of all classes 

 of society. In order that the air should be wholesome it is 

 necessary that it should not be of one kind, but the compound 

 of several substances, and the more various the composition 

 to all appearances the more salubrious. But it is chiefly by the 

 predominance of some peculiar vapour that the air becomes 

 unfit for human support, and a thousand accidents are found to 

 increase these bodies of vapour. Heat may raise them in too 

 great quantities, and cold may stagnate them. Minerals may give 

 off their effluvia in such proportion as to keep all other kind of 



