AN ISLAND GARDEN 91 



found bathing in the basin ! Is not this an indi- 

 cation of thought in the vine ? Does it not indi- 

 cate a knowledge in the vine analogous to human 

 understanding? . . . There must be some agent 

 employed to bring the vine to the fountain. . . . 



" The more we study plant life the more we be- 

 come convinced that life is a unit, varying in form 

 only, not in principle. Everything capable of re- 

 production, growth, and development is governed 

 by the same law, and each is but a part of the unit 

 we term life." 



Again to quote the famous Frenchman : " When 

 I breathe the perfume of a Rose," he says, " when 

 I admire the beauty of form, the grace of this 

 flower in its freshly opening bloom, what strikes 

 me most is the work of that hidden, unknown, 

 mysterious force which rules over the plant's life 

 and can direct it in the maintenance of its exist- 

 ence, which chooses the proper molecules of air, 

 water, and earth for its nourishment, and which 

 knows, above all, how to assimilate these molecules 

 and group them so delicately as to form this 

 graceful stem, these dainty green leaves, these 

 soft pink petals, these exquisite tints and delicious 

 fragrance. . . . 



" This mysterious force is the animating princi- 

 ple of the plant. Put a Lily seed, an acorn, a grain 

 of wheat, and a peach-stone side by side in the 

 ground, each germ will build up its own organism 

 and no other. . . . 



" A plant breathes, drinks, eats, selects, refuses, 

 seeks, works, lives, acts, according to its instincts. 

 One does like a charm, another pines, a third is 



