WILD FLOWERS. 39 



healthy and home happy, and the next adjoining 

 unhealthy, the Chinese have invented the science of 

 Feng-shui, spying about with cabalistic mystery, cast- 

 ing the horoscope of an acre. There is something 

 in all superstitions ; they are often the foundation of 

 science. Superstition having made the discovery, 

 science composes a lecture on the reason why, and 

 claims the credit. Bird's-foot lotus means a for- 

 tunate spot, dry, warm — so far as soil is concerned. 

 If you were going to live out of doors, you might 

 safely build your kibitka where you found it. 

 Wandering with the pictured flower-book, just pur- 

 chased, over the windy ridge where last year's 

 skeleton leaves, blown out from the alder copse 

 below, came on with grasshopper motion — lifted and 

 laid down by the wind, lifted and laid down — I sat 

 on the sward of the sheltered slope, and instantly 

 recognized the orange-red claws of the flower beside 

 me. That was the first; and this very morning, 

 I dread to consider how many years afterwards, 

 I found a plant on a wall which I do not Imow. I 

 shall have to trace out its genealogy and emblazon 

 its shield. So many years and still only at the 

 beginning — the beginning, too, of the beginning — for 

 ixs yet I have not thought of the garden or conserva- 

 tory flowers (which are wild flowers somewhere), 

 or of the tropics, or the prairies. 



The great stone of the fallen cromlech, crouching 

 down afar off in the plain behind me, cast its shadow 

 in the sunny morn as it had done, so many summers, 

 for centuries — for thousands of years : worn white 

 by the endless sunbeams —the ceaseless flood of light 



