] ^7 '^"^^ '" *^® desert 



The petals serve as bridal beds which the Great 

 Creator has so gloriously arranged, adorned with such 

 noble bed curtains and perfumed with so many sweet 

 scents, that the bridegroom there may celebrate his 

 nuptials with all the greater solemnity. When the bed 

 is thus prepared, it is time for the bridegroom to em- 

 brace his beloved bride and surrender his gifts to her: 

 I mean, one can see how testiculi open and emit pul- 

 verem genitalem, which falls wpon tubam and fertilizes 

 ovarium. 



In England, half a century later, Erasmus Darwin, dis- 

 tinguished grandfather of the great Charles, wrote even 

 more exuberantly in his didactic poem, "The Loves of the 

 Plants," where all sorts of gnomes, sylphs and other myth- 

 ological creatures benevolently foster the vegetable affaires 

 de coeur. It is said to have been one of the best-selling 

 poems ever pubhshed, no doubt because it combined the 

 newly fashionable interest in natural history with the long 

 standing obsession with "the tender passion" as expressi- 

 ble in terms of cupids, darts, flames and all the other 

 cliches which now survive only in St. Valentine's Day gifts. 



Such romantic exuberance is not much favored today 

 when the seamy side is likely to interest us more. We are 

 less likely to abandon ourselves to a participation in the 

 joys of spring than to be on our guard against "the pa- 

 thetic fallacy" even though, as is usually the case, we don't 

 know exactly what the phrase means or what is "pathetic" 

 about the alleged fallacy. Nevertheless, those who con- 

 sent, even for a moment, to glance at that agreeable sur- 

 face of things with which the poets used to be chiefly con- 

 cerned will find in the desert what they find in every other 

 spring, and they may even be aware that the hare, which 



