340 MORE POT-POURRI 



wtich made the wood so profitable that a plantation of 

 Cypresses was thought a sufficient marriage portion for 

 a daughter. Theophrastus states that it grew naturally 

 in the isle of Crete, and that those who wish to have the 

 Cypress flourish must procure a little of the earth from 

 the isle of Cyprus for it to grow in. The early botanists 

 supposed that the upright and spreading Cypresses were 

 male and female of the same plant — G. horizontalis the 

 male, G. stricta the female. This is not the case. The 

 horizontal Cypress is quite a distinct species, which 

 comes from the Levant. The evergreen Cypress is a 

 flame-shaped, tapering, and cone-like tree. The male 

 catkins are yellowish, about three inches long, and very 

 numerous. The female catkins are much fewer and of 

 a roundish oblong form ; but both grow on the same 

 tree. I have a sentiment for Cypresses that amounts to 

 a passion. All my life they have remained in my mind 

 as emblems of the fairest land I have ever known. 



June 5th. — To-day being warm, I went down to 

 Florence ; and dropping my companion — who had to 

 call on a sick friend — I went on alone to the 'Cascine,' 

 the well-known public park, which I had not seen for 

 over forty years. The ghost of my youth sat beside me 

 in the little shabby carriage ; and as I drove along the 

 well -remembered aUey, with the racecourse on the right, 

 and the shaded roads where I used to ride, the past all 

 came back to my mind. To the outward eye all seemed 

 very much the same — a little smartened up and mod- 

 ernised perhaps. As I drew up on the Piazzone, there 

 was another carriage with a mother and three young 

 daughters, as we used to be. It was a strange, lonely, 

 sepulchral sort of feeling — that in all that gay crowd 

 very few were even born when we lived in Florence and I 

 used to go daily to the 'Cascine' and dance half the night 

 through at balls. That winter at Florence seemed to me 



