RARITY NO BEAUTY — FOLDS IN BODS. 53 



" Well, I am very glad to hear that, however." 

 " Why so, sir?" 



" Do you fancy that you alone possess it, sirl" 

 "Yes, sir, I am satisfied of that: nobody has one but 

 myself." 



" I am enchanted to heax you say so." 

 " You are polite; but why do you say so, sir?" 

 " Because, sir, it affords me the assurance that I shall not 

 meet with it often." 



Here is a beautiful, rich, and majestic plant: it is the 

 poppy; how finely cut are its sea-green leaves, how straight 

 and flexible is its stalk; the buds of its flowers incline lan- 

 guishingly towards the earth, but a day or two before they 

 burst, they will raise themselves gradually, and present their 

 beautiful, rich cup to the heavens; we may then say of them, 

 with much more truth than of man, that the sign of its 

 nobility is that it naturally looks towards heaven, which is 

 not true as regards man. A man who shoxtld take a fancy 

 to keep up the dignity attributed to him by Ovid — 



" Os homini sublime dedit^ coelumque tueri 

 Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus ; " 



— that man would get a horrible stiff neck, and would give 

 up the sublime position in a quarter of an hour. 



There is a bud which has risen; tear open its green en- 

 velope, and see how its splendid petals are enclosed in it, 

 ragged and without order; you might say it was the carpet- 

 bag of a careless student, setting out for the vacation. How 

 can nature treat such fine, such rich stuff with so little cai-e? 

 Is there not a little affected disdain for the purple in this? I 

 only know the flower of the pomegranate, which is also red, 

 whose petals are as ragged-looking in their envelope as the 

 petals of the poppy. But, make yourself easy; scarcely is 

 the flower blown, when a mild, genial air smooths the petals 

 of both the pomegranate and the poppy, and renders them as 

 even as those of other flowers. 



Different flowers have different manners of arranging them- 

 selves in their buds, in which they are compelled to occupy 

 so smaU a space. The petals of roses cover each other by a 

 portion of their sides; the bindweed is rolled and folded like 



