Vv 
A BIT OF USELESSNESS 
A most admirable servant of mine once risked 
his life to reach a magnificent Bornean orchid, 
and tried to poison me an hour later when he 
thought I was going to take the plant away from 
him. This does not mean necessarily that we 
should look with suspicion upon all gardeners 
and lovers of flowers. It emphasizes, rather, the 
fact of the universal and deep-rooted apprecia- 
tion of the glories of the vegetable kingdom. 
Long before the fatal harvest time, I am certain 
that Eve must have plucked a spray of apple 
blossoms with perfect impunity. 
A vast amount of bad poetry and a much less 
quantity of excellent verse has been written about 
flowers, much of which follows to the letter Mark 
Twain’s injunction about Truth. It must be ad- 
mitted that the relations existing between the 
honeysuckle and the bee are basely practical and 
wholly selfish. A butterfly’s admiration of a 
flower is no whit Jess than the blossom’s conscious 
112 
