Faults in Gardening 



and its large, soft flowers, undamaged by 

 the weather, look forth here and there 

 from the hedge. Truly they have a won- 

 derful fascination then. In early spring 

 the plant has a too excessive vigour — an 

 air of rude health, which often spoils it, 

 partly, I think, by affecting the leaf colour ; 

 besides, the stems are apt, then, to be 

 far too numerous. It is otherwise in 

 November. 



Plants are thus far more universally 

 beautiful than animals, because plants can 

 never disgust or repel — animals can. And 

 though it were easy to name plants in 

 which one feels no vivid interest, as, for 

 instance, Senecio sylvaticus, I find, on 

 running through our native lists, these to 

 be comparatively so few, that the fault lies 

 most probably with the observer. 



Note 7 



What horror is excited by some insects 

 — spiders and centipedes — especially in 

 their gigantic tropical forms ! Not to 

 feel this, argues insensibility to a part 

 of Nature's language, and deprives us 

 of pleasure, for it is with a horror 

 bordering on the sublime that we read 

 of the huge Mygales — spiders almost a 

 127 



