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right as opposed to absolute wrong. There is truth absolute 

 (= science) as contrasted with absolute untruth or error ; but if 

 you look closely and deeply into the matter, other things being 

 equal or nearly equal, the poet is always found to be a reliable 

 guide-post on the great highway of our lives. 



The poet makes a statement, and lo ! in succeeding years or 

 ages, the man of science makes discoveries that prove its truth. 



The practical gardener is often to some extent a practical 

 poet also, and he actually feels by the higher instincts of his 

 nature what is best under any given set of circumstances for him 

 to do. And then, again, comes on the chemist or the physiologist, 

 and it is they who prove the gardener's actions to have been 

 right ones. 



Now I want you to notice how divided are the modern poets 

 as to the gender of the word Daffodil. William Cullen Bryant, 

 for example, although American, agrees with the children's poetry 

 in England, and says : 



The Daffodil is our door-side queen. 



Not so, however, Aubrey de Vere, who, speaking of the Daffodil, 

 says : 



Thou laugh'st bold outcast bright and brave. 



And is it not Lydia Sigourney who likens the " Jonquil " to a 

 crook-backed old beau ? 



Old Jonquil, the crooked-backed beau, had been told 

 That a tax would be laid upon bachelors' gold. 



Classically, no doubt, Narcissus is masculine. Ovid settled 

 that, although Pliny says the name is derived from " narces," or 

 stupour ; but, biologically, the poetry of the children is right, for 

 Narcissus must have had a mother, and from the Daffodil as a 

 mother species have sprung during past ages all the more highly 

 developed Narcissi known to-day. 



I had prepared as a part of this paper a list of poets and 

 philosophers, of botanists and of gardeners, who have at different 

 epochs, during the last three thousand years or so, been interested 

 in our favourite Narcissus, but I fear it would be too long an 

 infliction on you were I to read it now. Chronologically it 

 ranges from Homer to Oscar Wilde. I know that some have 



