INTRODUCTORY. 
already overtasks the failing energy, there will 
be but little capacity for sentiment, few thoughts 
to bestow upon Ferns or flowers.’ 4 Still,’ he 
grants, 4 more might be done, and as there has 
been a great advance in window-gardening 
amongst the working classes, mainly through the 
stimulus of competition, and by the annual gifts 
of flowers from the royal parks and gardens, 
Fern-culture might, in like manner and with 
greater ease, be developed.’ This is, in substance, 
granting all that the Author contends for. The 
saying that when, for instance, c Poverty comes 
in at the door Love flies out at the window,’ is, no 
doubt, often exemplified in actual life. And, in 
the same way, 4 the struggle for daily bread ’ 
must — in a degree at least — reduce the capacity 
for indulging sentiment of any kind, including so 
much of sentiment as would be involved in the 
loving study and cultivation of Ferns. But there 
are probably few amongst the poor whose lives, 
— though deeply affected by the 4 chill penury ’ 
which freezes 4 the genial current of the soul,’ — 
are utterly unrelieved by one small gleam of 
sunshine ! And surely the poor man who has a 
4i 
