





















TRUTH. 
















BITTER-SWEET NIGHTSHADE. 
Tne ancients thought that truth was the 
mother of the virtues, the daughter of time, and 
the queen of the world. We moderns say that 
that divinity hides herself at the bottom of a 
well, and that she always mingles some bitter- 
ness with her sweets; and we appoint for her 
emblem an useless plant that loves the shade 
and is ever clothed in green. The bitter-sweet 
nightshade is, we believe, the only plant in our 
climate, that sheds and reproduces its foliage 
twice in one year. Its roots smell somewhat 
like the potato, and being chewed, produce a 
sensation of bitterness on the palate, which is 
succeeded by sweetness. From this singular 
fact it derives its specific name “ bitter-sweet.” 


