Did Man
Come Out Of The Sea, As The Greeks Thought?
There are so many ideas in
plants.
Flora, with a full lap, scattering knowledge and flowers
together; everything good and sweet seems to come out of flowers, up to
the very highest thoughts of the soul, and we carry them daily to the
very threshold of the other world. Next you may try the microscope and
its literature, and find the crystals in the rhubarb.
I remember taking sly glances when I was a very little boy at an old
Culpepper's Herbal, heavily bound in leather and curiously illustrated.
It was so deliciously wicked to read about the poisons; and I thought
perhaps it was a book like that, only in papyrus rolls, that was used by
the sorceress who got ready the poisoned mushrooms in old Rome. Youth's
ideas are so imaginative, and bring together things that are so widely
separated. Conscience told me I had no business to read about poisons;
but there was a fearful fascination in hemlock, and I recollect tasting a
little bit - it was very nasty. At this day, nevertheless, if any one
wishes to begin a pleasant, interesting, unscientific acquaintance with
English plants, he would do very well indeed to get a good copy of
Culpepper. Grey hairs had insisted in showing themselves in my beard
when, all those weary years afterwards, I thought I would like to buy the
still older Englishman, Gerard, who had no Linnaeus to guide him, who
walked about our English lanes centuries ago.
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