The
more one knows of the most afflicted lives, the more often the
conviction flashes across us that the affliction is not a wanton
outrage, but a delicately adjusted treatment. I remember once that
a friend of mine had sent him a rare plant, which was set in a big
flower-pot, close to a fountain-basin. It never throve; it lived
indeed, putting out in the spring a delicate stunted foliage,
though my friend, who was a careful gardener, could never divine
what ailed it. He was away for a few weeks, and the day after he
was gone, the flower-pot was broken by a careless garden-boy, who
wheeled a barrow roughly past it; the plant, earth and all, fell
into the water; the boy removed the broken pieces of the pot, and
seeing that the plant had sunk to the bottom of the little pool,
never troubled his head to fish it out. When my friend returned, he
noticed one day in the fountain a new and luxuriant growth of some
unknown plant. He made careful inquiries and found out what had
happened. It then came out that the plant was in reality a water-
plant, and that it had pined away in the stifling air for want of
nourishment, perhaps dimly longing for the fresh bed of the pool.
Pages:
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395