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WILD FLOWERS. THE HOT-HOUSE ROSE. CON- 130 131 MRS. TALBOT. The day opens propitiously for our meeting the dear friends we expect. I never saw the sun rise with more beauty, or promising finer weather. GEORGE. In half an hour, Mother, we shall be on our way; and in two hours we shall meet them, shall we not? MRS. TALBOT. I hope so; and as you know we were talking of omens yesterday, I will consider it as a favourable prognostic to the pursuit of our little studies in natural history, that I this morning found in my window one of those beautiful butterflies called the Admirable; and sometimes the Colonel—a fly which is rarely
132 found in the house, though others, such as the Nettle Tortoise-shell, frequently are. In an impromptu I addressed my captive, and then gave him his freedom. EMILY. It is that large black butterfly, with bright scarlet and white spots, one of which I saw in the garden yesterday. MRS. TALBOT. The same—But perhaps I have not been altogether correct in my poetical history, insomuch as I have described the butterfly as emerging from the retreat it had chosen during the cold months; but it is more probable that the individual insect in question has been produced this Summer. For the progress of this species I understand to be, that a few that have passed the inclement season in the chrysalis state, are seen on the wing early in May; soon after which the female lays her eggs singly on the leaves of nettles. The caterpillar, immediately on being hatched, sews the leaf on which it
133 finds itself round it like a case; the effect of wonderful instinct, to preserve itself from a particular species of fly called the ichneumon, which otherwise would destroy it, by depositing its eggs in the soft body of the caterpillar. But, as the caterpillar must have food as well as shelter, it feeds on the tender part of this covering, till the leaf becomes in too ruinous a state to be longer inhabited; then crawling to another, it again wraps itself up; and this happens till it is nearly full grown, and so much encreased in size, that one leaf will not serve it both for food and raiment. It therefore becomes more ambitious, and reaching the top of the nettle, connects several leaves together to make its house and supply its appetite; till being at length full grown, it suspends itself from a leaf, and puts on the armour that nature directs it to assume before its last and complete state of existence, which happens in sixteen or twenty days, according to the temperature of the air. Then the ugly
134 deformed caterpillar is metamorphosed into the beautiful butterfly, one of which by some singular chance I found to-day.
135 Like flowers that form thy fragrant food; GEORGE. Mother, I think our book will be so full of verses, that we must begin another when my aunt brings us those she has promised us. EMILY. And I shall never be weary of learning them. You thought, Mamma, that I should not have all our present collection complete, both in my book and my memory, before my aunt, my brother and sister, and my cousin Fanny came; but I believe I can go through them without missing a line. MRS. TALBOT. I am as willing, as I am happy to believe it, my Emily; but now we have hardly time to talk of our acquisitions, for the chaise is, I see, just driving through the lawn. GEORGE. 136 GEORGE. I am ready—Emily, make haste—I am going for my horse, and shall ride round by the time you get in. Mother, you cannot imagine how well the poor old fellow Dumplin looks, since I have got a better bridle and had his mane hogged—I shall have a delightful ride! MRS. TALBOT. I hope so.—But what has John in his hand?—A letter?—It is, and from your aunt—Something, I am afraid, has happened to prevent her meeting us. GEORGE. Oh! Mother, pray tell me what it is. Surely nobody is ill. EMILY. I am frightened so that I dare not ask. MRS. TALBOT. My dear children, be not alarmed. Thank God, it is not illness among our beloved party, that deprives us for a time of the happiness we hoped to be enjoying in a few hours; but the unexpected arrival at my sister's house of an old friend of hers under affliction, who comes to her for consolation, and to
137 whom she cannot refuse the alleviations that friendships and sympathy give to the unhappy. GEORGE. Well—I am very sorry, to be sure, for the disappointment; but since it is so, and that none of our own dear folks are sick, I must not vex about it. MRS. TALBOT. I should be vexed with you, George, if you did. The disappointment to you is surely not worth thinking of, since your poney Dumplin, with his new bridle and his hog mane, will look and go quite as well another day; and you may even take a gallop with him immediately if you will, since you and he are equipped. But consider with yourself a moment what would have been the disappointment of your aunt's afflicted friend, if, in order to keep her appointment, and to have been here a few days sooner, she had refused to remain to comfort the unhappy. Consider too how much more
138 severely we should have felt this mortification, had it arisen from any misfortune having fallen on those we expected. GEORGE. Indeed, Mother, I am very sensible that all you say is true; and I hope you don't think me so unreasonable as to murmur, though I own I was a little vexed at first. MRS. TALBOT. And you, Emily?—Come, confess that you bear this disappointment with even less fortitude than your brother. EMILY. I was frightened, Mamma, while you were reading the letter, for I was sure almost by your look that something was the matter; I was afraid my brother, or my sister, or Fanny had been ill; or my aunt herself. But indeed, since it is not so, I do not mind the disappointment on my own account, and am only sorry for my aunt's poor friend. MRS. TALBOT. My children, I am the more earnest with you on this occasion, as I so well recollect with regret,
139 how ill I bore disappointment myself, when I was a girl, and how frequently I was weak enough on such occasions to lose my own temper, and try that of the good aunt whose care I was under.—A rainy day when I was promised a long walk, or to pass the morning with any favourite play-fellow, seemed then to be a misfortune which was not to be endured. I remember that a party of ladies who lived at some distance, and with whom my family were on terms of ceremonious visiting, happened to arrive one morning just I was eagerly setting out to see the river fished, that ran thro' the grounds, and about the sport it would afford, I had heard a great deal for some days before. Every body was gone but my aunt and I; and already I had heard by the boys and people that were running backwards and forwards, of the great pike that had been taken, and the quantity of fine fish they expected. The ladies, I thought, need not detain me, as I could not amuse
140 them, and was sure they could not amuse me; so I was earnestly soliciting leave to go, and had nearly obtained it, when they all entered the room, and with them a girl of my own age, who was at home for the holidays, and whom her mother brought to exhibit, as she was remarkably accomplished for her age; and I believe it was intended to mortify my aunt by the comparison. The little Miss was formally introduced to me, and no hope remained of my seeing the river fished; I ought, you know, to have made light of such a trifling deprivation, and have been civil to my visitor. Instead of that I was silent, and I am afraid sullen; while she displayed all her acquirements; played on the piano forte, sung a fashionable air, showed a new pas grave, which her dancing-master had lately introduced, and desired with an air of triumph to see my drawings, which when I was obliged by authority to fetch, she turned over in a mighty negligent way, as not likely to be worth her criticism;
141 and the elder ladies hardly deigned to look at them; Lady Prunely gravely assuring my aunt, that a much better method was now adopted than that which I seemed to have been taught by. My patience was now quite exhausted; and all this affronting parade of superiority as I then thought it, operating upon my mind embittered by disappointment, I forgot every thing but my extreme desire to escape from society I did not like, to an amusement particularly pleasing to me. Under pretence therefore of carrying away my drawing book, I hurried as fast as I could to the river, where my brothers were highly enjoying themselves, while the men in dresses on purpose waded into the shallow water, and threw quantities of fish on the banks. My eagerness was not exceeded by that of the boys, in the midst of whom I was presently busy in putting the fish into baskets to be carried to the ponds; and in despite of my maid's lectures that morning about my white frocks and petticoats, I was as deep in the mud
142 as the boys themselves, when my persecutors, Lady Prunely, her elegant daughter, and the whole party appeared, and a message was sent to me to join them immediately, as they could not think of approaching very near on account of the dirt. Most unwillingly I attempted to obey; but there were several nets that had been thrown on the bank; in one of them I became entangled, and endeavouring impatiently to disengage myself, I fell among the mud and weeds with which the bank was covered; and a more deplorable object than I appeared when I recovered my feet cannot be imagined. I escaped an heavy censure at that moment, because I was not in a condition to approach the nice groupe who beheld my disgrace, as they thought it, with horror and amazement. But Lady Prunely, who had an high opinion of her own sagacity and superior knowledge, took that opportunity to advise my aunt very seriously to send me to school. "Really," said the dictatorial
143 Lady, "Miss Caroline is a good fine girl, but my dear Ma'am, she is, I am sure, vastly too much for your tender spirits.—Forgive me, my dear Ma'am, but I know you are of so gentle a disposition, that you cannot control a child of that extreme vivacity. It would be of infinite use to her if you were to send her to school. That where my Arabella is, to be sure, is very expensive, but my dear Ma'am, if your niece were to be sent to it, for only a couple of years, I would engage that you would be highly satisfied, and sure I am that you would find Miss Caroline quite another thing." This advice, tho' it was given in the proud consciousness of fancied wisdom, was, I believe, very good advice, as we lived in a place where little or no good instruction was to be had. There were objections to taking a governess into the house, and persons well qualified for that office were even more difficult to be found then, than they are now. Miss
144 Caroline, undismayed by her disaster after it was once over, continued to be perhaps too fond of digging with her brothers in the garden; running about without her hat, swinging in the barn with them, and even mounting an ass; all of which were then reckoned very indecorous amusements.—So Lady Prunely's council was in a few months followed, and I was sent to the school where her daughter was. But you see here was an event of some importance in my life, produced by the impatience with which I bore a trifling disappointment; for had I been civil, as undoubtedly I ought to have been, and smiled, and bowed, and praised Miss Arabella Prunely, instead of being, as the lady her mother described me, "ruder than a young Hottentot," I should not perhaps have been so soon, if at all, sent from home. GEORGE. But then, Mother, you would have been an hypocrite; and if hypocrisy is hateful in persons grown up, it
145 is ten times worse in children and young people. MRS. TALBOT. But one purpose of education, George, is, to teach us, not hypocrisy, but to live for others as well as ourselves, and even in matters of indifference not to offend the feelings or prejudices of those we live among, whether our superiors or equals, or those whom fortune has placed beneath us. You meet with people every day whom you dislike, do you not? GEORGE. Yes, indeed, and I long to tell them so. MRS. TALBOT. I know you do; but what right have you to offend these people with disagreeable truths, or such speeches as you think truths? Should you like to have one of them come up to you, and tell you you were awkward or ill bred, or that you were not so rich as they themselves? GEORGE. I should not much care about the last, because I know it very well, and
146 there is no disgrace in not having a great fortune; and as to being awkward and ill bred, that is mere matter of opinion, and I had rather be both then a finical coxcomb. MRS. TALBOT. But if they were to tell you you were guilty of meanness or falsehood?— GEORGE. I suppose I should knock any man down that was to charge me with either, at least if I could. MRS. TALBOT. And yet, George, I have seen you tell people, almost as plainly as the most unequivocal words could have done, that you had as ill an opinion of them as those words imply. GEORGE. Well, Mother, but if they deserve that opinion?— MRS. TALBOT. You are too young to judge yourself of the characters of individuals; and you should not take evil report upon trust. There was Farmer Delverstone who came the other day for taxes. You had heard he was remarkable for his avarice, and for being cruel to the poor as
147 Overseer or Churchwarden, and I was really afraid you were going to tell him so. Then whenever Miss Commere is here, you are always talking of gossiping meddling old women, who go about from house to house tale bearing, and making quarrels among neighbours. It is very true, she does do all that; but you cannot now reform her, for it is an inveterate habit acquired and fixed in a long life; yet you have excited her dislike, and she tells every body that you are utterly ruined by my false indulgence. I would always have you despise and avoid vice of every kind, and look on meanness and malice with as much contempt and abhorrence as you do now; but it is not necessary to offend the forms of the world by a rough and obtrusive manner, which reforms nobody, but renders almost every body your enemy. However, here is a much longer lecture than I intended for this time; before it is too hot to take your ride; but I advise you not to let it be towards Sir Harry's, for how
148 would your philosophy bear a comparison between Mr. Scamperville's famous mare, and our poor old Dumpling? GEORGE. Well enough, I hope. It would not be right or reasonable in me to ask you to go to such expence as Sir Harry can afford; and I should be more ashamed if people were to say, "there goes George Talbot on a fine horse, when his mother and sisters never go out but in an hired chaise." Besides, Mamma, I like riding very well, and wish to be a tolerable good horseman, because it is useful to be able to take journeys on horseback, if necessary; but I do not want to ride like on of Sir Harry's training grooms. MRS. TALBOT. I am perfectly satisfied with your reasoning, my dear boy; and have little to wish, but that you may always judge as rationally as you do now of the value of those objects, which excite so much ambition among boys, and are allowed to give so strong a bias to the character of their subsequent lives. Adieu
149 then for this morning! Emily is going to read to me the poem which you were so please with, when you met with it in one of your cousin Fanny's school books. So for the present farewell. EMILY. Mamma, I have now several little copies of verses on insects, and some on plants: I have the squirrel too, the dormouse and the hedgehog, which are beasts, but we have nothing that tell of birds. MRS. TALBOT. And yet none of the various inhabitants of the earth are more entitled to our attention, or more worthy of our admiration. We must apply to you aunt for her assistance, and try to enrich our collection with some subjects from that department of natural history; at present let me hear the poetical collection of
150 Then thickly strewn in woodland bowers 151 The hollow Foxglove nods beneath EVEN- 152 MRS. TALBOT. Your excursion then was a pleasant one? GEORGE. Remarkably so, indeed, my dear Mother. The woods are in general as green as they were in Spring; only here and there a bough is just tinted with yellow. But the birds are almost silent, at least very few are heard in comparison of the numbers we listened to, when three weeks since we took our long forest walk. EMILY. Oh dear! those yellow leaves tell us of the approach of Autumn—and then comes Winter, cold, chearless, dreary Winter. MRS. TALBOT. But Emily, why do you seem to dread it so much? To you surely it has never yet been chearless. And Autumn, you know, is generally the season chosen now for enjoying the coun
153 try. No person of fashion thinks of leaving London till July or August; and some not till September. GEORGE. They cannot have much taste though for beauty of the country—Spring and Summer are so delightful! and there is such a joyous appearance about every object. MRS. TALBOT. You would not be allowed to have any taste, my dear George, either by the sportsman or the lover of good eating, were they to hear you assert, that the Spring and Summer are the most joyous. Your acquaintance Mr. Scamperville, were you to enquire of him, would tell you, that all persons who are as he calls it in a certain style, find the pleasures of those seasons to consist of parties in London, lounging up and down Bond-Street, riding and driving in the Park, all the morning, and in an evening frequenting crowded rooms, where "people of a certain rank" vie with each other in the
154 excessive expence of entertainments; while those who cannot without injury to their fortunes emulate these luxurious exhibitions are half undone by their prodigality—It is for them that nature is forced, and that cherries are produced in February, and roses bloom at Christmas; for what would become of people in a certain style, if they could only eat cherries and smell roses, when the plebeian can equally enjoy both? GEORGE. Well! I shall never regret not being in a certain style, if those things only are denied to a plebeian—for I am quite content, are not you, Mother? to have roses and cherries in the common course. MRS. TALBOT. Undoubtedly I am; yet I certainly have great delight in the productions which Art gives us in our cold and capricious climate—especially plants, of the warmer latitudes. Nor is this a luxury unattended with extensive benefit, for great numbers of people are supported by the culture, not indeed of exotics, and rare
155 plants, for that branch of gardening, however great its present perfection, can comparatively occupy but a few; but the culture of early vegetables, and forced flowers, employs many men, and we may say with the Poet, "But hence the poor are clothed, the hungry fed, And when I have sometimes seen a crown given for a rose in Winter, and have thought—as it is impossible not to think, on the strange inequality with which the gifts of fortune are divided; I have consoled myself with this reflection; and have said, that though my acquaintance, Lady Felicia Fidwell, could throw away, for the indulgence of a few moments gratification, a sum, which would purchase food during the week for the poor outcast of his family; who stands soliciting an
156 halfpenny of her Ladyship's footman, as a small acknowledgement for having swept the mud from the crossing, which this fine fellow with his tasselled cane, his ruffles and laced hat, was obliged to pass on a message of his Lady to the Circulating Library over the way; yet that some other poor man was long employed and found bread in performing the offices requisite for the production of this rose; and I have by that recollection conquered my disposition to find it strange, that things are so unequally divided. GEORGE. I remember, Mother, you said one day, that roses blown by artificial heat are more beautiful than those that blow in the usual season in the garden. EMILY. So they are indeed, Brother. I had a bunch given to me by my cousin, who had an whole flower-pot full made her a present of; and they were the sweetest and most beautiful roses I ever saw in my life. GEORGE. 157 GEORGE. Now I think, Emily, that you only fancied them so, because it was at a time when they were scarce, and you had not seen roses a great while. MRS. TALBOT. Not altogether so, George. Roses blown by artificial heat are more delicate than those which ornament our gardens in June, lovely as they are. I know not whether their scent be more exquisite, and indeed I doubt it; but they are usually more free from blight, and those insects which sometimes destroy our garden roses. Since we are upon this subject, I will repeat to you a little Poem written some years ago by your aunt, in which the effect of the culture of the rose by artificial heat is represented, as being like that of education on the female mind. You will hear the pleading of Nature and Art, who are here personified. EMILY. Excuse my interrupting you, dearest Mamma; but you always bid me ask, when I do not understand the meaning of a word. You used this the other
158 day, and I could not then ask you. What is meant by personified? MRS. TALBOT. I will endeavour to explain it as well as I can. It is a very usual figure in modern Poetry, and has in many instances superseded the use of the imaginary Deities of the Heathen mythology, where love was called Cupid, you know; beauty was Venus; and wisdom Minerva or Pallas, and so on; but now a Poet personifies the virtue, vice, or passion he would represent. Collin's poetry is full of those bold figures. Mercy is called
"Gentlest of sky-born forms, and best ador'd. 159 one of the verses of his beautiful "Ode on a distant Prospect of Eton College." However, we will have a farther dissertation on this another day; I have at present said enough, I believe, Emily, to make you comprehend what is meant by personification. And now attend to the pleadings of Nature and Art, on the improvement bestowed by the latter, on the darling production of the former.
160 Midst Art's factitious children let them be CON- |
