"To know one element, explore another, And in the second reappears the first." Emerson.
Every order of intelligent beings naturally separates the world into two classes,—itself and the remainder. Birds, for instance, have no doubt a feeling, more or less clearly defined, which, if it were translated into human speech, might read, "Birds and nature." We, in our turn, say, "Man and nature." But such distinctions, useful as they are, and therefore admissible, are none the less arbitrary and liable to mislead. Birds and men are alike parts of nature, having many things in common not only with each other, but with every form of animate existence. The world is not a patchwork, though never so cunningly put together, but a garment woven throughout.
The importance of this truth, its far-reaching and many-sided significance, is even yet only beginning to be understood; but its bearing upon the study of what we call natural history would seem to be evident. My own experience as a dabbler in botany and ornithology has convinced me that the pursuit of such researches is not at all out of the spirit of the familiar line,—
"The proper study of mankind is man,"—
whatever the author of the line may have himself intended by his apothegm. To become acquainted with the peculiarities of plants or birds is to increase one's knowledge of beings of his own sort.
There is room, I think, for a treatise on analogical botany,—a study of the human nature of plants. Thoroughly and sympathetically done, the work would be both surprising and edifying. It would give us a better opinion of plants, and possibly a poorer opinion of ourselves. Some wholesome first lessons of this kind we have all taken, as a matter of course. "We all do fade as a leaf." "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field." There are no household words more familiar than such texts. But the work of which I am thinking will deal not so much with our likeness to tree and herb as with the likeness of tree and herb to us; and furthermore, it will go into the whole subject, systematically and at length. Meanwhile, it is open even to an amateur to offer something, in a general and discursive way, upon so inviting a theme, and especially to call attention to its scope and variety.
As I sit at my desk, the [thistles] are in their glory, and in a vase at my elbow stands a single head of the tall swamp variety, along with a handful of fringed gentians. Forgetting what it is, one cannot help pronouncing the thistle beautiful,—a close bunch of minute rose-purple flowers. But who could ever feel toward it as toward the gentian? Beauty is a thing not merely of form and color, but of memory and association. The thistle is an ugly customer. In a single respect it lays itself out to be agreeable; but even its beauty is too much like that of some venomous reptile. Yet it has its friends, or, at all events, its patrons (if you wish to catch butterflies, go to the thistle pasture), and no doubt could give forty eloquent and logical excuses for its offensive traits. Probably it felicitates itself upon its shrewdness, and pities the poor estate of its defenseless neighbors. How they must envy its happier fortune! It sees them browsed upon by the cattle, and can hardly be blamed if it chuckles a little to itself as the greedy creatures pass it by untouched. School-girls and botanists break down the golden-rods and asters, and pull up the gerardias and ladies'-tresses; but neither school-girl nor collector often troubles the thistle. It opens its gorgeous blossoms and ripens its feathery fruit unmolested. Truly it is a great thing to wear an armor of prickles!
"The human nature of plants,"—have I any reader so innocent as not to feel at this moment the appropriateness of the phrase? Can there be one so favored as not to have some unmistakable thistles among his Christian townsmen and acquaintance? Nay, we all know them. They are the more easily discovered for standing always a little by themselves. They escape many slight inconveniences under which more amiable people suffer. Whoever finds himself in a hard place goes not to them for assistance. They are recognized afar as persons to be let alone. Yet they, too, like their floral representatives, have a good side. If they do not give help, they seldom ask it. Once a year they may actually "do a handsome thing," as the common expression is; but they cannot put off their own nature; their very generosity pricks the hand that receives it, and when old Time cuts them down with his scythe (what should we do without this famous husbandman, unkindly as we talk of him?) there will be no great mourning.
Is it then an unpardonable misdemeanor for a plant to defend itself against attack and extermination? Has the duty of non-resistance no exceptions nor abatements in the vegetable kingdom? That would be indeed a hard saying; for what would become of our universal favorite, the [rose]? On this point there may be room for a diversity of opinion; but for one, I cannot wish the wild rose disarmed, lest, through the recklessness of its admirers, what is now one of the commonest of our wayside ornaments should grow to be a rarity. I esteem the rose a patrician, and fairly entitled to patrician manners. As every one sees, people in high station, especially if they chance to possess attractive social qualities, are of necessity compelled to discountenance everything like careless familiarity, even from those with whom they may formerly have been most intimate. They must always stand more or less upon ceremony, and never be handled without gloves. So it is with the queen of flowers. Its thorns not only serve it as a protection, but are for its admirers an excellent discipline in forbearance. They make it easier for us, as Emerson says, to "love the wood rose and leave it on the stalk." In addition to which I am moved to say that the rose, like the holly, illustrates a truth too seldom insisted upon; namely, that people are more justly condemned for the absence of all good qualities than for the presence of one or two bad ones.
Some such plea as this, though with a smaller measure of assurance, I should make in behalf of plants like the barberry and the [bramble]. The latter, in truth, sometimes acts as if it were not so much fighting us off as drawing us on. Leaning far forward and stretching forth its arms, it buttonholes the wayfarer, so to speak, and with generous country insistence forces upon him the delicious clusters which he, in his preoccupation, seemed in danger of passing untasted. I think I know the human counterparts of both barberry and bramble,—excellent people in their place, though not to be chosen for bosom friends without a careful weighing of consequences. Judging them not by their manners, but by their fruits, we must set them on the right hand. It would go hard with some of the most pious of my neighbors, I imagine, if the presence of a few thorns and prickles were reckoned inconsistent with a moderately good character.