(926)
ENVIRONMENT, DESTRUCTIVE
An English writer, with some novel ideas of how the smoke-laden atmosphere of London might be purified, writes:
At one time I thought of proposing the establishment of horticultural home-missions for promoting the dissemination of flowerpot shrubs in the metropolis, and of showing how much the atmosphere of London would be improved if every London family had one little sweetbrier-bush, a lavender-plant, or a hardy heliotrope to each of its members; so that a couple of millions of such ozone generators should breathe their sweetness into the dank and dead atmosphere of the denser central regions of London.
A little practical experience of the difficulty of growing a clean cabbage, or maintaining alive any sort of shrub in the midst of our soot-drizzle, satisfied me that the mission would fail, even tho the sweetbriers were given away by the district visitors; for these simple hardy plants perish in a mid-London atmosphere unless their leaves are periodically sponged and syringed, to wash away the soot particles that otherwise close their stomata and suffocate the plant.
The ingenious scheme would fail because the plants themselves would become foul and need to be cleansed. Failing this, they would die. So in life character is easily incrusted with the spirit of worldliness. (Text.)
(927)
ENVIRONMENT INADEQUATE
Shortly after Chief Justice Chase had gone for the first time to Washington, he was returning to the West. The train stopt at a little station in Virginia, and he was informed that it was the birthplace of Patrick Henry. He immediately left the car and stood upon the platform, admiring the magnificence of the scenery that opens before the traveler. He said, “What an atmosphere! What a view! What glorious mountains! No wonder that Patrick Henry grew here.” One of the natives, who was standing by his side, quietly replied, “Yes, sir; but as far as I have heard, that landscape and those mountains have always been here; but we haven’t seen any more Patrick Henrys.”
(928)