Evening at Home 39

Evening at Home 39

Tut._ It is frequently mentioned as part of the diet of abstemious

persons. Of this kind, we eat peas, beans, and kidney or French beans,

of all which there are a variety of sorts cultivated. Other nations eat

lentils and lupines, which are of this class; with several others.

 

_Har._ I remember our lupines in the garden have flowers of this kind,

with pods growing in clusters. We only cultivate them for the colour and

smell.

 

_Tut._ But other nations eat them. Then, all the kinds of clover, or

trefoil, which are so useful in feeding cattle, belong to this tribe; as

do likewise vetches, sanfoin, and lucerne, which are used for the same

purpose. These principally compose what are usually, though improperly,

called, in agriculture, _artificial grasses_.

 

_Geo._ Clover flowers are as sweet as beans; but do they bear pods?

 

_Tut._ Yes; very short ones, with one or two seeds in each. But there is

a kind called nonsuch, with a very small yellow flower, that has a

curious twisted pod like a snail-shell. Many of the leguminous plants

are weak, and cannot support themselves; hence they are furnished with

tendrils, by means of which they clasp neighbouring plants, and run up

them. You know the garden-peas do so on the sticks which are set in the

rows with them. Some kind of vetches run in this manner up the hedges,

which they decorate with their long bunches of blue or purple flowers.

Tares, which are some of the slenderest of the family, do much mischief

among corn by twining round it and choking it.

 

_Har._ What are they good for, then?

 

_Tut._ They are weeds or noxious plants with respect to us; but

doubtless they have their uses in the creation. Some of our

papilionaceous plants, however, are able enough to shift for themselves;

for gorse or furze is of the number.

 

_Geo._ What, that prickly bush all covered over with yellow flowers,

that overruns our common?

 

_Tut._ Then there is broom, a plant as big, but without thorns, and with

larger flowers. This is as frequent as furze in some places.

 

_Har._ I know it grows in abundance in the broom-field.

 

_Tut._ It does; but the naming of fields and places from it is a proof

that it is not so common as the other.

 

_Geo._ We have some bushes of white broom in the shrubbery, and some

trees of Spanish broom.

 

_Tut._ True. You have also a small tree which flowers early, and bears a

great many pendent branches of yellow blossoms, that look peculiarly

beautiful when intermixed with the purple lilacs.

 

_Har._ I know it—laburnum.

 

_Tut._ Right. This is one of our class of plants too. Then there is a

large tree, with delicate little leaves, protected by long thorns, and

bearing bunches of white papilionaceous flowers.

 

_Geo._ I know which you mean, but I cannot tell the name.

 

_Tut._ It is the bastard-acacia, or locust-tree, a native of America.

Thus, you see, we have traced this class of plants through all sizes,

from the trefoil that covers the turf, to a large tree. I should not,

however, forget two others, the licorice, and the tamarind. The

licorice, with the sweet root of which you are well acquainted, grows in

the warmer countries, especially Spain, but is cultivated in some parts

of England, especially at Pomfret, in Yorkshire. The tamarind is a large

spreading tree growing in the West Indies, and valued for its shade, as

well as for the cooling acid pulp of its pods, which are preserved with

sugar and sent over to us.

 

_Har._ I know them very well.

 

_Tut._ Well—do you think now you shall both be able to discover a

papilionaceous flower when you meet with it again?

 

_Geo._ I believe I shall, if they are all like these we have been

examining.

 

_Tut._ They have all the same parts, though variously proportioned. What

are these?

 

_Geo._ There is the standard and two wings.

 

_Har._ And the keel.

 

_Tut._ Right—the keel sometimes cleft into two, and then it is an

irregular five-leaved flower. The chives are generally ten, of which one

stands apart from the rest. The pistil single, and ending in a pod.

Another circumstance common to most of this tribe, is, that their leaves

are _winged_, or _pinnated_, that is, having leaflets set opposite each

other, upon a middle rib. You see this structure in these bean-leaves.

But in the clovers there are only two opposite leaflets, and one

terminating; whence their name of trefoil, or three-leaf. What we call a

club on cards is properly a clover-leaf, and the French call it

_trefle_, which means the same.

 

_Geo._ I think this tribe of plants almost as useful as the grasses.

 

_Tut._ They perhaps come the next in utility: but their seeds, such as

beans and peas, are not quite such good nourishment as corn, and bread

cannot be made of them.

 

_Geo._ But clover is better than grass for cattle.

 

_Tut._ It is more fattening, and makes cows yield plenty of fine milk.

Well—let us march.

 

 

 

 

ON MAN.

 

 

_Charles._ You gave me the definition of a horse some time ago—Pray,

sir, how is a man defined?

 

_Father._ That is worth inquiring. Let us consider then. He must either

stand by himself, or be ranked among the quadrupeds; for there are no

other two-legged animals but birds, which he certainly does not

resemble.

 

_Ch._ But how can he be made a quadruped?

 

_Fa._ By setting him to crawl on the ground, in which case he will as

much resemble a baboon as a baboon set on his hind-legs does a man. In

reality, there is little difference between the arms of a man and the

fore-legs of a quadruped; and in all other circumstances of internal and

external structure, they are evidently formed upon the same model.

 

_Ch._ I suppose then we must call him a digitated quadruped, that

generally goes upon its hind legs.

 

_Fa._ A naturalist could not reckon him otherwise; and, accordingly,

Linnæus has placed him in the same division with apes, macocos, and

bats.

 

_Ch._ Apes, macocos, and bats!

 

_Fa._ Yes—they have all four cutting teeth in the upper jaw, and teats

on the breast. How do your like your relations?

 

_Ch._ Not at all!

 

_Fa._ Then we will get rid of them by applying to the other part of

human nature—the _mind_. Man is an animal possessed of _reason_, and the

only one. This, therefore, is enough to define him.

 

_Ch._ I have often heard that man is a rational creature, and I have a

notion what that means; but I should like to have an exact definition of

reason.

 

_Fa._ Reason is the faculty by which we compare ideas, and draw

conclusions. A man walking in the woods of an unknown country finds a

bow. He compares it in his mind with other bows, and forms the

conclusion that it must have been made by man, and that therefore the

country is probably inhabited. He discovers a hut; sees in it half-burnt

wood, and finds that the ashes are not quite cold. He concludes,

therefore, with certainty, not only that there are inhabitants, but that

they cannot be far distant. No other animal could do this.

 

_Ch._ But would not a dog who had been used to live with men run into

such a hut and expect to find people in it?

 

_Fa._ He probably would—and this, I acknowledge, is very like reason;

for he may be supposed to compare in his mind the hut he has lived in

with that he sees, and to conclude that as there were men in the first

there are in the last. But how little a way does this carry him? He

finds no men there, and he is unable by any marks to form any judgment

how long they have been absent, or what sort of people they were; still

less does he form any plan of conduct in consequence of his discovery.

 

_Ch._ Then is not the difference only that man has much reason, and

brutes little?

 

_Fa._ If we adhere to the mere words of the definition of reason, I

believe this must be admitted; but in the exercise of it, the

superiority of the human faculties is so great, that man is in many

points absolutely distinguished from brutes. In the first place he has

the _use of speech_, which no other animal has attained.

 

_Ch._ Cannot many animals make themselves understood by one another by their cries?