being distinguished explicitly by Pliny as
'Capitati,' 'salads with a head,' or 'Captain salads,' the mediaeval French
softened the 'caulis capitatus' into 'chou cabus;'--or, to separate the
round or apple-like mass of leaves from the flowery foam, 'cabus' simply,
by us at last enriched and emphasized into 'cabbage.'

29. I believe we have now got through the stiffest piece of etymology we
shall have to master in the course of our botany; but I am certain that
young readers will find patient work, in this kind, well rewarded by the
groups of connected thoughts which will thus attach themselves to familiar
names; and their grasp of every language they learn must only be esteemed
by them secure when they recognize its derivatives in these homely
associations, {150} and are as much at ease with the Latin or French
syllables of a word as with the English ones; this familiarity being above
all things needful to cure our young students of their present ludicrous
impression that what is simple, in English, is knowing, in Greek; and that
terms constructed out of a dead language will explain difficulties which
remained insoluble in a living one. But Greek is _not_ yet dead: while if
we carry our unscholarly nomenclature much further, English soon will be;
and then doubtless botanical gentlemen at Athens will for some time think
it fine to describe what we used to call caryophyllaceae, as the [Greek:
hedlephides].

30. For indeed we are all of us yet but school-boys, clumsily using alike
our lips and brains; and with all our mastery of instruments and patience
of attention, but few have reached, and those dimly, the first level of
science,--wonder.

For the first instinct of the stem,--unnamed by us yet--unthought of,--the
instinct of seeking light, as of the root to seek darkness,--what words can
enough speak the wonder of it.

Look. Here is the little thing, Line-study V. (A), in its first birth to
us: the stem of stems; the one of which we pray that it may bear our daily
bread. The seed has fallen in the ground with the springing germ of it
downwards; with heavenly cunning the taught stem curls round, and seeks the
never-seen light. Veritable 'conversion,' miraculous, called of God. And
here is the oat {151} germ, (B)--after the wheat, most vital of divine
gifts; and assuredly, in days to come, fated to grow on many a naked rock
in hitherto lifeless lands, over which the glancing sheaves of it will
shake sweet treasure of