icinal and other principles are usually to be sought, rather than in the
wood. Nevertheless, as the wood is kept in connection with the bark by the
medullary rays, many products which probably originate in the former are
deposited in the wood."

23. Now, at last, I see my way to useful summary of the whole, which I had
better give in a separate chapter: and will try in future to do the
preliminary work of elaboration of the sap from my authorities, above
shown, in its process, to the reader, without making so much fuss about it.
But, I think in this case, it was desirable that the floods of pros-, par-,
peri-, dia-, and circumlocution, through which one has to wade towards any
emergent crag of fact in modern scientific books, should for once be seen
in the wasteful tide of them; that so I might finally pray the younger
students who feel, or remember, their disastrous sway, to cure themselves
for ever of the fatal habit of imagining that they know more of anything
after naming it unintelligibly, and thinking about it impudently, than they
did by loving sight of its nameless being, and in wise confession of its
boundless mystery.

* * * * *

In re-reading the text of this number I can secure my young readers of some
things left doubtful, as, for instance, in their acceptance of the word
'Monacha,' for the flower described in the sixth chapter. I have used it
now habitually too long to part with it myself, and I think it will be
found serviceable and pleasurable by others. Neither shall I now change the
position of the Draconidae, as suggested at p. 118, but keep all as first
planned. See among other reasons for doing so the letter quoted in p. 121.

I also add to the plate originally prepared for this number, one showing
the effect of Veronica officinalis in decoration of foreground, merely by
its green leaves; see the paragraphs 1 and 5 of Chapter VI. I have not
represented the fine serration of the leaves, as they are quite invisible
from standing height: the book should be laid on the floor and looked down
on, without stooping, to see the effect intended. And so I gladly close
this long-lagging number, hoping never to write such a tiresome chapter as
this again, or to make so long a pause between any readable one and its
sequence.

* * * * *

NOTES

[1] Vol. i., p. 212, note.

[2] See 'Deucalion,' vol. ii., chap, i., p. 12, Sec. 18.

[3] I am asham