the droop, as though the tree were unhealthy or unhappy, sulky at being
transplanted to Europe, dissatisfied with the climate, displeased with the
soil, discontented with its associates. It struck me as very much like a
good number of excellent and very useful souls with whom I am acquainted,
who never take a cheerful view of life, are always fault-finding,
hole-picking, worry-discovering, eminently good in their place as
febrifuges, but not calculated to brighten their neighbourhood.

What a delightful walk is that on the cliff of the chateau! The day I was
at Nice was the 9th of April. The crags were rich with colour, the cytisus
waving its golden hair, the pelargonium blazing scarlet, beds of white
stock wafting fragrance, violets scrambling over every soft bank of deep
earth exhaling fragrance; roses, not many in flower, but their young leaves
in masses of claret-red; wherever a ledge allowed it, there pansies of
velvety blue and black and brown had been planted. In a hot sun I climbed
the chateau cliff to where the water, conveyed to the summit, dribbled and
dropped, or squirted and splashed, nourishing countless fronds of fern and
beds of moss, and many a bog plant. The cedars and umbrella pines in the
spring sun exhaled their aromatic breath, and the flowering birch rained
down its yellow dust over one from its swaying catkins.

I see I have spoken of the cytisus. I may be excused mentioning an anecdote
that the sight of this plant provokes in my mind every spring. I had a
gardener--a queer, cantankerous creature, who never saw a joke, even when
he made one. "Please, sir," he said to me with a solemn face, "I've been
rearing a lot o' young citizens for you."

"Have you?" said I, with a sigh. "I fancy I'm rearing a middling lot of
them myself."