It is very curious to compare the two following passages of two great
masters of style--Ruskin and Michelet--both writing of the tribe to
which belongs the Tomato. Ruskin, in _The Queen of the Air_, p. 91,
says:--
"Next, in the Potato, we have the scarcely innocent underground
stem of one of a tribe set aside for evil, having the deadly
nightshade for its queen, and including the henbane, the
witch's mandrake, and the worst natural curse of modern
civilisation--tobacco. And the strange thing about this tribe is,
that though thus set aside for evil, they are not a group
distinctly separate from those that are happier in function. There
is nothing in other tribes of plants like the form of the bean
blossom; but there is another family with forms and structure
closely connected with this venomous one. Examine the purple and
yellow bloom of the common hedge Nightshade;--you will find it
constructed exactly like some of the forms of the Cyclamen; and
getting this clue, you will find at last the whole poisonous and
terrible group to be--sisters of the Primulas.
"The nightshades are, in fact, primroses with a curse upon them,
and a sign set in their petals by which the deadly and condemned
flower may always be known from the innocent one,--that the stamens
of the nightshades are between the lobes, and of the primulas
opposite the lobes of the corolla."
Now for M. Michelet. In _La Sorciere_, p. 119, he writes of the herbs
used by the witches:--
"Ce que nous savons le mieux de leur medecine, c'est qu'elles
employaient beaucoup, pour les usages les plus divers, pour calmer,
pour stimuler, une grande famille de plantes, equivoques, fort
dangereuses, qui rendirent les plus grands services. On les nomme
avec raison, les _Consolantes_ (Solanees).
"Famille immense et populaire, dont la plupart des especes sont
surabondantes, sous nos pieds, aux haies, partout. Famille,
tellement nombreuse, qu'un seul de ses genres a huit cents especes.
Rien de plus facile a trouver, rien de plus vulgaire. Mais ces
plantes sont la plupart d'un emploi fort hasardeux. Il a fallu de
l'audace pour en preciser les doses, l'audace peut-etre du genie.
"Prenons par en bas l'echelle ascendante de leurs energies. Les
premieres sont tout simplement potageres et bonnes a manger (les
aubergines, les tomates, mal appelees pommes d'amour). D'autres de
ces innocentes sont le calme et la douceur meme, les molenes
(bouillon blanc), si utiles aux fomentations.
"Vous rencontrez au dessus une plante deja suspecte, que plusieurs
croyaient un poison, la plante miellee d'abord, amere ensuite, qui
semble dire le mot de Jonathas: 'J'ai mange un peu de miel, et
voila pourquoi je meurs.' Mais cette mort est utile, c'est
l'amortissement de la douleur. La douce-amere, c'est son nom, dut
etre le premier essai de l'homoeopathie hardie, qui, peu a peu,
s'eleva aux plus dangereux poisons. La legere irritation, les
picotements qu'elle donne purent la designer pour remede des
maladies dominantes de ces temps, celles de la peau."
Speaking of magical herbs reminds one of the "moly," which Mercury gives
to Ulysses, and which enabled him to withstand the enchantments of
Circe. This "moly" with its white blossom is particularly well known to
me, for, when I first came to my present house, the wood near the lodge
was so full of it that it seemed as if a dinner of onions was for ever
being cooked: I found it exceedingly hard to eradicate. "Moly" is none
other than the Garlic, and Circe had apparently the same objection to it
as had the wife of the Merchant of Bagdad in the _Arabian Nights_.
By the way, what could Mr. Tennyson have been thinking of when he
describes his lotus-eaters as
"Propt on beds of amaranth and _moly_"?