It cannot be supposed that plants, like boys, catch flies for pastime or in objectless wantonness. Living beings though they are, yet they are not of a sufficiently high order for that. It is equally incredible that such an exquisite apparatus as this should be purposeless. And in the present case the evidence of the purpose and of the meaning of the strange action is wellnigh complete. The face of this living trap is thickly sprinkled with glands immersed in its texture, of elaborate structure under the microscope, but large enough to be clearly discerned with a hand-lens; these glands, soon after an insect is closed upon, give out a saliva-like liquid, which moistens the insect, and in a short time (within a week) dissolves all its soft parts, - digests them, we must believe; and the liquid, with the animal matter it has dissolved, is re-absorbed into the leaf! We are forced to conclude that, in addition to the ordinary faculties and function of a vegetable, this plant is really carnivorous. That, while all plants are food for animals, some few should, in turn and to some extent, feed upon them, will appear more credible when it is considered that whole tribes of plants of the lowest grade (Mould-Fungi and the like) habitually feed upon living plants and living animals, or upon their juices when dead. An account of them would make a volume of itself, and an interesting one. But all goes to show that the instances of extraordinary behavior which have been recounted in these chapters are not mere prodigies, wholly out of the general order of Nature, but belong to the order of Nature, and indeed are hardly different in kind from, or really more wonderful than, the doings of many of the commonest plants, which, until our special attention is called to them, ordinarily pass unregarded. * How Plants Behave: How they move, climb, employ insects to work for them, etc. A charming elementary work, from which this extract is taken. POE. 1811-1849. EDGAR ALLAN POE, perhaps the most brilliant, and surely the most unfortunate, of young American poets, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1811, and died in 1849. Left a penniless orphan on the death of his parents, who were members of the theatrical profession, he was adopted by a rich merchant of Baltimore, and sent to school. In 1822 he entered the University of Virginia, but his habits soon became so dissolute as to compel his expulsion. His benefactor refusing young Poe's demands for money to be squandered at the gaming-table, the latter resolved to go, like Byron, to the aid of the struggling Greeks. He went to Europe, but never reached the theater of war, and in about a year was sent home by the United States Consul at St. Petersburg. His long-suffering benefactor next procured him an appointment to West Point; but the high-spirited youth could not endure the strict discipline of cadet-life, and in less than a year he was again expelled. Again he was received at the house of his benefactor, but his stay, this time, was short; for some offense whose nature has never been clearly explained, he was shut out forever from the house that had been his only home. He at once entered upon that career of literary Bohemianism which was to end only with his life. In 1829 a small collection of his poems was published in Baltimore, and was received with encouraging favor; but his literary work done prior to his twenty-fourth year had little permanent value. While editing the Southern Literary Messenger, at Richmond, Virginia, 1835-37, he married his cousin, Virginia Clemm. In 1839 he went to New York, where he wrote for newspapers and magazines, and in 1840 to Philadelphia, where he edited Graham's Magazine. Returning to the first-named city, he engaged in miscellaneous literary labor, contributing his most famous poem, The Raven, to Colton's Whig Review, in February, 1845. His life, during the next four years, was a sad one; poverty continually oppressed him; his loving and suffering wife was taken from him; and, at last, having become almost a vagabond, he was carried to the Baltimore Hospital, where he died, October 7, 1849, aged thirty-eight years. Although Poe is best known as a poet, many of the ablest critics agree that he was even greater as a writer of tales. In this department of literature he occupied a niche in which he has had no successor. His imagination was exceptionally powerful, his love of the weird and marvelous very strong, and his skill in producing somber and uncanny effects was extraordinary. Though he wrote a good deal of verse, but a small proportion of it is worthy of his genius. As a critic he was remarkable mainly for his violent abusiveness, and his Literati of New York City, though spicy reading, gives no evidence of high critical power. Two or three of his poems, The Raven, The Bells, Annabel Lee, and perhaps some others, will always be read and admired. The story of his short life conveys a solemn warning, and suggests the thought that the most brilliant intellectual gifts are a curse rather than a blessing, if unaccompanied by a vigorous directing and controlling moral sense. It confirms, too, the notion that marked precocity is unfavorable to, if not absolutely incompatible with, healthy and fruitful intellectual development. In the most prosperous natures, the moral growth precedes the mental, - is its guide and support. Yet Poe is to be pitied rather than condemned his faults grew out of his misfortunes. ANNABEL LEE. It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden lived, whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea; But we loved with a love that was more than love, I and my Annabel Lee, With a love that the wingéd seraphs of heaven And this was the reason that long ago, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling The angels, not so happy in heaven, Went envying her and me. Yes! that was the reason (as all men know) In this kingdom by the sea, That the wind came out of the cloud by night, But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of many far wiser than we; And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee, And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. And so, all the night-tide I lie down by the side Of my darling, my darling, my life, and my bride, In her tomb by the sounding sea. FROM THE RAVEN. ONCE upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, 66 "'T is some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door; Only this, and nothing more." Open then I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he; not an instant stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door, Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, “art sure no craven; Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven, wandering from the nightly shore, Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's Plutonian shore ?" Quoth the raven, "Nevermore!" What a world of merriment their melody foretells! Keeping time, time, time, To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells Bells, bells, bells, From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells. What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! What a liquid ditty floats To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats O, from out the sounding cells, How it dwells On the Future! how it tells To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells. III. Hear the loud alarum bells, Brazen bells! What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! How they scream out their affright! They can only shriek, shriek, Out of tune, In the clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire |