among the scalloped leaves. The children of this world may wrangle
and give one another wounds that even my good ale cannot cure.
Nevertheless, the earth as God created it is a fair dwelling and
full of comfort for all who have a quiet mind and a thankful heart.
Doubtless God might have made a better world, but doubtless this is
the world He made for us; and in it He planted the strawberry."

Fine old doctor! Brave philosopher of cheerfulness! The Virginian
berry should have been brought to England sooner, or you should have
lived longer, at least to a hundred years, so that you might have
welcomed a score of strawberry-seasons with gratitude and an
epigram.

Since that time a great change has passed over the fruit which
Doctor Butler praised so well. That product of creative art which
Divine wisdom did not choose to surpass, human industry has laboured
to improve. It has grown immensely in size and substance. The
traveller from America who steams into Queenstown harbour in early
summer is presented (for a consideration) with a cabbage-leaf full
of pale-hued berries, sweet and juicy, any one of which would
outbulk a dozen of those that used to grow in Virginia when
Pocahontas was smitten with the charms of Captain John Smith. They
are superb, those light-tinted Irish strawberries. And there are
wonderful new varieties developed in the gardens of New Jersey and
Rhode Island, which compare with the ancient berries of the woods
and meadows as Leviathan with a minnow. The huge crimson cushions
hang among the plants so thick that they seem like bunches of fruit
with a few leaves attached for ornament. You can satisfy your
hunger in such a berry-patch in ten minutes, while out in the field
you must pick for half an hour, and in the forest thrice as long,