stimulus to his exertions, but a deadening anxiety.
Henceforth all his thoughts ran only upon the injury which
his neighbour would cause him, and thus his favourite
occupation was changed into a constant source of misery to him.

Van Baerle, as may easily be imagined, had no sooner begun
to apply his natural ingenuity to his new fancy, than he
succeeded in growing the finest tulips. Indeed; he knew
better than any one else at Haarlem or Leyden -- the two
towns which boast the best soil and the most congenial
climate -- how to vary the colours, to modify the shape, and
to produce new species.

He belonged to that natural, humorous school who took for
their motto in the seventeenth century the aphorism uttered
by one of their number in 1653, -- "To despise flowers is to
offend God."

From that premise the school of tulip-fanciers, the most
exclusive of all schools, worked out the following syllogism
in the same year: --

"To despise flowers is to offend God.

"The more beautiful the flower is, the more does one offend
God in despising it.

"The tulip is the most beautiful of all flowers.

"Therefore, he who despises the tulip offends God beyond