The decision to include wild cereals in the collection may have been initially a random act of gathering, but once that decision had been made it triggered a runaway system of positive feedback in which the entire culture was transformed.

Seeing a steam engine in action is increasingly rare.

How often am I obliged to speak mal à propos, because my features are not sufficiently charming in a state of repose!—how often is my ingenuity racked to find a word, when a look would have been far better! I am compelled to be amusing, in my own despite.

Here the blue fig with luſcious juice o'erflows, / With deeper red the full pomegranate glows, / The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear, / And verdant olives flouriſh round the year.