Among the gentle forms of intellectual excitement I know not one to compare with the joy of restoring a neglected orchid to health.  One may buy such for coppers—­rare species, too—­of a size and a “potentiality” of display which the dealers would estimate at as many pounds were they in good condition on their shelves.  I am avoiding names and details, but it will be allowed me to say, in brief, that I myself have bought more than twenty pots for five shillings at the auction-rooms, not twice nor thrice either.  One half of them were sick beyond recovery, some few had been injured by accident, but by far the greater part were victims of ignorance and ill-treatment which might still be redressed.  Orchids tell their own tale, whether of happiness or misery, in characters beyond dispute.  Mr. O’Brien alleged, indeed, before the grave and experienced signors gathered in conference, that “like the domestic animals, they soon find out when they are in hands that love them.  With such a guardian they seem to be happy, and to thrive, and to establish an understanding, indicating to him their wants in many important matters as plainly as though they could speak.”  And the laugh that followed this statement was not derisive.  He who glances at the endless tricks, methods, and contrivances devised by one or other species to serve its turn may well come to fancy that orchids are reasoning things.

At least, many keep the record of their history in form unmistakable.  Here is a Cattleya which I purchased last autumn, suspecting it to be rare and valuable, though nameless; I paid rather less than one shilling.  The poor thing tells me that some cruel person bought it five years ago—­an imported piece, with two pseudo-bulbs.  They still remain, towering like columns of old-world glory above an area of shapeless ruin.  To speak in mere prose—­though really the conceit is not extravagant—­these fine bulbs, grown in their native land, of course, measure eight inches high by three-quarters of an inch diameter.  In the first season, that malheureux reduced their progeny to a stature of three and a half inches by the foot-rule; next season, to two inches; the third, to an inch and a half.  By this time the patient creature had convinced itself that there was something radically wrong in the circumstances attending its normal head, and tried a fresh departure from the stock—­a “back growth,” as we call it, after the fashion I have described.  In the third year then, there were two heads.  In the fourth year, the chief of them had dwindled to less than one inch and the thickness of a straw, while the second struggled into growth with pain and difficulty, reached the size of a grain of wheat, and gave it up.  Needless to say that the wicked and unfortunate proprietor had not seen trace of a bloom.  Then at length, after five years’ torment, he set it free, and I took charge of the wretched sufferer.  Forthwith he began to show his gratitude, and at this moment—­the summer but half through—­his leading head has regained all the strength lost in three years, while the back growth, which seemed dead, outtops the best bulb my predecessor could produce.