2. In the first place, 227 withered leaves of various kinds, mostly of
English plants, were pulled out of worm burrows in several places. Of
these, 181 had been drawn into the burrows by or near their tips, so that
the footstalk projected nearly upright from the mouth of the burrow; 20
had been drawn in by their bases, and in this case the tips projected from
the burrows; and 26 had been seized near the middle, so that these had
been drawn in transversely and were much crumpled. Therefore 80 per cent
(always using the nearest whole number) had been drawn in by the tip, 9
per cent by the base or footstalk, and 11 per cent transversely or by the
middle. This alone is almost sufficient to show that _chance does not
determine the manner in which leaves are dragged into the burrows_.
--Darwin: _Vegetable Mold and Earthworms_.
3. _The catastrophe of every play is caused always by the folly or fault
of a man; the redemption, if there be any, is by the wisdom and virtue of
a woman, and, failing that, there is none_. The catastrophe of King
Lear is owing to his own want of judgment, his impatient vanity, his
misunderstanding of his children; the virtue of his one true daughter
would have saved him from all the injuries of the others, unless he had
cast her away from him; as it is, she all but saves him. Of Othello, I
need not trace the tale; nor the one weakness of his so mighty love; nor
the inferiority of his perceptive intellect to that even of the second
woman character in the play, the Emilia who dies in wild testimony against
his error:--
"Oh, murderous coxcomb! what should such a fool
Do with so good a wife?"
In _Romeo and Juliet_, the wise and brave stratagem of the wife is brought
to ruinous issue by the reckless impatience of her husband.
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