The Corpse or Ghost Plant

1895

A writer in the Boston Post, commenting on the curious floral (?) emblem which decorates the volumes of Emily Dickinson's poems, speaks of it as a botanical curiosity "which few find more than once in their lifetime." The facts in the case are these: It is not a flower at all, but a species of fungi, and if one "finds a specimen of it but once or twice in a lifetime" it is because he spends his life on paved streets, in office rooms or confines his rambles to a "two by twice" city lot. It is, as the Post writer rightly says, known as the "corpse" or "ghost" plant, and it grows only in the darkest and dampest nooks of the dense forests. The early settlers of Missouri and other portions of the west will remember it as the Indian pipe. It has a single, bell shaped imitation flower on the end of a perfectly colorless stem. — St. Louis Republic.

Note: That "(?)" is original to the article.


His Gain

"Mr. Smarte," said the head of the firm, "I happened to overhear your criticisms this morning of the manner in which business is carried on here. You appear to be laboring under a mistaken idea. As a matter of fact, we are not running this house to make money. Not at all. We carry on this business simply as a school for the instruction of young men. But as you seem to know so much more about business than we do it would be only wasting your time to keep you here. The cashier will settle with you. What is our loss is your gain." — Boston Transcript.


A Tip to the Boys

"One of the sure indications that a man wants to marry you," said a young woman the other night, "is the fact of his coming to see you steadily and sending both flowers and theater tickets rarely. I have discovered that the beau who floods you constantly with these favors can never be taken seriously. That is a rather sad paradox too. — Atlanta Journal.