I never had a more lovely twig of orange-blossoms, with four old last year's leaves with their steady green well-placed among them, than to-day, and with a rose-twig of three roses [it] made a very striking nosegay to an Englishman, The Orange Twig was so very full of blossoms that one-fourth of the number becoming fruit of the natural size would have broken the twig off. Is there, then, disproportion here? or waste? O no! no! In the first place, here is a prodigality of beauty; and what harm do they do by existing? And is not man a being capable of Beauty even as of Hunger and Thirst? And if the latter be fit objects of a final cause, why not the former? But secondly [Nature] hereby multiplies manifold the chances of a proper number becoming fruit--in this twig, for instance, for one set of accidents that would have been fatal to the year's growth if only as many blossoms had been on it as it was designed to bear fruit, there may now be three sets of accidents--and no harm done. And, thirdly and lastly, for _me_ at _least_--or, at least, at present, for in nature doubtless there are many additional reasons, and possibly for _me_ at some future hour of reflection, after some new influx of information from books or observance-and, thirdly, these blossoms are Fruit, fruit to the winged insect, fruit to man--yea! and of more solid value, perhaps, than the orange itself! O how the Bees be-throng and be-murmur it! O how the honey tells the tale of its birthplace to the sense of sight and odour! and to how many minute and uneyeable insects beside! So, I cannot but think, ought I to be talking to Hartley, and sometimes to detail all the insects that have arts or implements resembling human--the sea-snails, with the nautilus at their head; the wheel-insect, the galvanic eel, etc. [This note was printed in the _Illustrated London News_, June 10, 1893.] [Sidenote: ANTICIPATIONS IN NATURE AND IN THOUGHT Saturday night, April 14, 1805]