These are the grounds on which I rely when I assert with a good deal of boldness that when we inhale the perfume of the full-blown blossoms of joy with too deep and strong an inhalation, without having first given them a good shake, we run the risk of snuffing up some tormenting insect (before we know what we are about) through the ethmoid into the brain;[34] and _who_--tell me if you can--is to get it out again? Whereas little or nothing of a risky sort can be snuffed up out of _Flower-pieces_, and their painted calices, since painted worms remain where they are. This, then, is what _I_ have to postulate by means of similes. What the _public_ postulates, or demands, is my opinion of these Flower-pieces. The author is a promising youth of five years of age;[35] he and I have been friends since childhood, and, I think, can assert that we have but one soul between us, as Aristotle says should be the case with friends. He gets me to read over everything he thinks of publishing, and to give him my opinion and advice. And, as I returned these Flower-pieces to him with the warmest (and, at the same time, sincerest) expression of my approval, he has requested me to make my verdict somewhat more widely known, believing as he does (rather too flatteringly perhaps) that it may carry a certain amount of weight with it, more especially as it is an impartial verdict, and, as such, one which can be placed in the hands of the critics as a species of ruler wherewith to draw the lines upon which _their_ verdicts may be written.