And it is among the most notable indications of the volition of the animating power that we find the ethical signs of good and evil set on these also, as well as upon animals; the venom of the serpent, and in some respects its image also, being associated even with the passionless growth of the leaf out of the ground; while the distinctions of species seem appointed with more definite ethical address to the intelligence of man as their material products become more useful to him. I can easily show this and, at the same time, make clear the relation to other plants of the flowers which especially belong to Athena, by examining the natural myths in the groups of the plants which would be used at any country dinner over which Athena would, in her simplest household authority, cheerfully rule, here, in England. Suppose Horace’s favorite dish of beans with the bacon; potatoes; some savory stuffing of onions and herbs with the meat; celery, and a radish or two, with the cheese; nuts and apples for dessert, and brown bread. The beans are, from earliest time, the most important and interesting of the seeds of the great tribe of plants from which came the Latin and French name for all kitchen vegetables--things that are gathered with the hand--podded seeds that can not be reaped, or beaten, or shaken down, but must be gathered green. “Leguminous” plants, all of them having flowers like butterflies, seeds in (frequently pendent) pods--“lætum silique quassante legumen”--smooth and tender leaves, divided into many minor ones--strange adjuncts of tendril, for climbing (and sometimes of thorn)--exquisitely sweet, yet pure, scents of blossom, and almost always harmless, if not serviceable seeds. It is of all tribes of plants the most definite; its blossoms being entirely limited in their parts, and not passing into other forms. It is also the most usefully extended in range and scale; familiar in the height of the forest--acacia, laburnum, Judas-tree; familiar in the sown field--bean and vetch and pea; familiar in the pasture--in every form of clustered clover and sweet trefoil tracery; the most entirely serviceable and human of all orders of plants.