Here are fourteen green-houses: in one you find all the palms; in another, the productions of the regions of snow; in another, those squibs and humorsome utterances of Nature, the cactuses,--ay! there I saw the great-grandfather of all the cactuses, a hoary, solemn plant, declared to be a thousand years old, disdaining to say if it is not really much, older; in yet another, the most exquisitely minute plants, delicate as the tracery of frostwork, too delicate for the bowers of fairies, such at least as visit the gross brains of earthly poets.
The Reform Club was the only one of those splendid establishments that I visited.

Certainly the force of comfort can no farther go, nor can anything be better contrived to make dressing, eating, news-getting, and even sleeping (for there are bedrooms as well as dressing-rooms for those who will), as comfortable as can be imagined.

Yet to me this palace of so many "single gentlemen rolled into one" seemed _stupidly_ comfortable, in the absence of that elegant arrangement and vivacious atmosphere which only women can inspire.

In the kitchen, indeed, I met them, and on that account it seemed the pleasantest part of the building,--though even there they are but the servants of servants.
There reigned supreme a genius in his way, who has published a work on Cookery, and around him his pupils,--young men who pay a handsome yearly fee for novitiate under his instruction.

I was not sorry, however, to see men predominant in the cooking department, as I hope to see that and washing transferred to their care in the progress of things, since they are "the stronger sex." The arrangements of this kitchen were very fine, combining great convenience with neatness, and even elegance.