7 8 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



How sadly should we miss the trees aryi vines about our homes, not 

 more on account of their kindly shade and shelter, not more on account 

 of their beauty in the adornment of the landscape, than for the nearness 

 and dearness of our associations with them. When after the lapse of 

 years the wanderer returns to his ancestral home, what objects so stir the 

 emotions in swelling breast as the old oak whose spreading limbs his 

 youthful swing upheld ; the well remembered elm in whose swaying 

 branches his wayward kite was lost ; 



" The lime at dreary eve 

 DiflFusing odors ; " 



the rounded maple shading the rustic seat, where upon a moonlit evening, 

 never to be forgotten, the warm welling of a heart was first allowed to 

 shape itself in words? While planting and caring for trees about a vine- 

 embowered cottage we may sing with Burns : 



" To make a happy fireside clime 

 For weans and wife, 

 That's the true pathos, and sublime, 

 Of human life." 



Let memory call up something from the past or imagination picture 

 for us a sweet and happy home free from the sordid strivings of the world, 

 where love brightens the heartii and lightens the toil, where contentment 

 dwells and fond endearment strengthens the golden cords of rich affec- 

 tion, and we shall have, with scarcely the possibility of an exception, the 

 fair picture of a modest mansion, away from the din and clatter of the 

 thronged thoroughfare, seated in green grass, bearing festoons of leaves 

 and flowers and surrounded with friendly, peace-suggestive trees. One, 

 gazing upon such a scene, not upon canvas but in living reality, 



♦' Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn," 



breathes in something more than pure air and physical refreshment. 

 He enjoys something more than the beauty which comes of color and 

 outline, something more than the fragrance that floats upon the flowers, 

 and something besides the melody that issues from the tremulous throats 

 of birds. He forgets the measure of money, but is led to appreciate the 

 priceless wealth and worth of domestic happiness and the inspirations 

 derived from the good, the true and the beautiful. There may be want- 

 ing those heavenly flowers 



" That never will in any other climate grow ; " 



but an earthly home like this, crowned with love, is the fairest type 

 known to man of that Eden of the blessed, that paradise of the primal 

 pair. If in these later gardens there is no tree of life, there is like- 

 wise no beguiling serpent. Their influe'nce is wholly good, pure and 

 vitalizing 



" As the gentle rain from heaven 



Upon the place beneath." 



