THE RANUNCULUS. 221 



I recollect that our connoisseurs were learnedly 

 expatiating on the rarity and consequent value, of 

 certain magnificent tulips ; while amateurs, were 

 bending with delight over the hyacinth bed, inhail- 

 ing its delicious fragrance, and reposing the eye on 

 those exquisite hues, which, in the species of flower, 

 never lack a refreshing coolness. I was strongly 

 tempted to enroll myself among the hyacinth 

 devotees : but there was something in the neigh- 

 bouring family of the Ranunculus' that struck my 

 childish fancy above all the rest. There appeared 

 a toy-like prettiness in the many-coloured balls, 

 that was not to be rivalled by any other ; and when 

 a light breeze suddenly swept over the garden, too 

 faint to disturb the more substantiate stems of their 

 neighbours, my Ranunculus' were all in motion, 

 nodding their innocent heads, as would seem, at 

 me and at each other, with such lively, infantine 

 restlessness, that it was rivetted to the spot, indif- 

 ferent to any other attraction, while the party con- 

 tinued in the garden. 



This was a point in my opening character that 

 I cannot trace to any origin ; but it cleaves to me 

 yet, and always will do so — a strange faculty of 

 forming, as it were, acquaintance with inanimate 

 objects, until a sympathetic feeling seemed to exist 

 between us, and I found a more interesting com- 

 panionship in a tree, a flower, or a rivulet, than 

 among the greater number of my own species. I 



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