OUR PASTORAL LIFE. 231 



very well that it was dearer to him than all the most gorgeous flowers 

 of the East, — the origin and life of many happy recreations of his 

 father-land, — of many revivals of his early companions, — and of 

 " thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 



Dr. Arnold affords another example of the strong sway that 

 flowers exercise over a very masculine and practical mind. He was 

 Head-Master of Rugby School, and Pi'ofessor of Modern History in 

 the University of Oxford, — a distinguished historian and divine, — 

 and a good man. And he had a heart. On leaving his University 

 he was successively settled at Laleham as its parish priest, — at Rugby 

 as the master of a great seminary of learning, — and at Fox-How in 

 Westmoreland as the head and friend of his family. To each of these 

 places he carried with him, as if they had been his portion of the 

 household gods, shoots of "the great Willow tree in his father's 

 grounds at Slattwoods" in the Isle of Wight. In his hours of 

 relaxation, during the busiest period of his life, he made his walks 

 full of enjoyment by " observing, with distinct pleasure, each symptom 

 of the burst of spring or of the richness of summer ;" and he called 

 his children to participate with him the interest of his observations. 

 " There was the cheerful voice that used to go sounding through the 

 house in the early morning, as he went round to call his children ; 

 the new spirits which he seemed to gather from the mere glimpses of 

 them in the midst of his occupations — the increased merriment of all 

 in any game in which he joined — the happy walks on which he would 

 take them in the fields and hedges, hunting for flowers — the yearly 

 excursion to look in a neighbouring clay-pit for the earliest Coltsfoot, 

 with the mock siege that followed." — So also during his vacations at 

 Fox-How the wild flowers on the mountain sides were to him. 

 Dr. Arnold himself said, " his music ;" and he loved them, he used 

 to say, " as a child loves them ;" nor could he bear to see them 

 plucked from their natural places by the wayside, for there " others 

 might enjoy them as well as himself." But he did not hesitate to 

 gather the flowerets which grew on the mountains by the running 

 streams, to take them home to those who were not of the party, and 

 who taught themselves to read their beauty — and the sense of it — 

 in their father's admiration*. 



Such is the active and cheering operation of our wild flowers on 

 men of high intellect and virtue in the very meridian of their days ; 

 and now let me show you how these mute creations operate on little 

 less gifted minds when this body is about to lay aside its earthly 

 coils for ever. They work then dififerently in accordance with the 

 original differences in the temperament of the individual, yet ever 

 beneficently ; and so intuitive is this truth that it prompts the sisters 

 of charity — and where woman is found there are sisters there — duly 

 to furnish the sick chamber with sweet flowers, and with them to 

 strew the bed wherefrom the invalid shall never rise. It was in 

 spring that the late Mr. Surtees of Mainsforth, the author of the 

 History of the comity of Durham, and one of the Worthies of that 



* Life and Correspondence by Stanley, pp. 4, 179 & 185. 6th edit. 



