210 FLOWERS AND FOLKS. 
manners. As every one sees, people in high 
station, especially if they chance to possess 
attractive social qualities, are of necessity 
compelled to discountenance everything like 
careless familiarity, even from those with 
whom they may formerly have been most 
intimate. They must always stand more or 
less upon ceremony, and never be handled 
without gloves. So it is with the queen of 
flowers. Its thorns not only serve it as 
a protection, but are for its admirers an 
excellent discipline in forbearance. They 
make it easier for us, as Emerson says, to 
“love the wood rose and leave it on the 
stalk.”” In addition to which [am moved 
to say that the rose, like the holly, illustrates 
a truth too seldom insisted upon; namely, 
that people are more justly condemned for 
the absence of all good qualities than for 
the presence of one or two bad ones. 
Some such plea as this, though with a 
smaller measure of assurance, I should make 
in behalf of plants like the barberry and 
the bramble. The latter, in truth, some- 
times acts as if it were not so much fighting 
us off as drawing us on. Leaning far for- 
ward and stretching forth its arms, it but- 
