FLOWERS AND FOLKS. A 
tonholes the wayfarer, so to speak, and with 
generous country insistence forces upon him 
the delicious clusters which he, in his preoc- 
cupation, seemed in danger of passing un- 
tasted. I think I know the human counter- 
parts of both barberry and bramble, — ex- 
cellent people in their place, though not to 
be chosen for bosom friends without a care- 
ful weighing of consequences. Judging 
them not by their manners, but by their 
fruits, we must set them on the right hand. 
It would go hard with some of the most 
pious of my neighbors, I imagine, if the 
presence of a few thorns and prickles were 
reckoned inconsistent with a moderately 
good character. 
As for reprobates like the so-called “ poi- 
son ivy” and “poison dogwood,”’ they have 
perhaps borrowed a familiar human maxim, 
— “Allis fair in war.” In any case, they 
are no worse than savage heathen, who kill 
their enemies with poisoned arrows, or than 
civilized Christians, who stab the reputation 
of their friends with poisoned words. Their 
marked comeliness of habit may be taken as 
a point in their favor; or, on the contrary, 
it may be held to make their case only so 
