220 FLOWERS AND FOLKS. 
how the matter stands. The autumnal 
blooms are not belated, but precocious; they 
belong not to the season past, but to the 
season coming. Who shall forbid us to 
hope that what is true of the violet will 
prove true also of the man? 
It speaks well for human nature that in 
the long run the lowliest flowers are not 
only the best loved, but the oftenest spoken 
of. Men play the cynic: modest merit goes 
to the wall, they say; whoever would suc- 
ceed, let him put on a brazen face and 
sharpen his elbows. But those who tall in 
this strain deceive neither themselves nor 
those who listen to them. They are com- 
monly’ such as have themselves tried the 
trumpet and elbow method, and have dis- 
covered that, whatever may be true of tran- 
sient notoriety, neither public fame nor pri- 
vate regard isto be won by suchmeans. We 
do not retract what we have said in praise of 
diversity, and about the right of each to live 
according to its own nature, but we gladly 
perceive that in the case of the flowers also 
it is the meek that inherit the earth. 
Our appreciation of our fellow-men de- 
pends in part upon the amount, but still more 
