FLOWERS AND FOLKS. ok 
upon the quality, of the service they render 
us. We could get along without poets more 
comfortably than without cobblers, for the 
lower use is often first, in order both of time 
and of necessity; but we are never in doubt 
as to their relative place in ouresteem. One 
serves the body, the other the soul; and we 
reward the one with money, the other with 
affection and reverence. And our estimation 
of plants is according to the same rule. 
Such of them as nourish the body are good, 
— good even to the point of being indispens- 
able; but as we make a difference between 
the barnyard fowl and the nightingale, and 
between the common run of humanity and a 
Beethoven or a Milton, so maize and potatoes 
are never put into the same category with 
lilies and violets. It must be so, because 
man is more than an animal, and “‘the life 
is more than meat.” 
Again we say, let each fulfill its own 
function. One is made for utility, another 
for beauty. For plants, too, are specialists. 
They know as well as men how to make the 
most of inherited capacities and aptitudes, 
achieving distinction at last by the simple 
process of sticking to one thing, whether 
