THE WHORTLEBERRY PASTURE. 215 



hold a field covered with spontaneous vegetation, or a 

 simple rustic farm. From the opening of spring until the 

 fall of the leaf, the whortleberry pasture is a garden full 

 of the fairest flowers and the most healthful fruits. And 

 if Great Britain's isle had been covered with whortle- 

 berries, like our New England hills, these fruits would 

 have been celebrated in English poetry, like the fruit of 

 the vine and the olive in the poetry of Greece and Eome. 



WHORTLEBERRIES AND HUCKLEBERRIES. 



We may vulgarize a word by associating it with the 

 market. The wild pastures abound in summer with well- 

 known fruits, some of jet and some of azure. We go out 

 with a few friends and gather them with flowers, for pres- 

 ent amusement. These fruits are Whortleberries. This 

 is their poetical and their botanical name, the one that is 

 associated with all the beautiful things that cluster in 

 the same field. These fruits are also gathered for the 

 market, and exposed for sale with cucumbers, new pota- 

 toes, and squashes. They are now Huckleberries. Shelley 

 has defined poetry to be the art " that lifts the veil from 

 the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects 

 be as if they were not familiar." This is done partly by 

 a choice selection of words; and whenever a common 

 thing is known by two names equally euphonious, we 

 should always select that which is not in commercial 

 use. We should say Whortleberries if we are writing an 

 essay or a poem about them, and Huckleberries if we are 

 going to 'buy a few of them in the market. The usages 

 of the market in other matters ought to be excluded 

 from literature. In commerce, for example, fishes are 

 fish ; in natural history fish are fishes. 



