The Hylas Voice is Heard 33 



weeks since the first flight of wild geese to the 

 north ; a great detachment swung over Mount 

 Tom last Monday. 



As for flowers, hepaticas have bloomed in the 

 city limits, and two weeks ago dandelions were 

 caught sight of. To be honest, there were adven 

 titious circumstances that helped them ; and so, 

 nevertheless, the only reliable blossom of the 

 season is that of the skunk cabbage, one of the 

 richest and most splendid of plants, notwithstand 

 ing its name, and for all that it is modest, and 

 does not force itself upon the attention. It is one 

 of those exceptional plants which spends all its 

 substance of obvious beauty on the hood which 

 hides the blossoms ; the beauty of the flowers 

 themselves is reserved for the microscope to dis 

 cover. Let no one despise a type like this ; there 

 is a certain nobility in this efFacement. There are 

 human analogues, if we would care to follow out 

 the resemblance. 



And it must be said that the infinite charm of 

 the day was that of perpetual promise. So goes 

 on the life of earth, only interfered with by man, 

 who does his worst to ruin and obliterate this con 

 stant impulse of life. He, the height of evolution, 

 lingers yet in shallow sense of the place he holds, 

 and of his duty as conservator of all that earth 

 holds. In the scripture parable men are judged 

 c 



