252 THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE CHAP, 
“When I would beget content,” says Izaak 
Walton, “and increase confidence in the 
power and wisdom and providence of AlI- 
mighty God, I will walk the meadows by 
some gliding stream, and there contemplate 
the lilies that take no care, and those very — 
many other little living creatures that are 
not only created, but fed (man knows not 
how) by the goodness of the God of Nature, 
and therefore trust in Him;” and in his 
quaint old language he craves a special bless- 
ing on all those “that are true lovers of 
virtue, and dare trust in His Providence, and 
be quiet, and go a angling.” 
At the water’s edge flowers are especially 
varied and luxuriant, so that the banks of a 
river are a long natural garden of tall and 
graceful grasses and sedges, the Meadow 
Sweet, the Flowering Rush, the sweet Flag, 
the Bull Rush, Purple Loosestrife, Hemp 
Agrimony, Dewberry, Forget-me-not, and a 
hundred more, backed by Willows, Alders, 
Poplars, and other trees. 
The Animal world, if less conspicuous to 
the eye, is quite as fascinating to the imagina- 
