Letters to a Friend 



much easier for us to employ our faculties upon 

 these beautiful tangible forms than to exercise 

 a simple, humble living faith such as you so well 

 describe as enabling us to reach out joyfully 

 into the future to expect what is promised as 

 a thing of to-morrow. 



I wish, Mrs. Carr, that I could see your 

 mosses and ferns and lichens. I am sure that 

 you must be happier than anybody else. You 

 have so much less of winter than others; your 

 parlor garden is verdant and in bloom all the 

 year. 



I took your hint and procured ten or twelve 

 species of moss all in fruit, also a club-moss, a 

 fern, and some liverworts and lichens. I have 

 also a box of thyme. I would go a long way to 

 see your herbarium, more especially your ferns 

 and mosses. These two are by far the most 

 interesting of all the natural orders to me. The 

 shaded hills and glens of Canada are richly or 

 namented with these lovely plants. Aspidium 

 spinulosum is common everywhere, so also is 

 A. marginal*. A. aculeatum, A. Lonchitis, and 



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