6 INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 



manner of grotesque sketches along its bark? 

 Now, truly, one may not learn from this little 

 book either divinity or horticulture ; but if he 

 gets a pure happiness, and a tendency to repeat 

 the happiness from the simple stores of Nature, 

 he will gain from our friend's garden what Adam 

 lost in his, and what neither philosophy nor 

 divinity has always been able to restore. 



Wherefore, thanking you for listening to a 

 former letter, which begged you to consider 

 whether these curious and ingenious papers, 

 that go winding about like a half-trodden path 

 between the garden and the field, might not be 

 given in book-form to your million readers, I 

 remain, yours to command in everything but 

 the writing of an Introduction, 



HENRY WARD BEECHER. 



