The Rescue of an Old Place 



rivals for the .' ighest place of all. Is it 

 the thorns that make the Rose the royal 

 flower, by rendering her difficult of ac- 

 cess, and surrounding her with a body- 

 guard of lances ? Who shall say ? There 

 are moods in which her sumptuous beauty 

 and heavy fragrance seem less regal than 

 the haughty, willowy grace of her rival 

 flower, and we hesitate to choose. 



And not the flowers alone rejoice in the 

 life-giving drops, but the " sweet smale 

 grass," refreshed and strengthened, lifts 

 its green blades like the spear-heads of a 

 rising army. The dusty mantle that has 

 veiled its gentle beauty falls from it, and 

 the wonderful variation of its tints again 

 delights the eye. Those artists who set 

 our teeth on edge with verdigris and 

 arsenic floods, to represent this dearest 

 and homeliest garment of our mother 

 earth, seem to me never to have entered 

 into and possessed its secret, the secret 

 of myriad shadows, of myriad lights, each 

 catching a reflection from its neighbor 

 blade, the brown earth below, the azure 

 sky above. No greenest green of foliage 

 or meadow ever shocks the most sensitive 



