21 8 LEAVES FKOM THE BOOK OF 



their crimson lips, sparkling with nectar that fell from 

 heaven, who does not bless his Maker ? and when autumn 

 comes, the season of the sere and yellow leaf, when wheat 

 is in its golden prime, and the corn waves its silken tassels 

 in the charmed air, who is not reminded of the reaper 

 death?" 



As every season has its own tone and lesson, so every 

 flora and every variety has its peculiar echo in the heart 

 of man. Harmonizing, like music, with all the various 

 trains of thought and images of fancy, with every con- 

 ceivable state of mind, plants and groups of plants ever 

 awaken kindred feelings. There is a mysterious affinity 

 between human consciousness and outward nature, but still 

 more mysterious is the varied manner in which this re- 

 lation is modified by individual feeling. The waving corn- 

 field has its beauties, and so have long avenues of poplars, 

 with vines hanging in rich festoons from tree to tree. 

 Plains covered with orange groves and chequered with 

 fertile slopes and vineyards, dense forests of gigantic and 

 primeval growth swarming with every variety of animal 

 and vegetable life, these and countless other scenes find 

 each its response in some train of human emotions and 

 affections, which, like the lyre of Timotheus, they by turns 

 excite and soothe. Each tree that we know has its own 

 expression ; it has witnessed our joy or our grief, and 

 wherever it meets our eye, it seems to murmur responses. 

 So it is with larger groups. Here we see vast prairies 

 with gently waving floods of verdure, full of grace and 

 cheerfulness, there long sombre porticoes of gnarled old 

 stems, standing, as the cedars of Lebanon, massive pillars, 



