178 WILD FLOWERS. 



should he not have flowers at all his meals, 

 seeing that they were growing all day ? Now 

 here is a fashion that shall last you for ever, if 

 you please ; never changing with silks, and 

 velvets, nor dependent upon the caprice of some 

 fine gentleman or lady. The fashion of the 

 garments of heaven and earth endures for- 

 ever, and you may adorn your table with spe- 

 cimens of their drapery, with flowers out of the 

 fields, and golden beams out of the blue ether." 

 Shall we not away, then, reader, to gather 

 the wild beauties, of nature, which are so 

 lavishly scattered abroad for us, and adorn our 

 homes with that drapery of the earth and the 

 heavens ? 



For as Miss PARDOE exclaims : " Is not the 

 holiness of nature a loftier contemplation than 

 the gilded saloons of the g-reat ? The power 

 to feel and to appropriate the noble gifts of the 

 Creator, eminently more glorious, than the 

 talent to discover the finite perfections of the 

 creature ? Is not the breeze which sweeps 

 over the heathy hill, or through the blossom- 



