FIELD AND STUDY 



rimmed honey-wells, its five-pointed collar, its clus- 

 ter of golden anthers, and its delicate foliage and 

 purple stems. It bejewels the rocks; it loves the 

 rocl^ as the jewel- weed loves water. Our rock coryd- 

 aJis also loves the rocks, but it is a far less highly 

 developed flower and has none of the columbine's 

 art; and the same is true of saxifrage and rock cress 



— all children of the rocks, but not "wildly wise " 

 and wildly beautiful like the columbine. Aquilegiay 



— eaglelike, — but its talons are tipped with honey, 

 and its crimson is the glow of the cheek of May. It 

 holds aloft its nectarines like tiny bottles open at 

 the bottom into which the rains cannot enter. Re- 

 verse its pendulous character and its grace is gone. 



Ah ! the world-old rocks with these living jewels in 

 their ears — how young they look! 



§ 



Emerson in his "Journals '* has a phrase about the 

 "shortcomings of the universe." The excesses of the 

 universe are much more obvious: Nature's over- 

 flowing measures, her unloosened forces — the tor- 

 nado, the avalanche, the earthquake — destroying 

 with one hand what she builded with the other, the 

 devastation of flood and fire; in human history, 

 wars, pestilence, and famine; and, in the history of 

 the lower forms of life, the failure of natural checks 

 and balances — locusts, tent-caterpillars, gypsy- 

 moths, lemmings, and the like. But the shortcomings 

 of Nature are not so easily pointed out. Of course, 



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