London to John C? Groat's. 137 



to see a Flower Show in the Town Hall. The varieties 

 and specimens made a beautiful, but not very extensive 

 array. There was one flower that not only attracted 

 especial admiration, but invited a pleasant train of 

 thoughts to my own mind. It was one of those old 

 favorites to which the common people of all countries, 

 who speak our mother tongue, love to give an inalien- 

 able English name The Hollyhock. It is one of the 

 flowers of the people, which the pedantic Latinists have 

 left untouched in homely Saxon, because the people 

 would have none of their long-winded and heartless 

 appellations. After .having dwelt briefly upon the 

 honor that Divine Providence confers upon human 

 genius and labor, in letting them impress their finger- 

 marks so distinctly upon the features and functions of 

 the earth, and upon the forms of animal life, it may 

 be a profitable recurrence to the same line of thought 

 to notice what that same genius and labor have wrought 

 upon the structure and face of this familiar flower. 

 What was it at first? What is it now in the rural 

 gardens of New England ? A shallow, bell-mouthed 

 cup, in most cases purely white, and hung to a tall, 

 coarse stalk, like the yellow jets of a mullein. That 

 is its natural and distinctive characteristic in all coun- 

 tries ; at least where it is best known and most common. 

 What is it here, bearing the finger-prints of man's 



