NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 



color; it would be red where all the centuries 

 it has been golden; a strange little wild beauty 

 would change from the royal purple of a king 

 to the color of the snows upon the mountains ; 

 — and they are transformed as by a miracle. 

 A host presses forward from all the ends of 

 the earth ; — they are wild, would that they 

 might become tame! And lo! they are 

 changed; they join the fair company of the 

 gardens of the world whose part it is to 

 furnish adornment to those still more fair or 

 to carry their fragrance to the beds of those 

 who lie in pain. 



And so it goes among many hundreds of 

 them, each needing something, — beauty, or 

 strength, or hardiness, or length of days, — and 

 the prayer of all is granted. 



Ah! but there still remains one unsatisfied: 

 its longing is the most intense of all. It has 

 all that the others have longed for, but it has 

 one sad impairment. It has been doomed 

 through the centuries to bear a most wretched 

 odor, an offense to its fellows, to the world; — 

 if it only could be given some sweet scent like 

 its dear neighbors! 



This is the hardest request of all. The 



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