136 FLOWERS AS EMBLEMS. 



believe that there was some imperfection in the order of 

 nature ? 



What fanciful image of happiness is not associated 

 with flowers, the delight of infant ramblers in the sun- 

 shine of May ; the reward of their searchings in the mead- 

 ows among brambles and ferns ; infantile honors and dec- 

 orations for the brows of childhood; the types of their 

 budding affections and the materials for their cheerful 

 devices ; the ornaments of young May-queens and the joy 

 of their attendants ; the fair objects of their quest in 

 the sunny borders of fragrant woods ; the pride of their 

 simple ambition when woven into garlands of love ! 

 How blank would the earth be to childhood without 

 flowers ! How destitute the fields of beauty and nature 

 of poetry ! 



But Nature, who set light in heaven to beam with 

 every imaginable hue, has not made us sensitive to beauty 

 without bestowing upon the earth those forms which, 

 like the letters of a book, convey to the mind an infinity 

 of delightful thoughts and conceptions. Hence flowers 

 are made to spring up in wood and dell, by solitary 

 streams, in moss-grown recesses, near every path that 

 glides through the meadow, and in every green lane that 

 wanders through the forest; and Nature has given them 

 an endless variety of forms, colors, and deportment, that 

 by their different expressions they may awaken every 

 agreeable passion of the soul. There is no place where 

 their light is not to be seen. The inhabitant of the South 

 beholds them in trees looking down upon him like the 

 birds ; the man of the North sees them embossed in ver- 

 dure, under the protection of trees and rocks. Insects 

 sip from their honey-cups the nectar of their subsistence, 

 during a life as ephemeral as that of the blossom they 

 plunder ; and the summer gales rejoice in their sweets, 

 with which they have laden their wings. Morning greets 



