488 OLD HUMPHREY. 



" Sweet it is to enter the greenhouse filled with elegant 

 blossoms where the night-blowing Cereus, the Scarlet 

 Geranium, the Fuchsia, the Lobelia, the Camellia, the 

 Arum, and the China Rose are mingled with a thousand 

 other beautiful flowers. And sweeter still to walk in the 

 garden where, in their appropriate seasons, we may see 

 the lovely Rose, the gaudy Tulip, the stately Hollyhock, 

 the magnificent Tiger Lily, the gorgeous Pseony, the 

 Anemones, Dahlias, Carnations, Rockets, Stocks, and 

 Marigolds. 



"And still sweeter than all, to roam at liberty in the 

 sunlit fields and sequestered dells where the modest 

 Primrose, the golden Buttercup, the splendid Foxglove, 

 the dancing Daffodil, and the sweet-scented Violet are 

 profusely scattered. Did you ever lie at your length at 

 mid-day on the side of the broad-breasted mountain 

 decked with Heath-flower, entranced with silent ecstacy ? 

 Or sit on a shady bank gazing on the earliest Primrose of 

 the year with admiring wonder ? or bend in a retired nook 

 with intensity of interest over the blue minute flower of 

 the Forget-me-Not ? If you have not done these things 

 you know not the pleasure, the joy, the delight that may 

 be excited by a flower. 



" Were the flowers of the world to be taken away, they 

 would leave a blank in the creation. Imagination cannot 

 suggest a substitute for them. Be grateful for the gift of 

 flowers. Look at the stateliest room in the stateliest 

 mansion ; see it decorated with carvings and gilding, with 

 paintings and sculpture, with china vases, ornaments, and 

 costly drapery ; fair though they be, the flowers in the 

 light wicker-basket on the stand are fairer still. 



" ' Though all around be rich and rare, 

 The flowers are fairest of the fair, 

 And voiceless, as they are, impart 

 Sweet music to the eye and heart.' 



"The blushing maiden, elegantly dressed, who trips 

 along yonder with a light heart and sparkling eye, steals 



