A SPRING GOSSIP. 67 



ored violet the "Johnny-jump-up" of the cottager that little, 

 roguish coquette of a blossom, all animation and boldness but the 

 true violet of the poets ; the delicate, modest, retiring violet, dim, 



"But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, 

 Or Cytherea's breath." 



The flower that has been loved, and praised, and petted, and culti- 

 vated, at least three thousand years, and is not in the least spoiled 

 by it ; nay, has all the unmistakable freshness still, of a nature 

 ever young and eternal. 



There is a great deal, too, in the associations that cluster about 

 spring flowers. Take that early yellow flower, popularly known as 

 "Butter and Eggs," and the most common bulb in all our gardens, 

 though introduced from abroad. It is not handsome, certainly, al- 

 though one always welcomes its hardy face with pleasure ; but when 

 we know that it suggested that fine passage to Shakspeare 



"Daffodils 



That come "before the swallow dares, and take 

 The winds of March with beauty " 



we feel that the flower is for ever immortalized ; and though not 

 half so handsome as our native blood-root, with its snowy petals, or 

 our wood anemone, tinged like the first blush of morning, yet still 

 the daffodil, embalmed by poesy, like a fly in amber, has a value 

 given it by human genius that causes it to stir the imagination more 

 than the most faultless and sculpture-like camellia that ever bloomed 

 in marble conservatory. 



A pleasant task it would be to linger over the spring flowers, 

 taking them up one by one, and inhaling all their fragrance and 

 poetry, leisurely whether the cowslips, hyacinths, daisies, and haw- 

 thorns of the garden, or the honeysuckles, trilliums, wild moccasins, 

 and liverworts of the woods. But we should grow garrulous on 

 the subject and the season, if we were to wander thus into details. 



Among all the flowers of spring, there are, however, few that 

 surpass in delicacy, freshness, and beauty, that common and popular 

 thing, an appU blossom. Certainly, no one would plant an apple- 

 tree in his park or pleasure ground ; for, like a hard day-laborer, 



