THE USES OF ADVERSITY 



IT cannot be counted a sin to envy the goodwife who 

 goes abroad in the dewy sweetness of the early morn- 

 ing to dig dandelions from the grass on the park lawns. 

 The atmosphere in the first hours of a May day is pale 

 with gauzy vapors rising from the ponds and exhaled by 

 the bursting buds on shrubs and trees. It is laden with 

 the odor of an incense faint and exhilarating that wears 

 the tremulous pianissimo of lily bells and honeysuckle 

 flutes. 



To such music the goodwife takes her basket and goes 

 to the shrine of Mother Nature, and there one may find 

 her on her knees among the tender herbage, hoarding the 

 gold of the dandelion. She shares her treasure with the 

 few elect, and, when dandelion season is gone, her simple 

 faith in flower lore brings her again to knock at our doors 

 with her basket heaped with old-fashioned bouquets of 

 spice pinks, verbenas, mourning brides, alyssum, and 

 sweet marjoram, bordered with the lace of asparagus. 



Happy is he who has found his gospel of art and is 

 satisfied therein. It is simple enough, if one is content to 

 through life looking through a punched elder stem. 

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