310 MY FARM, 



ranks of beauties ; but nine times in ten if I do not 

 guard my tongue with a prudent reticence, and allow 

 my admiration to ooze out only in exclamations I 

 mortify the gardener by admiring some timid flower, 

 which nestles under cover of the flaunting Dahlias or 

 Peonies, and which proves to be only some dainty 

 weed, or an antiquated plant, which the florists no 

 longer catalogue. Everybody knows how ridiculous 

 it is to admire a picture by an unknown artist ; and 

 I must confess to feeling the fear of a kindred ridi- 

 cule, whenever I stroll through the gardens of an ac- 

 complished amateur. 



But I console myself with thinking that I have 

 company in my mal-adroitness, and that there is a 

 great crowd of people in the world, who admire spon- 

 taneously what seems to be beautiful, without wait- 

 ing for the story of its beauty. If I were an adept, 

 I should doubtless, like other adepts, reserve my ad- 

 miration exclusively for floral perfection ; but I thank 

 God that my eye is not as yet eo bounded. The 

 blazing Daffodils, Blue-bells, English-cowslips, and 

 Striped-grass, with which some pains-taking woman 

 in an up-country niche of home, spots her little door- 

 yard in April, have won upon me before now to a 

 tender recognition of the true mission of flowers, as 

 no gorgeous parterre could do. 



With such heretical views, the reader will not be 



