c: 56] 



WATER-LILIES 



June 19, 1853. Exquisitely beautiful, and^unlike 

 anything else that we have, is the first white lily 

 just expanded in some shallow lagoon where the 

 water is leaving it, — perfectly fresh and pure, be- 

 fore the insects have discovered it. How admirable 

 its purity! how innocently sweet its fragrance! How 

 significant that the rich, black mud of our dead 

 stream produces the water-lily, — out of that fertile 

 slime springs this spotless purity ! 



Journal, v, 283. 



June 16, 1854. Again I scent the white water- 

 lily, and a season I had waited for is arrived. How 

 indispensable all these experiences to make up the 

 summer! It is the emblem of purity, and its scent 

 suggests it. Growing in stagnant and muddy water, 

 it bursts up so pure and fair to the eye and so sweet 

 to the scent, as if to show us what purity and sweet- 

 ness reside in, and can be extracted from, the slime 

 and muck of earth. I think I have plucked the first 

 one that has opened for a mile at least. What con- 

 firmation of our hopes is in the fragrance of the 

 water-lily! I shall not so soon despair of the world 



