THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS 47 
plants of our European meadows. Nature has, 
in every zone, stamped on the landscape the 
peculiar type of beauty proper to the locality.” 
But every midsummer reveals the same ten- 
dency. In early spring, when all is bare, and 
small objects are easily made prominent, the 
wild-flowers are generally delicate. Later, when 
all verdure is profusely expanded, these minia- 
ture strokes would be lost, and Nature then 
practises landscape gardening in large, lights 
up the copses with great masses of White 
Alder, makes the roadsides gay with Aster and 
Goldenrod, and tops the tall, coarse Meadow 
Grass with nodding Lilies and tufted Spirzea. 
One instinctively follows these plain hints, and 
gathers bouquets sparingly in spring and exu- 
berantly in summer. 
The use of wild-flowers for decorative pur- 
poses merits a word in passing, for it is 
unquestionably in favored hands a branch of 
high art. It is true that we are bidden, on 
good authority, to love the wood-rose and leave 
it on its stalk ; but against this may be set the 
saying of Bettine Brentano, that “all flowers 
which are broken become immortal in the sac- 
rifice ;” and certainly the secret harmonies of 
these fair creatures are so marked and delicate 
that we do not understand them till we try to 
group floral decorations for ourselves. The 
