Good Families 255 
beautiful, all so silent yet so strangely sym- 
pathetic with our mood. We may rest be- 
side a spring where the yellow mimulus 
grows and that exquisitely delicate perfume 
shall convey some corresponding impressions 
by an ethereal medium. They are good 
families who dwell in this garden; such 
charms of colour and perfume; so lovable in 
their unpretentiousness, their serenity, their 
gentleness. What a solace is their society to 
him who flees for an hour the mean little 
world men make for themselves and finds 
here at his feet one so tranquil, so full of 
harmony, so wholly beautiful, where he 
may rest and recreate himself. It is strange 
to speak of ownership in connection with such 
a garden, for they who most fully possess 
it do so by such intangible means. They 
possess it much as we possess our friends— 
in this sense only. It is the heritage of the 
American people, but by an unwritten law— 
a law of the gods—it descends from generation 
to generation to those alone who are able to 
enjoy their inheritance; as a book belongs 
not to him who owns, nor to him who reads 
it merely, but rather to him who understands 
and who loves it. = 
