240 ISLES OF SUMMER. 
of flowers “‘ blushing unseen,” and ‘‘ wasting their fragrance on 
the desert air,” merely because they are not enjoyed by man. 
This is an exceedingly contracted view to take of the matter, 
and is bottomed upon man’s egotism. There is no insect how- 
ever small, no reptile however repulsive, no fish in any brook or 
sea, no animal that roams in pathless woods, and no. bird that 
disturbs with its wings or songs the deepest solitude of the sea 
or land, that does not find much which its nature is fitted to 
enjoy in the great world of which they as well as man, form an 
integral part. The same great Father made all and provides for 
all, and when we looked into the coral grottoes, caves and bow- 
ers, and saw the lavish display of exquisitely beautiful forms and 
colors which the water glass reveals, we felt that it was no more 
made for man than is the magnificence of the celestial world 
made for the few spirits outside, who, perchance, may occasion- 
ally be permitted, with or without eye glasses, to look at the 
inner glories through the key-hole of heaven’s great front door. - 
A book has been recently published in England by Mr. Higgins, 
entitled ‘‘ Notes by a Field Naturalist.” The author spent afew 
days in Nassau, visited the ‘sea garden,” and after giving some 
account of what he saw there and in its vicinity, he adds— 
“At last! There it all was, even as the great naturalist of 
H. M.S. ‘‘ Beagle” had said more than thirty years before, ‘ how 
be it, I believed not the words until I came, and my eye had 
seen it—and, behold, the half was not told.’ Description is not 
the proper vehicle for conveying the impressions made by such 
a spectacle. If the description be full, it is labored; if concise, 
it is nothing. I longed for the power of putting it into music.” 
“There is no doubt that the ‘garden’ is a thing of beauty, 
and that of a very high order.” 
