162 STARLIGHT AND SUNSHINE. 
met with the applause of a whole bevy of the rare blazing-star— 
their long spires of pure white feathery bloom standing sentinel 
over a bog of considerable expanse and filling the adjacent air 
with their almond-like perfume. 
A swamp or a bog! What a rallying-cry to the botanist, and 
what a treasure-ground to the wild-gardener! To say nothing 
of the untold witnesses of extinct species 
; > down deep in the peat, look at the wealth 
AE of the present rare spirits it nourishes! 
Thoreau has been frequently ridiculed for 
his extravagant expressions. He has 
<2 averred, among other things, that some 
‘» Of his happiest moments have been 
spent while “up to 
oe 2 his eyes in the mud 
of a swamp”; and 
ee it may be said that 
; those who cannot under- 
stand this are not likely to 
appreciate much else that he 
has to say, and are consequent- 
yy ly to be commiserated. We bot- 
he" anists know all about it. We need 
no commentator on this passage of Tho- 
reau's, which was so plainly reminiscent of 
his eager wooing of Arethusa, the sweetest 
nymph of the marshy mist, and who fre- 
quently exacts some such pleasant and willing 
chivalry as this ere she will yield her rosy lip. Or 
was it lovely Calypso, her only rival? Did ever 
glimpse of the rarest caged exotic awake such a thrill as this 
which speeds you on through the knee-deep mud to lay your 
rude hand upon her? I have known even a lesser light to pre- 
 cipitate a similar impetuosity. There among the reeds it lifts its 
feathery cylinder of purple blooms; another and another reveal 
themselves among the calamus and blueflags and galingales as 
