NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 
color; it would be red where all the centuries 
it has been golden; a strange little wild beauty 
would change from the royal purple of a king 
to the color of the snows upon the mountains ; 
—and they are transformed as by a miracle. 
A host presses forward from all the ends of 
the earth ;—they are wild, would that they 
might become tame! And lo! they are 
changed; they join the fair company of the 
gardens of the world whose part it is to 
furnish adornment to those still more fair or 
to carry their fragrance to the beds of those 
who lie in pain. 
And so it goes among many hundreds of 
them, each needing something,—beauty, or 
strength, or hardiness, or length of days,—and 
the prayer of all is granted. 
Ah! but there still remains one unsatisfied: 
its longing is the most intense of all. It has 
all that the others have longed for, but it has 
one sad impairment. It has been doomed 
through the centuries to bear a most wretched 
odor, an offense to its fellows, to the world ;— 
if it only could be given some sweet scent like 
its dear neighbors! 
This is the hardest request of all. The 
174 
