KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



275 



Follet, or practising the graces and cour- 

 tesies of maturer life. Will there not be 

 years enough, from thirteen to seventy, for 

 ornamenting or disfiguring the person at the 

 fiat of French milliners — for checking laugh- 

 ter and forcing smiles, for reducing all 

 varieties of intellect, all gradations of feeling 

 to one uniform tint ? Is there not already a 

 sufficient sameness in the aspect and tone of 

 polished life? Oh, leave children as they 

 are, to relieve by their " wild freshness " our 

 elegant insipidity; leave their "hair loosely 

 flowing, robes as free," to refresh the eyes 

 that love simplicity ; and leave their eager- 

 ness, their warmth, their unreflecting sin- 

 cerity, their unschooled expressions of joy or 

 regret, to amuse and delight us, when we 

 are a little tired by the politeness, the 

 caution, the wisdom, and the coldness of the 

 grown-up world. 



Children may teach us one blessed, one 

 enviable art, the heart of being easily happy. 

 Kind nature has given to them that useful 

 power of accommodation to circumstances, 

 which compensates for so many external dis- 

 advantages ; and it is only by injudicious 

 management that it is lost. " Give him but a 

 moderate portion of food and kindness, and 

 the peasant's child is happier far than the 

 duke's. Free from artificial wants, unsated 

 by indulgence, all nature ministers to his 

 pleasures ; he can carve out felicity from a 

 bit of hazel twig, or fish for it successfully in 

 a puddle." I love to hear the boisterous joy 

 of a troop of ragged urchins whose cheap 

 playthings are nothing more than mud, snow, 

 sticks, or oyster-shells ; or to watch the 

 quiet enjoyment of a half-clothed, half- 

 washed fellow of four or five years old, who 

 sits with a large rusty knife and a lump of 

 bread and bacon at his father's door, and 

 might move the envy of a London alderman. 



He must have been singularly unfortunate 

 in childhood, or singularly the reverse in 

 after life, who does not look back upon its 

 scenes, its sports and pleasures, with fond 

 regret; who does not "wish for e'en its 

 sorrows back again." The wisest and hap- 

 piest of us may occasionally detect this 

 feeling in our bosoms. There is something 

 unreasonably dear to the man in the recol- 

 lection of the follies, the whims, the petty 

 cares, and exaggerated delights of his child- 

 hood. Perhaps he is engaged in schemes of 

 soaring ambition, but fancies sometimes that 

 there was once a greater charm in flying a 

 kite — perhaps, after many a hard lesson, he 

 has acquired a power of discernment and 

 spirit of caution which defies deception, but 

 he now and then wishes for the boyish con- 

 fidence which venerated every old beggar, 

 and wept at every tale of woe. He is now 

 deep read in philosophy and science, yet he 

 looks back with regret on the wild and pleas- 



ing fancies of his young mind, and owns that 

 " Verreur a son merite ; " he now reads his- 

 tory till he doubts everything, and sighs for 

 the time when he felt comfortably convinced 

 that Romulus was suckled by a wolf, and 

 Richard the Third a monster of iniquity — his 

 mind is now full of perplexities and cares for 

 the future. Oh ! for the days when the 

 present was a scene sufficiently wide to 

 satisfy him ! Q. 



THE VALUE OF LIGHT 



FOR THE 



FULL DEVELOPMENT OF PLANTS. 



The importance of light, as an agent 

 in the full development of plants, has so often 

 been insisted on, and is now so fully appre- 

 ciated by all who have the slightest claim to 

 a knowledge of the science of gardening — in 

 so far as it applies to and elucidates its prac- 

 tical details — that it might seem almost su- 

 perfluous to say anything more on the sub- 

 ject. But our acquaintance with garden 

 practice, in the aggregate, for ces upon us the 

 conviction, that though the higher principles 

 of the art are acknowledged and practised 

 in numberless establishments, there still lin- 

 gers among us something more than a spice 

 of the practice prevalent in what may be justly 

 termed the dark age of horticulture. That 

 the period to which we refer does not essen- 

 tially belong to antiquity, but that the prac- 

 tices which characterise it are still healthful 

 and vigorous, and not merely stumbled upon 

 like fossils embedded in an ancient geological 

 formation, many of our readers know well 

 enough. 



We have no intention of penning a dry 

 dissertation on the influence of light ; but 

 believing that to teach by example is far su- 

 perior to dogmatising, as a means of eluci- 

 dating any given subject, we shall, in illustra- 

 tion of our position, give some particulars 

 that but two or three years since fell under 

 our notice. In one of the southern counties 

 of England, a lady — who was an enthusiastic 

 lover of horticulture — possessed an establish- 

 ment where every branch of the " art and 

 mystery " of gardening was pursued : we do 

 not say successfully, " for thereby hangs a 

 tale," — and all enthusiasts commit errors, and 

 often gross ones, too. But we should always 

 respect, rather than ridicule the mistakes of 

 an enthusiast ; for they will often be found 

 to resemble, in intrinsic value, the ore of a 

 precious metal. While the real gold remains 

 mixed with baser matter, it can influence 

 little the well-being of mankind ; but when 

 extracted, refined, and rendered subservient 

 to the wants of society, it extends its benefits 

 a thousand ways. So an enthusiast strikes 

 out new theories, it may be, of little value in 

 themselves, but from which, every-day, plod- 



