NATURE'S REALM. 109 
evidently because it loves to blossom. We will 
praise this virtuous tree. Not beautiful in 
form, often clumpy, cragged and rude; but it 
is glorious in beauty when efflorescent. Nor is it 
a’ beauty only at a distance and in the mass. 
Pluck down a twig and examine as closely as 
you will; it will bearthe nearestlooking. The 
simplicity and purity of the white, expanded 
flower, the half-open buds slightly blushed, the 
little pink-tipped buds unopen, crowding up 
together like rosy children around an elder 
brother or sister. Can anything surpass it? 
Why, here is a cluster more beautiful than any 
you can make up artificially, even if you select 
from the whole garden. Wear this family of 
buds for my sake. It is all the better for being 
common. I love a flower that all may have; 
that belongs to the whole, and not to a select 
and exclusive few. Common, forsooth! a 
flower cannot be worn out by much looking at, 
as a road is by much travel. 
How one exhales, and feels his childhood 
coming back to him, when, emerging from the 
hard and hatetul city streets, he sees orchards 
and gardens in sheeted bloom—plum, cherry, 
pear, peach and apple, waves and billows of 
blossoms rolling over the hill sides and down 
» through the levels! My heartruns riot. This 
is a kingdom of glory. The bees know it. 
Are the blossoms singing, or is all this hum- 
ming sound the music of bees? The frivolous 
flies, that never seem to be thinking of any- 
thing, are rather soberandsolemnhere. Such 
a sight is equal to a sunset, which is but a 
blossoming of the clouds. 
We love to fancy that a flower is the point of 
transition at which a material thing touches 
the immaterial; it is the sentient vegetable 
soul. We ascribe dispositions to it; we treat 
it as we would an innocent child. A stem or 
root has no suggestion oflife. A leaf advances 
toward it; and some leaves are as fine as 
flowers, and have, moreover, a grace of motion 
seldom had by flowers. Flowers have an ex- 
pression of countenance as much as men or 
animals. Some seem to smile; some have a 
sad expression ; some are pensive and diffident ; 
others, again, are plain, honest and upright, 
like the broad-faced sunflower and the holly- 
hock. We find ourselves speaking of them as 
laughing, as gay and coquettish, as nodding 
and dancing. No man ofsensibility ever spoke 
of a flower as he would of a fungus, a pebble 
or a sponge. Indeed, they are more life-like 
than many animals. We commune with flow- 
ers—we go to them it we are sad or glad; but 
a toad, a worm, an insect, we repel, as if real 
life was not so real as imaginary life. Whata 
pity flowers can utter no sound! A singing 
rose, a whispering violet, a murmuring honey- 
suckle! Oh! what a rare and exquisite mir- 
acle would these be! 
When we hear melodious sounds—the wind 
among the trees, the noise of a brook falling 
down into a deep, leaf-covered cavity—birds’ 
notes, especially at night; children’s voices as 
you ride into a village at dusk, far from your 
long absent home, and quite home-sick; or a 
flute heard from out of a forest, a silver sound 
rising up among silver-lit leaves into the moon- 
lighted air; or the low conversations of persons 
whom you love, that sit at the fire in the room 
where you are convalescing. When we think 
of these things we are apt to imagine that 
nothing is perfect that has not the gift ofsound. 
But we change our mind when we dwell lov- 
ingly among flowers, for they are always silent. 
Sound is never associated with them. They 
speak to you, but it is as the eye speaks, by 
vibrations of light and not of air. 
It is with flowers as with friends. Many 
may be loved, but few much loved. Wild 
honeysuckles in the wood, laurel bushes in the 
very regality of bloom, are very beautiful to 
you. But they are colorandformonly. They 
seem strangers toyou. You havenomemories 
reposed in them. They bring back nothing 
from Time. They point to nothing in the fu- 
ture. Buta wild brier starts a genial feeling. 
It is the country cousin of the rose, and that 
has always been your pet. You have nursed 
it and defended it; you have had it for com- 
panionship as you wrote; it has stood by your 
pillow while sick; it has brought remembrance 
to you, and conveyed your kindest feelings to 
others. You remember it as a mother’s favor- 
ite; it speaks to you of your own childhood— 
that white rosebush that snowed in the corner 
by the door; that generous bush that blushed 
red in the garden with a thousand flowers, 
