EVERY WOMAN HER OWN FLOWER GARDENER. 135 



lovely among the silvery-edge^ leaves. Tropaeolums mingle prettily 

 with the darker leaves. 



A dish of flowers thus arranged will be "a thing of joy" for two or 

 three days. The sand can be wet every day with tepid water. It will 

 make a beautiful ornament for a dinner or supper table. Flowers are 

 always delightful when arranged in the dining room. The wise man of 

 Queen Elizabeth's court — the immortal Bacon — never sat at his table 

 without flowers. In his "Essays/' Leigh Hunt says : " What ornament 

 is there — Avhat supply of light or beauty could we discover, at once so 

 exquisite and so cheap, that should furnish our table with a grace 

 precious in the eyes of the most intelligent ? " Set flowers on your table, 

 a Avhole nosegay if you can get it, or but two or three, or a single flower 

 — a rose, a pink, even a daisy, ay, or a bunch of clover and a handful of 

 flowering grasses, one of the most elegant as well as the cheapest of 

 nature's productions — and you will have something on your table that will 

 remind you of the beauties of God's creation, and give you a link with 

 the poets and sages that have done it most honor. Put but a rose, or a 

 lily, or a violet on your table, and you and Lord Bacon have a custom 

 in common, for he was in the habit of having the flowers in season set 

 upon his table, morning, noon and night. The fashions of the 

 garments of heaven and earth endure forever, and you may adorn your 

 table with specimens of their drapery — with flowers out of the fields and 

 golden beams out of the blue ether. 



The first new boughs in spring, plucked and put into a vase, have 

 often an effect that may compete with flowers themselves, considering 

 their novelty ; and indeed, "leaves would be counted flowers if earth 

 had none." Does any reader fancy that to help himself to comforts like 

 these, would be "trifling"? Oh, let him not so condescend to the 

 ignorance of the proud or envious. If this were trifling, then was Bacon 

 a trifler, also the great Cond6, and the old republican Ludlow, and all 

 the great and good spirits that have loved flowers, and Milton's Adam, 

 nay heaven itself, for heaven made these harmless elegancies, and blessed 

 them with the universal good-will of the wise and innocent. 



And surely there is nothing more interesting than the world of 

 flowers. Earth, with seemingly careless prodigality, throws them out, 

 masterpieces of infinite finish — all diflerent, each perfect. 



Nothing in life has afforded so much delight to so many hearts ; and 

 nothing has gladdened and brightened so many eyes ! ' 



