THE AUTHOR TO THE READER. 
xi 
wearily pining for the country, or something which 
will remind them of it. The lives of such are 
chiefly passed in two spheres — the sphere of work 
and the sphere of home. They live in one place, 
and they work — whether as employers or employed 
— in another, or it may be in others. 
It is probably because they have not given a 
thought to the beautiful ferns that it has not 
occurred to them how much more pleasant would 
be the associations of their dwellings and their 
places of business, were they to fill up every vacant 
and available corner with these graceful and ele- 
gant plants. Sometimes it is perhaps because the 
idea of having flowers in sunless corners would be 
impracticable that the idea of having any substi- 
tutes for flowers is abandoned. But, as it has been 
urged elsewhere — “ ferns will grow where flowering 
plants would perish.” 
Will it not be admitted then that a vast fund of 
pleasure is here opened up, — pleasure which is 
within the reach of all? When it is remembered 
how much in this life happiness and misery, com- 
fort and discomfort, depend upon ourselves and 
