INTRODUCTORY. 
will remind tliem 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 elegant plants. Sometimes, perhaps, it is 
because the idea of having flowers in sunless 
corners would be impracticable that the idea of 
having any substitutes for flowers is abandoned. 
But, as it has been urged elsewhere — 4 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 
upon acts or habits that are within our control ; 
when it is remembered, too, how easily we accus- 
33 
