194 the associations of flowers 
they miss the music of many voices^ and pass away life 
unconscious of the common sources of enjoyment which it 
offers to those of simple tastes and energetic habits. 
“ Trees, and flowers, and streams, 
Are social and benevolent: and he 
Who oft communeth in their language pure. 
Roaming among them at the close of day, 
Shall find, like him who Eden’s garden drest, 
His Maker there to teach his listening heart.” 
The Highlanders use the heather as a thatch for their 
cottages, dye their cloth of a yellow or orange colour with 
an infusion made from the young shoots, and make their 
ale by substituting it in part for hops; and almost useless 
as we deem the heather for any other purpose than to feed 
the bee or to enliven the moorland, to them this plant is 
invaluable. 
But the heath-land in summer is decked with other 
blossoms besides those to wTich we have adverted. Seve- 
ral kinds of St. John’s wort there expand their yellow 
flowers; the golden-rod is a bright and frequent adorn- 
ment; some kinds of trefoil grow better there than in any 
other place; and that flower — the peculiar favourite of 
poets — that flower which the Scotchman deems especially 
his own — that dweller on heath and moorland — ^the hare- 
bell, raises its delicate stem and bows its gentle head, 
neither proudly defiant of storm nor easily broken by its 
violence ; like the elastic spirit of some gentle woman, 
strong by its very weakness, trembling before the tempest, 
but quickly after rising all fresh and vigorous, as if nought 
but sun and smiles had ever beamed upon it. 
The harebell (Campanula rotundifdlia) is among the 
most slender and delicately-formed of our wild plants. 
Its azure bell hangs lightly upon its stem, and has a look 
so frail that one might think that the first wind would 
break it to pieces ; yet is the structure of this little summer 
flower, though destined for a few days only, planned with 
the same exquisite care and skill of arrangement as is the 
lofty beech tree, under whose branches the child seeks for 
the beech-nuts, and looks up to its canopy long years 
afterw^ards and sees it yet in youthful vigour. 
