306 BBAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
conservatory. Wild flowers form a chief part of the love 
of country, they are our associates in early life, and 
recal, in after years, the scenes and recollections of our 
youth; they are the true philanthropists of nature, and 
their generous and smiling faces give us kindly greetings 
and sweet memories of the first impulses of love and 
friendship. The poor mechanic may leave his dull bench 
when Sunday comes, and breathe the fresh air on the 
green hills, and gather cowslips and daffodils to cheer 
him, and to teach him that, although begrimed by toil, 
yet he has within him a soul capable of feeling, and a 
spirit which can woo the inspiration of nature, and grow 
green again in the love of flowers. 
“And such are daffodils 
With the green world they live in : and clear rills 
That for themselves a cooling covert make 
’Grainst the hot season : the mid-forest brake, 
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose bloomO 
Keats. 
Of all things sent from heaven to minister to man’s 
happiness, flowers are the most gentle, confiding, and un¬ 
resisting; he may crush them beneath his footstep, and 
their only murmars are made in the sweet scent which they 
immediately emit; they maybe plucked and scattered to the 
four winds of heaven, but a fresh troop bloom in gladness 
and delight they may be gathered by the soft white hand 
of beauty, to gladden the eye which has never known a 
tear, and by the hard and iron hand of toiling industry, 
to beautify the window v here the meek wife sits pon¬ 
dering, and the children play at kings and queens. 
