CHILDREN AND FLOWERS. 
91 
But to return to the season of youth—to the 
spring-time of life—when flowers are scattered 
about our path, thickly as stars in the firma¬ 
ment of night, and we sport like lambs in the 
verdant meads, heedless of what the future may 
bring :— u Fearless, beautiful boyhood ! beloved 
of nature, who, like a kind school-mistress, sits 
upon the hills, and claps her hands in joy at 
his pastime, giving him the earth and all its 
landscapes at once, for his school and play¬ 
ground—and then the rocks and woods re-echo 
his mirth ; and then in thoughtful silence wan¬ 
dering away, the quiet nooks enclose him with 
their greenness, making companions of every¬ 
thing animate and inanimate—endowed with 
beauty; searching with a worshipping curiosity 
into every leaf and flower about his path, while 
the boughs bend to him and touch him with 
their sunshine; picking up lessons of present 
delight and future wisdom, by rivers’ sides, by 
brooks, in the glens, and in the fields; inhaling, 
m every breath he draws, intelligence and 
health.”—Thus, says Christopher North, that 
“ grey-haired man of glee”—whose writings 
