l04 
CHILDREN AND FLOWERS. 
“ The blind, the lame, and far the happiest they i 
The moping idiot, and the madman gay.” 
Even amid our tears of pity for poor Ophelia 
we cannot help feeling in some degree rejoiced, 
that her mind has become a blank, bearing nc 
record of her former woes and sufferings, so 
that she can now find pleasure and amusement 
in twining garlands and carolling songs, as in 
the days of her childhood. As well might it be 
said because the tunes of the iEolian harp are 
wild and wandering, that it gives out no melody 
to the touch of the soft breezes, as that the mind 
of an idiot, which is moved by sudden impulses 
and gusts of passion, responds not to those holy 
influences, which the God of nature has scat¬ 
tered through the material universe, and which 
constitute “ the poetry of existence.” 
There are those, who tell us, that youth is 
not the most happy period of existence ;—that 
the sorrows of childhood, though light in com¬ 
parison with those we experience in after years, 
are as weighty in proportion to the powers of 
endurance that we then possess. They say — 
“’Tis distance lends enchantment to the view.” 
