TIME AND THE FLOWERS. 
179 
all-seeing eye kept a severe watch over the plighted 
troth of Love, and that the Recording Angel never 
blotted out a single letter which stood beside his name, 
who had broken the heart of a fond and confiding, 
woman. Wealth had not then ploughed down and 
dug out that deep abyss, every foot of which separates 
us further from heaven; man wandered not in those 
days in the dark, amid stumbling-blocks and wedges 
of unfeeling gold, in that cold, cheerless atmosphere, 
where Love would never be able to breathe, and Affec¬ 
tion could never open the smallest of its beautiful 
buds. For in that heart which pines only for riches, 
Love can, at best, but find only a brief dwelling- 
place—no blossom can ever come into full bloom 
amid such darkness: Mammon alone dwells there : 
he is the sole god of those cheerless dominions : and 
ever doth he sit alone, with his aching head pil¬ 
lowed upon a wedge of gold,—the cold, faint light of 
the unfeeling riches that surround him makes him 
shiver—he can find no warmth in his bright, icy dia- i 
monds—he freezes in his mail of silver—and when it 
is too late, learns that the warm and beating heart of 
a loving-woman is the richest gem that the angels 
ever dropped into the world ; that without her, Happi- 
