108 LANGUAGE AND 
HEATH. 
SOLITUDE. 
When sorrow takes possession of the wounded 
heart; when love or fortune has proved unkind ; 
when the best laid schemes are gone astray, 
what medicine can minister so well to the mind 
diseased as solitude, of which this fairy flower 
is the token? Yes, gentle reader; when grief 
or trouble assails you for a while, forsake the 
common herd; go forth, and commune with 
Nature—with Nature, and with Nature’s God, 
and be assured that you will return to your 
daily duties with a reinvigorated soul—with a 
mind strengthened and “ prepared for any fate ;” 
and trust that 
"Not vainly may the heath-flower shed 
Its moorland fragrance round your head.” 
To many, wandering, perchance, in foreign 
lands, the Heath is endowed with a thousand 
tender recollections of the past—the past that 
never comes again; and Scottish Highlanders, 
so acutely sensible are they to the associations 
of home, have been seen to weep like children, 
when in their distant exile they have beheld a 
bunch of simple heather. Grant thus gives ex¬ 
pression to this feeling of fondness displayed by 
the sturdy Scot for his native plant-. 
