(XII) 
prodigal profusion and most bewildering diversity, the greatest and the grandest 
evidences of Nature’s resourceful opulence;—unless, indeed, we except Ento¬ 
mology—which treats of the insect-world—an exception that may prove a. surprise 
to many. And the captivating beauty of this multifarious display is visible all 
the year around in some regions of the earth; for long periods in the temperate 
zones, as, when grim Winter has fled, and 
“The Queen of the Spring, passing down through the vale, 
Left her robe on the trees, and her breath on the gale;” 
and—though to a limited degree—even in unpropitious soils and climes and 
seasons, as in the well-tended hothouses, and the domestic potted plants sur¬ 
rounded by free-straggling vines. 
Astronomy itself, in its sublimest soarings and intensely interesting details, 
may not compete successfully with theoretical and practical Botany, in opening 
up to man’s astonished gaze far-stretching scenes of ineffably gorgeous splendors, 
with rarely a dissolving view in the virtually unbroken vista. Both sciences, 
indeed, unfold most dazzling and varied prospects enlivening the universe com¬ 
ing within our ken: Astronomy—above, and off toward solitudes scarcely reached 
by most powerful lens; Botany—below, all around on our planet-home, in parts, 
too, seldom or never visited by man; and the glories unveiled by either, form 
companion pictures that seemed needed to inclose the entire intervening pageant 
of the visible creation, with its capricious array of multiform cloud, its pic¬ 
turesque landscape of mountain and valley and plain, and cascade and river, and 
wood and lake and ocean, its rural and pastoral sights, its gayly plumed proces¬ 
sion of birds, its stirring scenes of human activity and enjoyed festivity. But, 
though a clear night’s firmament, begemmed with its thousands of celestial orbs, 
does constitute the over-powering sublimity of the arching Heaven with its still 
interminable stellar spaces, and though yon mysterious aggregations of “star¬ 
dust” do declare the Glory and Power and Providential Direction of Him who 
wheeled those fiery spheres into their orbits and thus sketched the “illuminated 
manuscript of the skies;” yet, these myriad twinkling “stars of our fields”—the 
graded ranges of Flowers and Blossoms—differing also in brilliance—more ex¬ 
pressively and dearly set forth to us, even from their brotherly and sisterly near¬ 
ness and panting affection, the Might, and Love, and Providential Care, and 
Beauty—ever ancient and ever new-—of the same Benign Creator and Conserva¬ 
tor of all things; and their many colors and hues and tints are emblematic of the 
essential Perfections of the One who bleaches the lily with the unblurred bright- 
