





38 AMIABILITY. 
which enchants the beholder by its beauty. In 
a word, they please, because nature has made 
them amiable. 
The jasmine seems as though it had been 
created to express the quality of amiability. 
When first introduced into France by some 
Spanish navigators, about 1560, it was greatly 
admired for the lightness of its branches and 
the delicate lustre of its star-like flowers. 
It was deemed necessary to place a plant so 
elegant and apparently tender in the hothouse. 
It was then tried in the orangery, where it 
grew marvellously well; and at length it was 
exposed in the open ground, where now it grows 
as freely as in its native soil, braving the most 
rigorous winters without requiring any care or 
attention. 
The flexible branches of this odoriferous 
shrub may be trained according to our pleasure. 
It will climb our palisades, and weave itself 
around our trellised arches, and cover the dead 
wall with an evergreen tapestry, and run gaily 
along our terraces and our walks. It is also 
obedient to the scissors of the gardener, who 
forms it into bushy shrubs or grotesque figures ; 
and, in every form, it lavishes upon us an 
abundant harvest of flowers, which perfume, 
refresh, and purify the air in our groves. 
Then how serene ! when in your favourite room, 
Gales from your jasmines soothe the evening gloom. 
CRABBE, 
