nd curses adversity by
making it out to be the loss of the supreme good, and little short of
hell. It is well to take very high ground with them, and train them to
know and enjoy the supreme treasures that are open to them all, to make
them observers and lovers of Nature and Art, and to take it for granted
that the best gifts of God and humanity are freely offered to every true
life. Our magnificent country should be held before them as their
rightful heritage, and its flowers, plants, trees, minerals, animals,
lakes, rivers, seas, mountains, should be made a part of every child's
property. What observers of Nature, in its uses and beauty, bright
children are, and how much may be made of their aptness by good books
and magazines! I confess, for my own part, that I never saw and enjoyed
Nature truly until I learned to see it through a bright child's eyes.
Good Providence gave us our little farm and our little May at about the
same time; and the child has been the priestess of our domain, and has
made spring of our autumn, May of our September. She noticed first only
bright colors and moving objects and striking sounds; but with what zest
she noticed them, and jogged our dull eyes and ears! Then she observed
the finer traits of the place, and learned to call each flower and tree,
and even each weed, by name, and to join the birds and chickens in their
glee. She gathered bright weeds as freely as garden-flowers, and, with
larger wisdom than she knew, came shouting and laughing with a lapful of
treasures, in which the golden-rod or wild aster, the violet or
buttercup, the dandelion or honeysuckle, were as much prized as the pink
or larkspur, the rose or lily. Darling seer, how much wiser and better
might we be, if we had as open eye for loveliness and worth within and
without the inclosures of our pride and our pets! I called the first
rustic arbor that I built by her name; and May's Bower, on its base of
rock, with solid steps cut in the granite by a faithful hand, and with a
sight of the distant sea through its clustering vines, is to us a good
symbol of childhood, as observer, interpreter, and lover of Nature. When
I see in a handsome book or magazine for children any adequate sketch of
natural scenes and objects, I am grateful for it as a benefaction to
children, and a help to them in their playful yearning to read that
elder alphabet of God.

How much power there is in the elements of the beautiful that so abound
in th