ebb and flow:
You and I, ah! well we know
Death brings peace to all below.

FLOWER-ARRANGING.

I want to speak of the art of arranging flowers. Of the _art_, I say,
for it _is_ one. Do any of my readers comprehend the fact? They
certainly would, had they dawdled away hours more than grave moralists
would approve, fussing with me over the darlings of garden and
greenhouse.

Don't come to the conclusion now, that I am in the habit of making up
those small, round, or flat, stiff bouquets to be obtained for a
compensation (not slight) from market-gardeners and the like. I
repudiate the artificialities! Who wants camellias tied on false stems?
Who would be thankful for such a mosaic of 'nature's gems'? _Mosaic_,
that's the word exactly for such French bouquets. And _gems_, in truth,
far too stony in their setting for blithe springing blossoms! I'll have
nothing to do with such abominations.

No; _I_ mean by the 'art of flower-arranging' that process by which the
various characteristics of flowers are brought out and combined
according to artistic rules. Does this sound metaphysical
or--aesthet-i-cal? Why is the effect produced by the 'bunch of posies'
stuck clumsily into a broken-nosed pitcher on the kitchen window-sill,
different from that of the same carefully disposed in an elegant
receptacle on the drawing-room table? The nosegay is bright and fragrant
in either place. Why then do not the plebeian and patrician bouquets
equally please? In the one case, you say, the charms are inharmoniously
dispersed, and nearly neutralized by meaner surroundings, while in the
other they are enhanced by every advantage of position and appropriate
accessories. Should you not be grateful, then, for the working of my
theory of development and manifestation? Would you now like to
understand a little its operation?

Welcome, then, to whatever benefit can be derived from my limited
experience. I am a humble student in floral _architecture_, and I offer
my few suggestions to fellow-pupils, to those who aim unsuccessfully at
home adornment, whose utmost skill often only attains sublime
_failures_--not to the geniuses in the art.

Frankly, submissively I acknowledge there are persons who, guided only
by native taste and sense of harmony, accomplish beautiful results
without hesitation or thought. Their flowers obey the slightest touch
with nice subservience, falling into their most exquisite combinations
of color an