at they dared not openly speak. But flowers have
a voice for all,--old and young, rich and poor. "To me," says
Wordsworth,

"The meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

Have a flower in the room, by all means! It will cost only a penny, if
your ambition is moderate; and the gratification it gives will be beyond
price. If you can have a flower for your window so much the better. What
can be more delicious than the sun's light streaming through
flowers--through the midst of crimson fuchsias or scarlet geraniums? To
look out into the light through flowers--is not that poetry? And to
break the force of the sunbeams by the tender resistance of green
leaves? If you can train a nasturtium round the window, or some sweet
peas, then you will have the most beautiful frame you can invent for the
picture without, whether it be the busy crowd, or a distant landscape,
or trees with their lights and shades, or the changes of the passing
clouds. Any one may thus look through flowers for the price of an old
song. And what pure taste and refinement does it not indicate on the
part of the cultivator! A flower in the window sweetens the air, makes
the room look graceful, gives the sun's light a new charm, rejoices the
eye, and links nature with beauty. The flower is a companion that will
never say a cross thing to any one, but will always look beautiful and
smiling. Do not despise it because it is cheap, and because everybody
may have the luxury as well as yourself. Common things are cheap, but
common things are invariably the most valuable. Could we only have fresh
air or sunshine by purchase, what luxuries they would be considered; but
they are free to all, and we think little of their blessings.

There is, indeed, much in nature that we do not yet half enjoy, because
we shut our avenues of sensation and feeling. We are satisfied with the
matter of fact, and look not for the spirit of fact, which is above it.
If we opened our minds to enjoyment, we might find tranquil pleasures
spread about us on every side. We might live with the angels that visit
us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower.
We want more loving knowledge to enable us to enjoy life, and we require
to cultivate the art of making the most of the common means and
appliances for enjoyment, which lie about us on every side.

A snug and a clean home, no matter how tiny it be, so that it be
wholesome; wi