looking at flowers, closer

F.— "... Those are beautiful flowers. I would not have believed that the prairie could now furnish such a bunch."

C.—" Their modest beauty is scarcely noticed when seen; but if you are interested enough to assemble them thus, you are rewarded by a charming surprise. And how pleasant a study is each! I have an untiring love for flowers. How perfect and refined a delicacy they possess! Examine these blossoms; how pure and delicate a white! See the different stages of their mysterious vitality: some of the corollas are like fine pearls, and are set in an emerald green; some are just expanding and reveal the beautiful life within; others with full blown petals, which, like fairy shells, still gracefully guard and adorn the stamens now crowned with golden pollen; and their fragrance! what other sense is capable of so refined an enjoyment as it yields!"

F.—" With what strange complacency does the mass of even the 'educated,' ignore the charming mysteries of botany! They may be surprised into admiration of a fine flower; but it is a mere sensation,

— 'the smallest part
Exceeds the narrow visions of their minds.' " [James Thomson, Summer]

C.—" And they lose half the beauty, which, such is their perfection, they reveal to minute examination.

"Did you ever reflect how enthusiastic an admiration for them, is expressed in the language, 'Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these!' "

F.—" The lily;—the queen of flowers! And yet, all the world admire them! Are they not generally personified?—credited with a language?"

C.—" The language of flowers!—The language of admiration and of love, rather. Charming symbols indeed!—most eloquent offerings!"

F.—" What myriads there are here— 

'born to blush unseen,
And waste their fragrance on the desert air.' " [Thomas Gray]

Scenes Beyond the Western Border, August 1853; and
Scenes and Adventures in the Army

 

FIELD ASTERS

Like the stars in commons blue
Peep their namesakes, Asters here,
Wild ones every autumn seen—
Seen of all, arresting few.

Seen indeed.  But who their cheer
Interpret may, or what they mean
When so inscrutably their eyes
Us star-gazers scrutinize.

—Herman Melville
from the posthumously published Weeds and Wildings manuscript