Page:Path of Vision; pocket essays of East and West.djvu/129

 we be in the farthermost parts of the world, they seldom fail in the calling. Else why should I—and I die a hundred deaths in a sea voyage—cross the ocean again and again to visit my native land? America too is the land of my birth, my second birth, so to speak, which is more significant, to myself at least, than the first. And here I have often found myself in the bosom of nature, comforted and reassured. Here are daisies as lovely as the soil and sun and rain ever made; but such loveliness is marred for me by a sad-sweet recollection: the daisies that have known the caresses of my infant love, that have heard the lispings of my superstitious heart, are sweeter of breath, stronger of appeal. Here are gardens where the resources and ingenuity of man would surpass the beauty of nature; but wherever I turn my eyes among the elegant variety of their flowers, I can see only the image of the homely sweet-basil, my mother's favorite plant. Here too are cultivated cyclamens hardier and more beautiful than the delicate