Page:The Romance of Nature; or, The Flower-Seasons Illustrated.djvu/19

ix of the intelligence; for, on glancing over my illustrative drawings, I find portraits of thirty natives among the comparatively few subjects which a work like the present could include. Many far more magnificent might have been selected; but it is the poetry of our own meadows, and lanes, and dingles, and "little running brooks," that I wished to point out to my readers. Had I only made acquaintance with Flowers in the costly conservatory, or the trimly laid-out garden (though I dearly love a garden), I should not feel their beauty and blessings half so deeply as I now do. Wild Flowers seem the true philanthropists of their race. Their generous and cheerful faces ever give a kindly greeting to the troops of merry village children who revel in their blossomy wealth; and right welcome are they, gladdening the eyes of the poor town mechanic, when he breathes the pure, fresh country air on Sunday, and gathers a handful of Cowslips, or Daffodils, or prouder Foxgloves, to carry home and set in the dim window of his pent-up dwelling. So dear and beautiful are Wild Flowers, that one would think every body must love them; to many persons, however, much of the delight they bring to me would seem out of place, extravagant—unintelligible; but I hope to conciliate even these dissenters from my creed, by the extracts I have introduced from our great old