See that graceful fuchsia, its blood-red petals, and calyx of bluish-purple, more exquisite in colour and form than any hand or eyes, no matter how well skilled and trained, can imitate!  We can manufacture no colours to equal those of our flowers in their bright brilliancy—­such, for instance, as the Scarlet Lychnis, the Browallia, or even the Common Poppy.  Then see the exquisite blue of the humble Speedwell, and the dazzling white of the Star of Bethlehem, that shines even in the dark.  Bring one of even our common field-flowers into a room, place it on your table or chimney piece, and you seem to have brought a ray of sunshine into the place.  There is ever cheerfulness about flowers; what a delight are they to the drooping invalid! the very sight of them is cheering; they are like a sweet draught of fresh bliss, coming as messengers from the country without, and seeming to say:—­“Come and see the place where we grow, and let thy heart be glad in our presence.”

What can be more innocent than flowers!  Are they not like children undimmed by sin?  They are emblems of purity and truth, always a new source of delight to the pure and the innocent.  The heart that does not love flowers, or the voice of a playful child, is one that we should not like to consort with.  It was a beautiful conceit that invented a language of flowers, by which lovers were enabled to express the feelings that they dared not openly speak.  But flowers have a voice to all,—­to old and young, to rich and poor, if they would but listen, and try to interpret their meaning.  “To me,” says Wordsworth,

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

Have a flower in your room then, by all means!  It will cost you only a penny, if your ambition is moderate; and the gratification it will give you will be beyond all 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?  Then 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 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 a pure taste and refinement does it not indicate on the part of the cultivator!

A flower in your window sweetens the air, makes your room look graceful, gives the sun’s light a new charm, rejoices your eye, and links you to nature and beauty.  You really cannot be altogether alone, if you have a sweet flower to look upon, and it is a companion which will never utter a cross thing to anybody, but always look beautiful and smiling.  Do not despise it because it is cheap, and everybody may have the luxury as well as you.  Common things are cheap, and common things are invariably the most valuable.  Could we only have a fresh air or sunshine by purchase, what luxuries these would be; but they are free to all, and we think not of their blessings.