, 1842-04-09
J. H. D. HESDERsoS, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR.

love of flowers has been cherished
and cultivated with increasing atten-
ton and admiration. They have re-
ceived the fondest titles that sympa-
thy or affection could offer, and in
their opening petals and fading beau
ties, they invite to the most pleasing
"reminiscences and affecting refec-
tions that are associated with life
In the one, we behold the morning
of our own existence beautifully ex-
hibited with freshness and dews of
youth upon us; while the other in
vites the reflection that "all flesh is
grass, like the grass it withereth, and
like the flower it fades and its good
illness passes away" Thus every
age finds in them some emblem OF its
own fleeing being and every circum-
stance of life may hail them as coun-
terparts.
In ancient times they were employ
ed to deck the feast, and strew upon
the bier and grave where affection
called the admiring crowd for convi-
val festival, and weeping sorrow laid
its loved one to repose. They were
spread in paths Of triumphant warri-
ors as the emblems of victory and
honor; and in gay wreaths adorned
the brow beneath which gay and
happy hearts beat 10 holy response
at loves pure rituals.
They bloom alike in the limited
territory of cottager. and in the proud
and extended parterres Of the wealthy
and the gay.
A love of FLOWERS has every been
regarded as an index of moral excel
Ience and intellectual refinement
Who that beholds their uuostenta-
tious elegance, their gay simplicity,
and unassuming beautity every turn
away from them without being i'm
pressed with the emptiness Of arti-
fetal pomp and sPlendor! Who that
witnesses their evanescence, will not
read effectually the lesson Of univer-
sal fraiIty and decay For childhood
and youth the cultivation of FLOWERS
presents an imposing employment and
an interesting and instructing amuse-
ment. In the period of existenc,
when ARE does not present its cor
roding anxieties; when the spirits are
free and buoyant, and the world
smiles fresh and gaily on every hand,
when expectation is buoyant in look
ing through life's vista as upon a bed
of fowerS; when home and dear as
sociations are binding the soul in a
thousand ties as indissoluble as exis-
tence; when every scene and every
object is ~imprcssing the mind with
images which are to dwell like bright
spots upon the memory; when man.
hood comes with its sober reign and
age with its furrowed brow and sill
very hairs,-in the morning Of being
when every action does its full share
towards laying the foundation to
thought, feeling and principle for life,
what employment for leisure hours
can be more appropriate, than aiding
the floral world in its grand designs
of identifying the earth, and what
teachings of wisdom a be more
powerfully inclulcated than those
thaught by the simplicity and purity
Of nature?
To the female sex, in every period
of life, it offers considerations Of
great and abiding import. From
them they may derive rich lessons TO
aid them in rearing the temple OF the
mind in those who are to succeed
them, a sphere peculiarly their own,
and to close with a response the IN
terrogatory of another. There is
no object in nature more beautiful
than q young and lovely woman seen
in a parterre of flowers, herself the
~fairest, adorned with innocence and