The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1913-08-10
ADJUSTS HAUNTING FLOWERS.

ADJUSTS II4AINTfNG FLOWERS.
Nothing is better for any of us than to try
TO associate with the familiar things OF our
daily lives some serious and sweet thoughts ana
suggestions of philosophy Shakespeare, like
many another poet and great thinker before him
and after him, understood this. He tells us OF
sermons in stones more than two centuries be-
fore Hugh Miller put the sermons into words
with his wonderful Testimony OF the Rocks
and of what we may learn from running brooks
Really there is not much need to read books
except for amusement and just little guidance
and exact,information. We do not know whether
Iob ever read anything; but he a great
natural philosopher and poet and learned high
lessons from reading the animals and people ana
growing things about him and the skies above
him The wise men from the East studied the
spacious armament on high; and what they
learned there and how much they gathered OF
what lis to be. of the life and course of humanity
and the fate of our planet. are mysteries yet
after more than nineteen centuries.
We need not most Of us cannot because we
have not the time nor the opportunities for
concentration try to project and lose, our minds
in the infinite inricacies of the space around US
and the endless legions Of solar systems stars
and planets swinging and marching silently In
that vast and hidden darkness. The simplest Of
Ms can gather some simple lessons from the
homely flowers and plants attending our foot
steps from infancy to age and our going through
each year.
Just now we are at the time Of the sunfower,
kI,oeyo
some OF them rich In coloring, none of them Of
any fragrance or delicacy. They faunt them
selves aud attend the sunshine. According to
NEUROLOGICAL legend. the sunfower originated
from. half goddess. desperately in love with the
sun, transformed into growing thing in the
queer way the NEUROLOGICAL novelists had of dis
posing of nconyenient characters in their stories
and ever since. turning her face TO follow the
sun as he travels daily from horizon TO the
other Taking this explanation as true. we must
suppose the nymph to have been rather fiat and
wide faced kind of person with faring yellow
hair and 1t is no cause for wonder that the sun
rod changed her TO something that might follow
with admiration and adore him, but too firmly
rooted in the earth ever to bother him inter
is more in accord with human experience. how
ever to take all these gaudy August flowers as
sun-worshippers because Just now the sun is at
It's brightest and hercest. There people. as
there are flowers. able TO live and flourish and
faunt themselves only in the sunshine, craving
the brightest and most faring light, following
Ii and adoring IT, whitening and dying when the
warmth and splendor are taken from them. There
are other kinds OF people and other kinds OF
flowers
The snow-drop. delicate seemingly. pure grace
full. in our climate rises even through the crust
of the later SHOWS, answering the calling of the
first few tinid and changing days Of the early
spring as If anxious to replace the dreariness Of
the winter with dainty beauty and TO offer mod
es,ly the white promise of glores TO come The
snow-drop bends to the cold blasts of February
and March, but defies them and lives through
freezing nights and does its part. accompanied
quickly by the sturdy jonquil, also unafraid of
snow or iee and Offering cheerful
ance that life and beauty yet beneath the
frozen bosom Of the earth and anxious to come
forth Then tie arbutus and the 1Gssamfne, me
violet, shyly peepng from beneath Drowned
leaves and yeliowed grass blades and demurely
flirting with the warm breezes advance heralds
OF spring, and sending with each of them her
generous yielding OF wide-spreading fragrance
from little, fragile, fearless body. The small
woods flowers crowd busiy. each daring pos
sible nipping frosts. but intent doing well
1tg humble task OF making the Swallowed forests
and its tiny part of the world more beautiful
After. In the yards. the lilacs and snowballs
throw abroad their banners TO welcome 3ocund