"
But after being some time in a great city, one feels a longing for the
country.
"The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening paradise." [4]
Here Gray justly places flowers in the first place, for when in any great
town we think of the country, flowers seem first to suggest themselves.
"Flowers," says Ruskin, "seem intended for the solace of ordinary
humanity. Children love them; quiet, tender, contented, ordinary people
love them as they grow; luxurious and disorderly people rejoice in them
gathered. They are the cottager's treasure; and in the crowded town mark,
as with a little broken fragment of rainbow the windows of the workers in
whose heart rest the covenant of peace." But in the crowded street, or
even in the formal garden, flowers always seem, to me at least, as if they
were pining for the freedom of the woods and fields, where they can live
and grow as they please.
There are flowers for almost all seasons and all places.
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