A passion
for books is very apt to exclude a very active passion for flowers,
and it will be found, I suspect, that these persons who are most
remarkable for the cultivation of flowers are least sensible to the
charms of letters. It seems monstrous, indeed, that a human being
should expend hours and days in the nursing and tendance of such
stupid beauties as plants and flowers, when earth is filled with
so many lovelier objects that come to us commended by the superior
sympathies which belong to humanity. Our cities are filled with
the sweetest orphans--flowers destined to be immortal; angels in
form, that might be angels in spirit--that must be, whether for
good or evil--whom we never cultivate--whom we suffer to escape our
tendance, and leave to the most pitiable ignorance, and the most
wretched emergencies of want. The life that is wasted upon dahlias,
must, prima facie, be the life of one heartless and insensible,
and most probably, brutish in a high degree.
But Alfred Stevens had very little time for further reflection.
They were at the door of the cottage.
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