The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863, page 79 by Various Authors
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t, what say the Asters in return? Ah! what do they not say?
The Verbenas seem fairly delirious this morning, as though the consciousness of their own beauty made them run wildly from their beds into the paths, to say to the passers-by, with their bright little faces:
'See! am I not charming?'
Well, you are pretty--very pretty; but I care not for you as for your plainer stepsister, the 'sweet-scented Verbena.' She has a pale, sad face; but she has a soul, which you have not, poor things! for perfume is the soul of 'flower people.'
But, who wants gold? Lives there a man with purse so full who does not want it? Well, then, snatch that heap of sunshine, that dazzling Coreopsis, and be off before the policeman turns into this path. Ah, ye Daylilies! You break my heart with your moonlight faces. Standing apart from the world-flowers, like novices in their white veils, who offer the incense of their beauty to Heaven--oh! give a little of your perfume to a poor un-otto-of-rosed mortal--breathe on me, and I can laugh at the costly 'Wood Violet,' 'Eglantine,' and 'Rose,' with which Harris & Chapman scent their patronesses--to be dollared in return!
Daylilies, your perfume is too subtle, too vague, to be coined or 'cabined, cribbed, confined' in scent bottles.
Ah! the flowering Mosses; they seem to be having one eternal picnic with the Myrtles and Verbenas, playing forever that dear-to-children game of 'Tag'! Some are arrayed in Solferino velvets, rather heavy for this warm day! Prettier these, in soft rose-colored robes, and this, in a
'Oh! call me fair, not pale'--
well, almost pale robe, the very climax of delicacy: the faintest thought of rose color alone prevents one from calling it lily-white. I am reminded of you, O flower-named friend! Vision of loveliness! which has in a few never-to-be-forgotten days oasised my Sahara life. Now I have reached the pond--my Lake George! It is fresh and b