day, they droop and pine, they cry forlornly: 'We are weary, we
are dying; take us home to rest again!' There is the blood-red
cardinal-flower. Bold enough surely, you say. Wade, stretch, and leap,
and seize at last in triumph the coveted prize. A new difficulty! The
spikes are so rough, jagged, and stiff, there is no welding of them
together. You wish them back in their burning bush. The fringed blue
gentian, too, has very troublesome appendages. It is prettiest in its
pasture-built place, opening to the welcome breezes its azure petals.
Besides, there is where Bryant wishes it to remain, and certainly _his_
desire should have some weight with us.

Some mortifications, therefore, it has been seen, attend on the pursuit
of the art of flower-arranging. These are but the beginning of sorrows,
nevertheless. Many others might be mentioned, vexations consequent on
the constitution of the subjects themselves.

It is a melancholy fact that life and beauty can not be preserved in
them without water. On grand, temporary occasions it may answer for the
artist to disregard this natural law, but it would be an excess of
barbarity to do thus often. There ought to be no more martyrs for the
sake of _effect_ than can be helped.

But now ensues the tug of war. How make stems of all lengths stand in
the most desirable position and yet all touch the water? Sometimes a
shorter one _must_ stand above a longer one, when it is impossible to
bathe its feet in the refreshing liquid. _Sink_ the longer then; _cut_
it off. Each experiment will bring annoyance, as the tyro may find as he
plods on in his task. Short-stemmed flowers make '_chunky_' bouquets,
every one knows. Another trouble is occasioned by the froward behavior
of flowers. Never a woman among the sex could be at times so fickle and
perverse. I am not prepared to maintain the theory of a higher nature in
plants than the merely physical. It is enough for me to cling to an
enormous heresy with respect to _animals_. Against the fiat of
Christendom I will persist in granting them the semblance of a soul. I
_will_ swallow the old creed about flowers. Still, wherever they get
them, they do exhibit tantalizing qualities. _Perverse?_ That verbena
knows perfectly where she ought to go, where, in the goodness of your
heart, you are striving to place her, but how obstinately she resists,
slipping finally, in utter rebellion, from your fingers. _Fickle?_ How
docile was the same verbena yesterd