,
Was held by common sympathy, diffusing
Through all the complex frame unconscious life.

--_Montgomery's Pelican Island_.

* * * * *

What makes us like new acquaintances is not so much any weariness
of our old ones, or the pleasure of change, as disgust at not
being sufficiently admired by those who know us too well, and
the hope of being more so by those who do not know so much of
us.--_La Rochefoucauld_.

_AMONG THE DAISIES._

"Laud the first spring daisies--
Chant aloud their praises."--_Ed. Youl._

"When daisies pied and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver white--
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight."

--_Shakspeare._

"Belle et douce Marguerite, aimable soeur du roi Kingcup,"
enthusiastically exclaims genial Leigh Hunt, "we would tilt for
thee with a hundred pens against the stoutest poet that did not
find perfection in thy cheek." And yet, who would have the heart
to slander the daisy, or cause a blush of shame to tint
its whiteness? Tastes vary, and poets may value the flower
differently; but a rash, deliberate condemnation of the daisy is
as likely to become realized as is a harsh condemnation of the
innocence and simplicity of childhood. So the chivalric Hunt need
not fear being invoked from the silence of the grave to take part
in a lively tournament for "belle et douce Marguerite."

Subjectively, the daisy is a theme upon which we love to linger.
In our natural state, when flesh and spirit are both models
of meekness, two objects are wont to throw us into a kind of
ecstasy: a row of nicely painted white railings, and a bunch of
fresh daisies. These waft us back along a vista of years, peopled
with scenes the most entrancing, and fancies the most pleasing.
They call up at once the old country home: the honeysuckle
clasping the thatched cottage, contrasting so prettily with the
white fence in front: the sloping fields of green painted with
daisies, through which, unshackled, the buoyant breeze swept so
peacefully. It was an invariable rule, in those days, to
troop through the meadows at early morn and, like a young
knight-errant, bear home in triumph "Marguerite," the peerless
daisy, rescued from the clutches of unmentionable dragons,
and now to beam brightly on us for the rest of the day from a
neighboring mantel-piece. And it was with great reluctance