Because I speak well of the violet for its humility, I see no reason why
I should quarrel with the aster for loving to make a show. Herein, too,
plants are like men. An indisposition toward publicity is amiable in
those to whom it is natural; but I am not clear that bashfulness is the
only commendable quality. Let plants and men alike carry themselves
according to their birthright. Providence has not ordained a diversity
of gifts for nothing, and it is only a narrow philosophy that takes
offense at seeming contrarieties. The truer method, and the happier as
well, is to like each according to its kind: to love that which is
amiable, to admire that which is admirable, and to study that which is
curious.

A few weeks ago, for example, I walked again up the mountain road that
climbs out of the Franconia Valley into the Franconia Notch. I had left
home twenty-four hours before, fresh from working upon the asters and
golden-rods (trying to straighten out my local catalogue in accordance
with Dr. Gray's more recent classification of these large and difficult
genera), and naturally enough had asters and golden-rods still in my
eye. The first mile or two afforded nothing of particular note, but by
and by I came to a cluster of the sturdy and peculiar _Solidago
squarrosa_, and was taking an admiring account of its appearance and
manner of growth, when I caught sight of some lower blue flower
underneath, which on a second glance proved to be the closed gentian.
This grew in hiding, as one might say, in the shadow of its taller and
showier neighbors. Not far off, but a little more within the wood, were
patches of the linnaea, which had been at its prettiest in June, but even
now, in late September, was still putting forth scattered blossoms. What
should a man do? Discard the golden-rod for the gentian, and in turn
forsake the gentian for the twin-flower? Nay, a child might do that, but
not a man; for the three were all beautiful and all interesting, and
each the more beautiful and interesting for its unlikeness to the
others. If one wishes a stiff lesson in classification, there are few
harder genera (among flowering plants) than _Solidago_; if he would
investigate the timely and taking question of the dependence of plants
upon insects, this humble "proterandrous" gentian (which to human vision
seems closed, but which the humble-bee knows well how to enter) offers
him a favorable subject; while if he has an eye for beauty, a nose fo