ored me with a song and a sight together. He
was as spruce as if he had just donned a new suit, his black hood like
velvet, his chestnut of the richest, and his white of the whitest, and
he sang from the top of a small pine-tree; sometimes, in the restless
way of his family, scrambling over the branches, and again shifting his
position to a small birch-tree.

[Sidenote: _INDIVIDUALITY OF FLOWERS._]

Many other songs and singers I enjoyed in those pleasant mornings beside
the river, till the hour for what Thoreau designates as "that whirlpool
called a dinner" drew near, and then, unmindful of the philosopher's
advice, I started slowly homeward, collecting as I went, materials to
fill the vases in my room.

In gathering flowers, one needs to select with discretion, for they, no
less than their winged neighbors in the pasture, have an individuality
of their own. The wild rose, for example, is most amiable in lending
itself to our enjoyment. Not only does it submit to being torn from the
parental stem, but it will flourish perfectly, and go on opening bud
after bud, so long as it has one to open, as lovely and as fragrant as
its sisters on the bush. One needs only to snip off the heads whose
petals have dropped, to have a fresh and beautiful bowl of roses every
morning. The daisy too adorns our tables and our vases cheerfully, and
as long as if it still stood among the grasses, its feet planted in
mother earth; and even when it has lived out its allotted time, it
neither withers nor droops, but begins to look wild, its petals losing
their trim regularity and standing every way.

Different indeed is the disposition of the goldenrod, which, though
remaining fresh and bright, when called upon to decorate our homes,
obstinately refuses to open a petal after it is gathered; and the
fairy-like elder, which sullenly resents being touched, gives up the
struggle for existence and droops at once; and the cactus, which
promptly draws its satin petals together, and stubbornly declines to
open again. The loveliest bouquet of late July on the coast of Maine is
this, which I give for the pleasure of other flower-lovers, if haply
there be any who have not discovered it. Put in a vase a few stalks of
completely opened goldenrod, of the variety that divides into long,
finger-like stems. Let there be just enough so that when each blossom is
spread out full they shall barely cover the space. Have the stems of
equal length, so that the effe