It is peculiarly interesting to observe how the profoundest depths of
thought and feeling are sometimes stirred in the heart of genius by the
smallest of the works of Nature. Even more ordinarily gifted men are
similarly affected to the utmost extent of their intellect and
sensibility. We grow tired of the works of man. In the realms of art we
ever crave something unseen before. We demand new fashions, and when the
old are once laid aside, we wonder that they should ever have excited
even a moment's admiration. But Nature, though she is always the same,
never satiates us. The simple little Daisy which Burns has so sweetly
commemorated is the same flower that was "of all flowres the flowre," in
the estimation of the Patriarch of English poets, and which so delighted
Wordsworth in his childhood, in his middle life, and in his old age. He
gazed on it, at intervals, with unchanging affection for upwards of
fourscore years.
The Daisy--the miniature sun with its tiny rays--is especially the
favorite of our earliest years. In our remembrances of the happy meadows
in which we played in childhood, the daisy's silver lustre is ever
connected with the deeper radiance of its gay companion, the butter-cup,
which when held against the dimple on the cheek or chin of beauty turns
it into a little golden dell. The thoughtful and sensitive frequenter of
rural scenes discovers beauty every where; though it is not always the
sort of beauty that would satisfy the taste of men who recognize no
gaiety or loveliness beyond the walls of cities.
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