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Ignorant of writing, they could not comprehend the mystery, and the story of the "talking leaf," mingled with just enough of fiction to render it pleasant to an Indian's ear, formed one of their numerous traditions.

In the view which we have taken, talking leaves are no mysteries; though human hand has touched them not, they all have language; all are talking leaves. Read, yes, study this living page of God's volume, and though perhaps you. cannot assign to each bud,

"A sentiment and speech,"

yet commune with them, for they will make you wiser and better.

Talk with the "flower-people;" they are the inspired of God, and will tell you nothing but truth. However varied may be their language upon some subjects, they have a common, commission, a commission received from Him,

"Who flung them with a hand so free,

O'er hill and dale and desert sod."

It is implied in the remaining lines:

"That man where'er he walks may see
In every step, the stamp of God."

Thus, though Milton's Eve, exclaimed in her farewell la ment, as she hung over the flowers of Paradise,

"Oh flowers,

That never will in other climate grow,"

yet, wherever the outcast man has wandered, amid Alpine snows or burning sands, these beautiful inmates of Eden have gone out before him every where, fair and bright as ever, to bless him.

Wearied with the inconsistencies, and sickened at the absurdities of man's productions you may be, but you can ever

turn with confidence and delight to the pages of nature so diversified, yet so consistent, so beautiful, yet true.

Poverty may deprive you of books and papers, but you may have occasion to bless that poverty, as it compels you to read nature, if you read at all.

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The splendid volumes of a princely library might assist you to find this or that in the great book of nature, for after all, they are nothing but its tables of contents, and who would reject a volume which cost them nothing, and such a volume! In conclusion, are you not ready to exclaim with the poet? "There is a language in each flower That opens to the eye;

A voiceless-but a magic power,

Doth in earth's blossoms lie."

CHAPTER IV.

What we have done-Chat with the reader-Anecdote-Learning and knowing are two things-Language of the night Distant lands-Morning on the Alps-What is nobler than mountain scenery.

Well, reader, we have had a short chat with the flowers; we put our ear to the earth, and caught the Violet's modest whisper, "trust in Providence," and the frost-chained prisoner's song of hope; we looked up and heard the Mistletoe's stirring exhortation, and the Aspen's thrilling words; we crushed the Camomile, and it blessed us.

Short as was our talk, it was long enough, I hope, to remind you what a vast treasure-house, Nature is, and more than this, that it is all your own.

That you thought of a hundred things that were omitted, I can easily believe; that you glanced at a hundred objects, which you would have gladly tarried to gaze upon, and won. dered that I did not feel so too, is not strange.

In a theme, for which the field, the forest and the wayside furnish materials in almost boundless profusion, my duty is the pleasing but arduous one of selection rather than collection.

Are you so dissatisfied with me that you feel resolved to do your own selecting for the future? Have I discharged the duty so imperfectly, that you are more than half inclined to review the ground, with some better guide than I am; to become better acquainted, not with distant nations and far-off lands, but with the rainbow-painted tribes that inhabit the pastures, and whose forms are mirrored in the reed-hidden brooks? Then, indeed, have I been eminently successful, and can in sincerity bid you God-speed.

I remember driving, when a little boy, very swiftly through a beautiful but unfrequented valley. The thrush built her nest by the road-side, and the squirrel's shrill chirrup sounded from the bushes as we brushed by.

Whir-r-r, whir-r-r, and away went the cunning partridge, startled at the sound of wheels, from its leafy covert. Tumpte-tump, beat the gay-liveried wood-pecker on his hollow tree, till the single strokes degenerated into a double drag.

Still on we whirled, and as I glanced now on one side, now on the other, the pleasure of each glance was more than half spoiled by the thought of how much I lost in not being able to look all ways at once.

Ever and anon, the clear, bell-like note of some unseen bird, awakened all the boy within me, and I peered here and there through the foliage, to catch a glimpse of the stranger, but the road was smooth; smack, crack went the whip, and away we dashed, faster than ever.

A wicked thought came into my mind, "if a wheel would only run off-then"-my benevolence quickly added, "softly, ever so softly," but conscience, the little angel, whispered all the while, in most decided tones, "wrong, wrong.' How gladly would I have given up the anticipated visit, and wan-. dered the long day, amid those shady recesses!

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As we hastened on, I spied on the sunny side of an old log, a sentinel woodchuck, in his overalls of gray; but as we approached, his clumsy heels twinkled in the air, as much as to say, "not at home to day," and he was gone.

It was the spring-time of nature, as it was of my young spirit; the trees wore a livelier green, and the wild roses that bordered the road exhaled a sweeter perfume than they were

wont.

The blood in my veins, instead of flowing lazily along,

fairly bounded, for the breath of the thousand living, growing things around, somehow gave me new life, and I was happy.

Many a time since, have I thought of that beautiful vale, and the delight with which I should revisit those scenes, that like a dream of the past, haunt my memory still.

Thus I would have you feel, reader, and though in your future acquisitions, you may "forget the things that are behind," and among them, my little book, yet if I unseal any new fountain of pleasure to your mind; if Language appear no longer as an unseemly thing, "a root out of dry ground," devoid of freshness and beauty; if you begin to know, what you long ago learned, I shall glory in being thus forgotten.

"I linger yet with nature," said one, and who would not? Night has its language too; a kind of spirit-voice, not merely heard, but felt; so have the scasons. Shall we pass them by? Just as you please, reader; you can turn over the few following leaves upon this subject, unread, and they shall be mine, not yours; but if you do, remember that they are no longer your own; never turn back to them; remember! Or we can go on, hand in hand together, not that I should be lonely to ramble on by myself; O no, that cannot be in such a world as this is, where flowers and stars and seasons talk; but we could converse, you know, "of this and that, and that and this," and when the hour of parting came, why, we would divide our little stock of knowledge equally, and as we traveled on life's journey, we both might wish our paths had run together longer.

Did the deep stillness of a summer's night ever wake you, reader? When the winds were asleep that sung your lullaby; when the purling brook seemed to glide more softly than it was wont, as if fearful to disturb Nature's repose; when the strange cry of "Whip-poor-will" had died away in the

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