. . . The ground was white in spots with half-melted snow. A few whirls
of snow had come down in the night, and the air was too cold to change
to rain. Some green leaves, in sheltered nooks, had accepted the
advances of the sun and were preparing for the summer. But that which I
came to search after was trailing arbutus, one of the most exquisite of
all Nature’s fondlings.
I did not seek in vain. The hills were covered with it. Its gay whorls
of buds peeped forth from ruffles of snow in the most charming beauty.
Many blossoms, too, quite expanded, did I find; some pure white, and a
few more deliciously suffused with pink. For nearly an hour I wandered
up and down, in pleasant fancies, searching, plucking, and arranging
these most beautiful of all early blossoms.
Who would suspect by the leaf what rare delicacy was to be in the
blossom? Like some people of plain and hard exterior, but of sweet
disposition, it was all the more pleasant from the surprise of contrast.
All winter long the little thing must have slumbered with dreams, at
least, of spring. It has waited for no pioneer or guide, but started of
its own self and led the way for all the flowers on the hillside.
Its little viny stem creeps close to the ground, humble, faithful, and
showing how the purest white may lay its cheek in the very dirt without
soil or taint.
The odor of the arbutus is exquisite, and as delicate as the plant is
modest. Some flowers seem determined to make an impression on you. They
stare at you. They dazzle your eyes. If you smell them, they overfill
your sense with their fragrance. They leave nothing for your gentleness
and generosity, but do everything themselves.
But this sweet nestler of the spring hills is so secluded, half-covered
with russet leaves, that you would not suspect its graces, did you not
stoop to uncover the vine, to lift it up, and then you espy its secluded
beauty.
If you smell it, at first it seems hardly to have an odor. But there
steals out of it at length the finest, rarest scent, that rather cites
desire than satisfies your sense. It is coy, without designing to be so,
and its reserve plays upon the imagination far more than could a more
positive way.
Without doubt there are intrinsic beauties in plants and flowers, and
yet very much of pleasure depends upon their relations to the seasons,
to the places where they grow, and to our own moods. No midsummer flower
can produce the thrill that the earliest blossoms bring, which tell us
that winter is gone, that growing days have come!—_Henry Ward Beecher._