Who is the man who knows the flower? Is it he who plucks, and dissects, and classifies? or he who, seeing the blossom floating on the summer air, glistening in the sunlight, feels a tender, thrilling recognition of that beauty, which is the good gift of a good and loving God? And who is the man who knows a word? "Why it lies there on the paper,—a mere word." You have spoken it a thousand times. You have played with it toss and catch, as with a ball, in the random game of speech, and yet, do you know it?
You may trace its derivation—you may analyze its component parts, and yet it may lie there still upon the paper, a stranger, "a mere word."Listen!
"The man who looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye,
Or, if he likes may through it pass
And the blue heavens espy."
