Really, wealth cannot
purchase pleasures of the higher sort; these depend not on money, or
money's worth; it is the heart, and taste, and intellect, which
determine the happiness of men; which give the seeing eye and the
sentient nature, and without which, man is little better than a kind
of walking clothes-horse.
A snug and a clean home, no matter how tiny it be, so that it be
wholesome; windows, into which the sun can shine cheerily; a few
good books (and who need be without a few good books in these days
of universal cheapness?)--no duns at the door, and the cupboard well
supplied, and with a flower in your room!--and there is none so poor
as not to have about him the elements of pleasure.
Hark! there is a child passing our window calling "wallflowers!" We
must have a bunch forthwith: it is only a penny! A shower has just
fallen, the pearly drops are still hanging upon the petals, and they
sparkle in the sun which has again come out in his beauty.
How deliciously the flower smells of country and nature! It is like
summer coming into our room to greet us. The wallflowers are from
Kent, and only last night were looking up to the stars from their
native stems; they are full of buds yet, with their promise of fresh
beauty.
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