09 March 2018


There Is Virtue In Constancy
Circa 1850

Trailing Arbutus (Epigaea repens)
Photo Link

I have been posting excerpts from Susan Fenimore Cooper's almost-unknown book, Rural Hours, which is a journal of the natural history and agrarian culture of Cooperstown, NY, circa 1850. Click Here for my first post.


Thursday, April 27th.— The arbutus is now open everywhere in the woods and groves. How pleasant it is to meet the same flowers year after year! If the blossoms were liable to change—if they were to become capricious and irregular—they might excite more surprise, more curiosity, but we should love them less; they might be just as bright, and gay, and fragrant under other forms, but they would not be the violets, the squirrel-cups, and ground laurels we loved last year. Whatever your roving fancies may say, there is virtue in constancy which has a reward above all that fickle change can bestow, giving strength and purity to every affection of life, and even throwing additional grace about the flowers which bloom in our native fields. We admire the strange and brilliant plant of the green-house, but we love most the simple flowers we have loved of old, which have bloomed many a spring, through rain and sunshine, on our native soil.




11 comments:

  1. Hey Herrick, I don't know is the problem at my side, but the letters in your posts seem very huge. 4 words in one row.

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    1. That's not good. I've viewed it in Chrome and Safari and it seems okay. What web browser are you using? Are previous posts having the same problem? Is anyone else having a similar viewing problem? I don't know what I can do to make it better.

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    2. Elizabeth L. Johnson said, Probably just need to click on and hold "ctrl" and simultaneously click the minus or plus sign keys on the right side of their laptop to the size they appreciate?

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    3. I am using Firefox, latest version. Here is how it looks like https://ibb.co/ddKbsn

      I just tried in Chromium (not same as Chrome) and letters are big, but not as in Firefox.

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    4. Reader,
      I see that is showing quite large for you. I wondered if it was because you were viewing on a phone (but it doesn't appear so). I have a large screen on my desktop computer and my eyesight is less than it once was, so I do use a large font. But it doesn't show that large for me. I may have my view setting zoomed out just right. I'll drop the font size down a notch in my next post and see how that looks. Thanks for the info.

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  2. Mine is in a larger font also, but not uncomfortably large. I just assumed you were posting in a larger font. This story reminds me that as a youngster I would always enjoy spring time walks in the woods surrounding our property. I would always see purple violets (Johnny Jump-Ups), but one season noticed one yellow violet-no others around. I wondered if it was a rare find... Thanks for another excerpt.

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    1. Oh, He makes them too!
      https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/flower/downy-yellow-violet

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    2. wonderful! Thanks for the link.

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  3. No font problem for me Herrick. I normally use Safari but I checked it in 5 other browsers and no problems. Users with problems may want to clear their caches. If they're using Internet Explorer or Edge they may want to try Firefox or Chrome.

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    1. vdeal,
      Thanks for looking into all the web browsers. It's good to know they are all showing this blog properly. I use Chrome mostly.

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  4. I thought the brouhaha was because you made the font SMALLER! Another answer downstream from here!

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