After one of these walks, taken in the early spring,
she rushed up to my informant and, with childlike simplicity, told him
of the thrill of delight she had experienced in discovering the first
flower of the year in full bloom--a dandelion, which, with
characteristic audacity, had risked its life by braving the elements of
an uncertain season.
"Did you pick it?" asked the doctor.
"I stooped to do so," said the patient; "then I thought of the pleasure
the sight of it had given me--so I left it, hoping that someone else
would discover it and enjoy its beauty as I did."
Thus it was that a woman, while still insane, unconsciously exhibited
perhaps finer feeling than did Ruskin, Tennyson, and Patmore on an
occasion the occurrence of which is vouched for by Mr. Julian
Hawthorne. These three masters, out for a walk one chilly afternoon in
late autumn, discovered a belated violet bravely putting forth from the
shelter of a mossy stone. Not until these worthies had got down on all
fours and done ceremonious homage to the flower did they resume their
walk.
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