Observe that the bells of the primrose are "dim"--pale in hue--because the earth is not sufficiently awake for bright colors or for joyful chimes--so the color is faint and the sound is delicate. Trees are now timidly putting forth tender leaves, buds peer cautiously from the soil, and few birds sing; for leaves, buds, and birds know full well that winter is lurking in the distance and that rough winds occasionally issue from the bag of Boreas. The time has not yet come for "lisp of leaves and ripple of rain" and for choirs of feathered songsters. Yet all the more, because of its bold daring and its modest demeanor, the primrose deserves the enthusiastic welcome it has always received from poets and flower lovers. "The primrose," writes Dr. Forbes Watson, "seems the very flower of delicacy and refinement; not that it shrinks from our notice, for few plants are more easily seen, coming as it does when there is a dearth of flowers, when the first birds are singing and the first bees humming and the earliest green putting forth in the March and April woods. And it is one of those plants which dislikes to be looking cheerless, but keeps up a smouldering fire of blossom from the very opening of the year, if the weather will permit. "The flower is of a most unusual color, a pale, delicate yellow, slightly tinged with green. And the better flowers impress us by a peculiar paleness, not dependent upon any feebleness of hue, which we always find unpleasing, but rather upon the _exquisite_ _softness of their tone_. And we must not overlook the little round stigma, that green and translucent gem, which forms the pupil of the eye, and is surrounded by a deeper circle of orange which helps it to shine forth more clearly. Many flowers have a somewhat pensive look; but in the pensiveness of the primrose there is a shade of melancholy--a melancholy which awakens no thought of sadness and does but give interest to the pale, sweet, inquiring faces which the plant upturns towards us.