mallow

I've been reading Agnes Strickland's The Use  of Sight (1822) today: a nature-educational-homily aimed at children, teaching them to pay better, and more curious attention to the world around them.  “What a variety of interesting objects may be seen in a common walk, would we but exercise our thinking powers and look around us; would we but exercise the habit of observation, and take notice of all that is to be seen!  Not a cloud, not a leaf, not an insect, not a pebble, nor a flower, but might become the source of some interesting inquiries.”   Harriet complains to her father that their maid, or governess - it's not quite clear who - takes them on the same boring walk everyday, down the London Road (given that these are classically picturesque rural surroundings, London's some way off).  Largely rural, that is - there's a canal with coal barges; a working quarry with fossils that illustrate the truth of the Biblical deluge.  Then there are useful plants, and spiders ... the moral is, one just has to look, and think ...

There's little chance of boredom here, even if we do take more or less the same walk most days, at the moment.  This is a street or so away from our house: a mallow that's just come into flower. Harriet would have nothing to complain about ...