LAST WORDS OF THE POET HEINE.
OF the many touching tributes paid to flowers, there is a beautiful one associated with the closing hours of Henry Heine, the poet. He was dying in Paris. The doctor was paying his usual visit, when Heine pressed his hand and said: "Doctor, you are my friend, I ask a last favor. Tell me the truth—the end is approaching, is it not?"
The doctor was silent.
"Thank you," said Heine calmly.
"Have you any request to make?" asked the doctor, moved to tears.
"Yes," replied the poet; "my wife sleeps—do not disturb her. Take from the table the fragrant flowers she brought me this morning. I love flowers so dearly. Thanks—place them upon my breast." He paused, as he inhaled their perfume. His eyes closed, and he murmured: "Flowers, flowers, how beautiful is Nature!" These were his last words.
THE OLD MAN AND THE FLOWERS.
A few years since the Belfast (Me.) Journal gave this touching incident: "One day last week an elderly man, known to our people as an honest and hard-working citizen, was walking slowly up Main street. There was sorrow in his countenance, and the shadow of grief upon his face. Opposite the Savings Bank his eye caught sight of the flowering Oleander, that with other plants fill the bay-window of the banking-room. He looked at it long and wistfully. At length he pushed open the door, and approaching Mr. Q., said:
"'Will you give me a few of those flowers?'