104: TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



nionette, or, perchance the oppressive odor of a Tube Rose, 

 bringing back the flower-laden casket and the icy "touch of a 

 vanished hand?" Through such influences the rough nature is 

 softened and subdued, the finer sensibilities are touched. 



We have among our treasures, the remains of an old-fashioned 

 Cinnamon Rose, tacked on a slip of letter paper, every petal 

 has dropped away, only the stem and the heart of the rose 

 remain ; and yet, that sacred souvenir is fragrant with the mem- 

 ories of twenty-five years ago, when a home-sick girl-wife, living 

 among the lovely hills of Iron Ridge, Wisconsin, received a 

 letter, and found enveloped in its folds, this rose that had 

 bloomed under the window of her old home in Illinois. As she 

 kissed the sacred blossom, and inhaled its fragrance, the magic 

 wand of fancy was touched; the little room in which she was 

 sitting faded from her sight, and she was spirited away to her 

 girlhood's home. Old associations came thronging up; the 

 limpid waters of the brook gushed and bubbled at her feet ; the 

 birds were singing in the maples ; the bees were humming in the 

 garden; the dear home voices, it seemed, had grown more musi- 

 cally sweet than ever before. Time flew on rosy wings ; moments 

 sped into hours, when, lo! she was telephoned back to this 

 mundane sphere by the familiar interrogation, ■" Say, how long 

 before dinner will be ready?' ' " Bless my soul, is it noon? Why 

 I've been 'way down in Illinois, just got back. Can't we manage 

 with a lunch now, and take the banquet later?" While thus the 

 flowers we cherish to-day with tenderest care, may wither and 

 perish to-morrow, yet the associations connected with them, and 

 their pure, sweet influences are the immortelles we carry in our 

 hearts through life. Mrs. Hemans sweetly tells the story of a 

 dying girl, from which we quote this passage : 



"Mother, be comforted that now I weep no more. God hath 

 purified my spirit's eye. And in the folds of this consummate rose 

 I read bright prophecies. I see not there, dimly and mournfully, 

 the word 'Farewell' on the rich petals traced. No; in soft 

 veins and characters of beauty I can read — 'Look up ! look 

 heavenward!' " 



"Blessed God of Love! I thank Thee for these gifts, the prec- 

 ious links whereby my spirit unto Thee is drawn ! I thank Thee 

 that the flowers, of earth higher than earth can raise me! Are 

 not these but germs of things imperishable that bloom beside the 

 immortal streams? And, oh, by what strange spell is it, that 

 ever when I gaze on flowers I dream of Music?" 



T'was the angel of the flowers, through the starry eyes of the 

 Pansy, that made beautiful the life of the sickly weaver, Hugh 

 Sutherland. Poor Hugh! friendless and lame, apprenticed to 

 the loom, how cheerless the outlook, until, to use the language 

 of the poet, "Heaven took the task upon itself, and sent an 

 Angel down among the flowers." A few sickly Pansies first at- 



