222 THE FLORIST. 



kingdom. It is pleasant to regard these graceful denizens of the 

 garden and forest in the spirit of that fine hymn of Horace Smith's 

 which celebrates their beautiful significance. Instead of looking at 

 them through the microscopic lens of mere curiosity, or according to 

 the fanciful and hackneyed alphabet that floral dictionaries suggest, 

 let us note their influence as symbols and memorials. To analyse 

 the charm of flowers is like dissecting music ; it is one of those 

 things which it is far better to enjoy than to attempt to understand. 

 In observing the relation of flowers to life and character, I have often 

 been tempted to believe that a subtle and occult magnetism per- 

 vaded their atmosphere ; that inscriptions of wisdom covered their 

 leaves ; and that each petal, stem, and leaf, was the divining-rod or 

 scroll that held an invisible truth. 



Viewed abstractedly, one of the peculiar attractions of flowers is 

 the fact that they seem a gratuitous development of beauty : " they 

 toil not, neither do they spin." In almost every other instance iu 

 nature, the beautiful is only incidental to the useful ; but flowers 

 have the objectless, spontaneous luxury of existence that belongs to 

 childhood. They typify most eloquently the benign intent of the 

 universe ; and by gratifying through the senses the instinct of beauty, 

 vindicate the poetry of life with a divine sanction. Their fragility is 

 another secret charm. A vague feeling that the bright hue is soon 

 to wither, and the rich odour to exhale, awakens in the mind uncon- 

 sciously that interest which alone attaches to the idea of decay. 

 These two ideas — that of the gratuitous off'ering of nature in the ad- 

 vent of flowers, the benison their presence seems to convey, and the 

 thought of their brief duration — invest flowers with a moral signifi- 

 cance that renders their beauty more touching, and as it were nearer 

 to humanity, than any other species of material loveliness. The in- 

 finite variety of form, the exquisite combination of tints, the diver- 

 sity of habits and odorous luxuries they boast, it would require an 

 elaborate treatise to unfold. We may obtain an idea of the perfec- 

 tion and individuality of their forms by considering their suggestive- 

 ness. Scarcely a tasteful fabric meets the eye, from the rich brocade 

 of a past age to the gay prints of to-day, that owes not its pleasing 

 design to some flower. Not an ancient urn or modern cup of porce- 

 lain or silver but illustrates in its shape, and the embossed or painted 

 sides, how truly beautiful is art when it follows strictly these eternal 

 models of grace and adaptation. Even architecture is chiefly in- 

 debted to the same source, not only in the minute decorations of a 

 frieze, but in the Acanthus that terminates a column, and the leaf- 

 like pointing of an arch. A skilful horticulturist will exhibit the 

 most delicate shades of fragrance in diff'erent species of the Rose, 

 until a novice cannot but realise to what a miraculous extent the 

 most refined enjoyment in nature may be sublimated and modified ; 

 and the same thing is practicable as regards both hue and form. 



The spirit of beauty in no other inanimate embodiment comes so 

 near the heart. Flowers are related to all the oflSces and relations of 

 human life. They bound the sacrificial victim of the ancients, and 

 from the earliest times have been woven into garlands for the victor, 



