34 



AN ESSAY ON FLOWERS. 



wisdom covered their leaves ; and that each 

 petal, stem, and leaf, was the divining rod 

 or scroll that held an invisible truth. 



Viewed abstractly, one of the peculiar at- 

 tractions 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 in 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 odor to exhale, awakens in the 

 mind, unconsciously, that interest which alone 

 attaches to the idea of decay. These two 

 ideas — that of the gratuitous ofiering of na- 

 ture in the advent of flowers, the benison 

 their presence seems to convey, and the 

 thought of their brief duration — invest flowers 

 with a moral significance that renders their 

 beauty more touching, and, as it were, nearer 

 to humanity, than any other species of mate- 

 rial loveliness. The infinite 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 

 perfection and individuality of their forms by 

 considering their suggestiveness. 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 porcelain 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, as Ruskin 

 justly indicates, is chiefly indebted to the 

 same source, not only in the minute decora- 

 tions of a frieze, but in the acanthus that ter- 

 minates a column, and the leaf-like pointing 

 of an arch, A skilful horticulturist will ex- 

 hibit the most delicate shades of fragrance in 

 different 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. Flow- 

 ers are related to all the offiees 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, trembled in the hair of the bride and 

 cheered the invalid's solitude. They have 

 been ever offered at the shrine of beauty, and 

 claimed as the pledges of love, nor ceased to 

 adorn the banquet or be scattered over the 

 grave. Thus domesticated, even without in- 

 trinsic beauty, and exclusive of any appeal to 

 taste, flowers are blended in the memories of 

 the least poetical with scenes of unwonted de- 

 light, keen emotion, and profound sorrow. 

 Hence they have a language for each, not re- 

 cognised in any alphabet, and their incense is 

 allied with the issues of destin3\ McGregor's 

 foot was more firmly planted, because upon 

 upon his "native heather;" the Syrian, in 

 the Jardin des Plants, wept as he clasped his 

 country's palm-tree ; Keats said, in his last 

 illness, that he felt the daisies growing over 

 him ; and one who, even in renowned matu- 

 rity, had wandered little from the singleness 

 of childhood, declared he could never see a 

 marigold without his mouth's watering at the 

 idea of those swimming in the broth Simple 

 Susan prepared for her mother, in Miss Edge- 

 worth's little story. There is no end to the 

 caressing allusions of Petrarch to the violet 

 and the laurel, so identified with the dress 

 and name of his beloved. Indeed, we might 

 scan biography and the poets for years, and 

 continually find new evidences of the familiar 

 and endearing relation of flowers to senti- 

 ment. Each of the latter have celebrated 

 some favorite of the race in their choicest 

 numbers ; and the very names of Ophelia and 

 Perdita are fragrant with the flowers that 

 Shakspeare, with the rarest and most appo- 

 site grace, has entwined with their history. 



The Venetian painters must have studied 

 colour in the hues of flowers ; for the bril- 

 liant, distinct, and warm tone of their works 

 affects the spectator exactly as these rainbow 

 gems ; especially when they strike the eye 

 in an isolated position, or surrounded by dim 

 umbrage. Nor is this effect confined to the 

 domesticated flowers ; for the richest and 

 most delicate gradations of tint occur among 

 uncultivated and indigenous plants — such as 

 the lobelia of the swamp, the saffron of the 



