A Chapter on Roses 255 



"Whatsoe'er of beauty 

 Yearns, and yet reposes, 

 Blush, and bosom, and sweet breath, 

 Took a shape in roses." - LEKIH IlrxT. 



Now the secret of this perpetual and undying charm 

 about the rose, is not to be found in its color - there are 

 bright lilies, and gay tiger-flowers, and dazzling air-plants, 

 far more rich and vivid: it is not alone in fragrance, - -for 

 there are violets and jasmines with "more passionate sighs 

 of sweetness;" it is not in foliage, for there arc laurels 

 and magnolias, with leaves of richer and more glossy green. 

 Where, then, does this secret of the world's six thousand 

 years' homage lie? 



In its being a type of infinity. Of infinity! says our most 

 innocent maiden reader, who loves roses without caring why, 

 and who does not love infinity, because she does not under- 

 stand it. Roses, a type of infinity, says our theological 

 reader, who has been in the habit of considering all flowers 

 of the field, aye, and the garden, too, as emblems of the 

 short-lived race of man --"born to trouble as the sparks 

 fly upward." Yes, we have said it, and for the honor of the 

 rose we will prove it, that the secret of the world's devotion 

 to the rose, - - of her being the queen of flowers by accla- 

 mation always and forever, is that the rose is a type of 

 infinity. 



In the first place, then, the rose is a type of infinity, be- 

 cause there is no limit to the variety and beauty of the 

 forms and colors which it assumes. From the wild rose, 

 whose sweet, faint odor is wasted in the depths of the silent 

 wood, or the eglantine, whose wreaths of fresh sweet blossoms 

 embroider even the dusty road sides, 



"Starring each bush in lanes and glades," 



to that most perfect, full, rounded, and odorous flower, that 

 swells the heart of the florist as he beholds its richness and 

 symmetry, what an innumerable range of shades, and forms, 

 and colors! And, indeed, with the hundreds and thousands 

 of roses of modern times, we still know little of all the varied 



