OLD-FASHIONED FLOWERS 



most dumb, if the flowers had not, since 

 centuries, fed with their beauty the lan- 

 guage which we speak and the thoughts 

 that endeavour to crystallize the most 

 precious hours of life.(The whole voca- 

 bulary, all the impressions of love, are 

 impregnate with their breath, nourished 

 with their smile. When we love, all the 

 flowers that we have seen and smelt 

 seem to hasten within us to people with 

 their known charms the consciousness 

 of a sentiment whose happiness, but for 

 them, would have no more form than 

 the horizons of the sea or sky. They 

 have accumulated within us, since our 

 childhood, and even before it, in the 

 soul of our fathers, an immense trea- 

 sure, the nearest to our joys, upon 



