NOVEMBER 93 



but it flowers so late that it does not come to perfection 

 out of doors. It looks very well under glass in front of 

 a group of white Chrysanthemums. The flowers are as 

 large as Aster amellus, and of the same colour, which is 

 so different in tone from that of any of the Chrysanthe- 

 mums. It reminds me a little of StoJcesia cyanea, which 

 I used to grow in the same way; only that did not stand 

 the moving and potting up nearly so well as this Aster 

 does. I dare say I did not manage it rightly. 



November 8th. There is a famous seller of old books 

 in Frankfort named Baer. He lives in the Rossmarkt, 

 and some of my best old flower -books I have had from 

 him. I brought home this time one of those books that 

 delight a collector's heart, a really very fine one. I 

 have been told by an artist who saw it here that it must 

 have cost more than 2,000/. to bring it out. The book 

 consists of two elephant folios bound in old stamped 

 white vellum, and bringing them back as a parcel was 

 not exactly easy. There is no letterpress at all in the 

 first volume. It has two handsome frontispieces in the 

 Dutch manner, with Flora and another goddess holding 

 a large straw bee -hive. In the middle is the title, writ- 

 ten in Latin and printed on what is supposed to 

 represent a sheet of parchment, hung from a classical 

 building with columns on each side. At the bottom is a 

 representation of the Garden of Eden, with trees and 

 various animals, all well drawn. Adam is walking with 

 the Almighty, who is represented by the figure of an old 

 man surrounded by what in early Italian art is called a 

 mandorla, or almond-shaped glory. Miss Hope Rea, in 

 ' Tuscan Artists,' says of this almond-shaped glory : 

 'In Christian symbolism and art it is reserved for 

 Christ, and has a profound signification. Though called 

 a mandorla, or almond, it is really intended to represent 

 the form of a fish ; and this, from the days of the 



