104: PROSERPINA. 



or bursting globe as some essential part of their ornament ; 

 the bean-pod for the same reason (not without Pythago- 

 rean notions, and some of republican election) is used by 

 Brunelleschi for main decoration of the lantern of Flor- 

 ence duomo ; and, finally, the ornamentation gets so 

 shapeless, that M. Violet-le-Duc, in his 4 Dictionary of 

 Ornament,' loses trace of its origin altogether, and fancies 

 the later forms were derived from the spadix of the 

 arum. 



16. I have no time to enter into farther details ; but 

 through all this vast range of art, note this singular fact, 

 that the wheat-ear, the vine, the fleur-de-lys, the poppy, 

 and the jagged leaf of the acanthus-weed, or thistle, 

 occupy the entire thoughts of the decorative workmen 

 trained in classic schools, to the exclusion of the rose, true 

 lily, and the other flowers of luxury. And that the deeply 

 underlying reason of this is in the relation of w r eeds to 

 corn, or of the adverse powers of nature to the beneficent 

 ones, expressed for us readers of the Jewish scriptures, 

 centrally in the verse, " thorns also, and thistles, shall it 

 bring forth to thee ; and thou shalt eat the herb of the 

 field " (%0/>ro9, grass or corn), and exquisitely symbolized 

 throughout the fields of Europe by the presence of the 

 purple 'corn-flag,' or gladiolus, and ' corn-rose' (Gerarde's 

 name for Papaver Rhoeas), in the midst of carelessly 

 tended corn ; and in the traditions of the art of Europe 

 by the springing of the acanthus round the basket of the 

 canephora, strictly the basket for bread, the idea of bread 



