72 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE FLOWER. 



Rome, Whit Monday, 1874. 

 1. /^\N the quiet road leading from under the 

 ^-J Palatine to the little church of St. Nereo 

 and Achilleo, I met, yesterday morning, group after 

 group of happy peasants heaped in pyramids on 

 their triumphal carts, in Whit-Sunday dress, stout 

 and clean, and gay in colour ; and the women all 

 with bright artificial roses in their hair, set with 

 true natural taste, and well becoming them. This 

 power of arranging wreath or crown of flowers for 

 the head, remains to the people from classic times. 

 And the thing that struck me most in the look of 

 it was not so much the cheerfulness, as the dignity ; 

 — in a true sense, the becomingness and decorous- 

 ness of the ornament. Among the ruins of the 

 dead city, and the worse desolation of the work of 

 its modern rebuilders, here was one element at least 

 of honour, and order ; — and, in these, of delight. 



And these are the real significances of the flower 

 itself. It is the utmost purification of the plant, and 

 the utmost discipline. Where its tissue is blanched 



