192 IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN 



copied from the heathen or Eastern poets. By French 

 writers the rose is made to teach the decay of beauty, 

 especially of female beauty. By English writers the 

 lessons have a tone of sadness, and often almost of 

 sternness. They cannot, and do not try to, escape the 

 obvious lessons of decay of all that is lovely and 

 pleasant on earth, but it is curious that it is the thorns 

 of the rose that seem most to have caught their atten- 

 tion, and from them they draw two very different 

 lessons. They love to point to the rose and its thorns 

 as showing the treacherous character of all earthly 

 pleasures ; but they love also to point to the thorns as 

 forming only a part of the rose, and a necessary part, 

 to perfect and protect the rich flower ; and so, while on 

 one side the lesson is that no pleasure is without pain, 

 rosa inter spinas, so, on the other side, there is the 

 brighter lesson, that troubles lead to joy— ^er spinas 

 rosa — per tribulos caelum. 



