48 PROSERPINA. 



tions, that we mean to have our part and place, or rathel 

 among the " brown skeletons of leaves that lag, the forest 

 brook along " ? For other leaves there are, and other streams 

 that water them, not water of life, but water of Acheron. 

 Autumnal leaves there are that strew the brooks, in Vallom- 

 brosa. Remember you how the name of the place was changed : 

 "Once called 'Sweet water' (Aqua bella), now, the Shadowy 

 Vale." Portion in one or other name we must choose, all of 

 us, with the living olive, by the living fountains of waters, or 

 with the wild fig trees, whose leafage of human soul is strewed 

 along the brooks of death, in the eternal Vallombrosa. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE FLOWER. 



ROME, WMt Monday, 1874. 



1. ON the quiet road leading from under the Palatine to the 

 little church of St. Nereo and Achilleo, I met, yesterday morn- 

 ing, 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 arti- 

 ficial 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 decorousness 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 disci- 

 pline. Where its tissue is blanched fairest, dyed purest, set in 

 strictest rank, appointed to most chosen office, there and 

 created by the fact of this purity and function is the flower. 



2. But created, observe, by the purity and order, more 

 than by the function. The flower exists for its own sake not 



