CHAPTER XII. 



THE AMARANTH. 



" That fadeth not away." i PETER i. 4. 



NOTHING can be lovelier than the meadows of 

 Greece and Southern Italy, covered in spring 

 with myriads of wild flowers, whose vivid colours are 

 illuminated by the strong light of a southern sun, 

 which defines outline and shadow and gives value to 

 the faintest hue. These flowers grow in rich profusion 

 year after year among the hoary ruins of man's work, 

 renewing their brightness while all around them is 

 decaying, and adorning with a garland of ever-living 

 beauty the haunts of the gods of old, and the scenes of 

 departed greatness and pride. And yet instead of 

 transferring in imagination to the Elysian fields this 

 goodly sight with which the classic poets were familiar 

 from their childhood, and thus making it ideal, seen 

 paler in the celestial light, but not more beautiful, they 

 pictured their pagan paradise as remote from it as pos- 

 sible. Out of all the vast wealth of earth's floral beauty, 



they selected only two flowers to adorn its dim and 

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