180 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. IV. 



to learn of B L 's convalescence. I do not wish to see more 

 of those I love die, to prove 



" That the good die first, and they whose hearts 

 Are dry as summer dust, burn to the socket." 



I speak of her in connexion with flowers, because she promised 

 to share the flowers she got sent her with me, but did not after 

 all, because, as I suppose, I one day laughingly said I should 

 watch diligently what flowers she sent me, and consult the 

 ' Language of Flowers,' to see the hidden meaning of each. B 

 laughed in return, ancl.said, ' Oh, then, I won't send them.' And 

 so I lost my flowers. 



" One of the latest and most gifted writers on old favourite 

 Egypt has found (for he travelled in the valley of the Nile) cer- 

 tain little porcelain bottles, in some of the catacombs or other 

 strange nooks of that curious country, which have inscribed 

 on them a legend in Chinese characters. These bottles are sup- 

 posed to have been brought from China to Egypt, containing 

 some rare essence, for the material of which they are made is 

 coarse, and inferior to Egyptian ware. I pass over the curi- 

 ous proof this little discovery gives of the equal ancientness of 

 these two curious and very similar nations, and of their having 

 carried on traffic together, when this geological version of the 

 world was new, probably before all the timbers of the Ark were 

 rotten. I wish to tell you that since these bottles have been 

 brought to this country, Dr. Morrison's son, or some other 

 learned reader of hieroglyhics, has deciphered the words sculp- 

 tured on the little vases : they tell the following beautiful truth, 

 ' The flower opens, and behold another year !' Is not it a beauti- 

 ful and truthful prophecy ? I feel some sympathy with that 

 cold-hearted, shaven-headed, long-tailed, infanticidal race, the 

 Chinese, for so sweet a legend. The snowdrops I got forcibly 

 reminded me of it ; for as God, when he creates a bud, creates it 

 to be first a bud and then a flower, and then a mature fruit (if 

 I knew the Bible as well as I should do, I should here quote 

 the passage which tingles in my ears, speaking of first the blade, 

 then the corn in the ear, etc., you know it), he gives the earnest 

 and assurance in the first bud or flower of spring that another 

 year will be ; for as a whole year will be needed to let the buds 



