PREFACE 
In a rude and primitive state, the words are few and 
simple that are required to express the thoughts and 
desires of an untutored race of men. But with every 
increasing want and every new desire, names and forms 
of thought must be created ; until the brief vocabulary 
of the savage tribe swells into the complex dictionary 
of the intelligent and civilised people. In this enlarge- 
ment and amplification of expression, Flow'ers and their 
associations have had a large share. 
For instance, “Lovely as the Rose,” Fair as the 
Lily, ’ ’ or, “ Modest as the Violet, ’ ' are phrases that 
seem to have come universally into use. And no less do 
the Flowers prefigure hope and frailty. We strew them 
over the shroud of departed love, and plant them to bloom 
brightly above the grave, that they may speak in spring 
and summer of an eternal hope. To such and many 
other simple expressions of natural feeling, have been 
added gradually for centuries, many complex fancies from 
early classic poetry and the later writers. 
Yes, flowers have their language. Theirs is an oratory 
that speaks in perfumed silence; and there is tenderness, 
and passion, and even the light-heartedness of mirth, in 
the variegated beauty of their vocabulary. To the poetical 
mind they are not mute to each other; to the pious they 
are not mute to their Creator ; and ours shall be the office, 
in this little volume, to translate their pleasing language, 
and to show that no spoken word can approach to the 
delicacy of sentiment to be inferred from a timeously- 
offered flower. That the softest impressions may be thus 
conveyed without offence, and even a profound grief al- 
leviated at a moment when the most tuneful voice would 
grate harshly on the ear, and the stricken soul can be 
soothed only by an act of grateful silence. 
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