THE FORGET-ME-NOT 
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extend itself to the general character, and is undoubtedly 
favourable to veracity. Dr. Johnson used to say, “ If a 
child tell you that he saw from one window a circumstance 
occur which he saw from another, correct him, lest he 
acquire a habit of untruth;” and some associates of that 
great man, though previously men of integrity, have con- 
fessed that from his frequent advice of marking even the 
smallest thing attentively, and faithfully stating it, they 
had acquired a habit of a far stricter veracity. 
The scorpion-grass belongs to the natural order Bora- 
gineae. Boragineous plants receive their name from the 
common borage, a bright-blue flower, with very rough 
leaves. All plants of this order are rough or hairy, except 
when, like the water forget-me-not, they become smooth 
from living partly under water. The black stalks of the 
borage are said to burn like match-paper ; and the root 
is much used in the composition of rouge. The flowers 
are often gathered by country people, and used in making 
what is called a cool tankard. According to Pliny, “ if the 
leaves and flowers of borage be put into wine, and that 
wine drunken, it will cause men to be glad and merry, and 
it driveth away all heavy sadness and dull melancholy.” 
Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” says also of it: 
Borage and hellebore fill two scenes, 
Sovereign plants to purge the veins 
Of melancholy, and cheer the heart 
Of those black fumes which make it smart.” 
The boragineous plants are mostly weeds ; but a few 
ornamental garden flowers are among them. The Peruvian 
heliotrope is one of them, and is well known by its lilac 
blossoms, which are very fragrant. The plant is often 
called cherry pie, because its odour is thought to resemble 
that of this dish. The heliotrope received its usual name 
from two Greek words, “sun” and “to turn,” because 
the ancients thought it always turned its blossoms to meet 
the rays of that luminary; but neither this flower nor the 
sunflower deserves the reputation for constancy to the sun 
which old philosophers and all poets have ascribed to it. 
“ As the sunflower turns to her God, when he sets. 
The same look which she turned when he rose, ’ ’ 
