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FLORAL SYMBOLS. 
Symbolism plays a prominent part in the early history 
of the human race, and manifests itself in an infinite 
diversity of forms. It had its first origin as a system 
among the imaginative people of Oriental climes. Under 
an intensely blue sky, glowing with unclouded sunshine 
or glittering with unnumbered stars, it is not surprising 
that the imagination, once kindled by the contemplation 
of beauty, should trace in nature a language expressive 
of the varying phases of the human mind. Religion and 
poetry thus found language and expression in the 
symbolic vocabulary of nature, and the most interesting 
features of Mower Lore are those that have originated in 
the use of flowers as symbols. 
Of these floral symbols, some are of such a general 
character, and they would be adopted and appreciated 
so readily by any people, that it would soon become 
difficult to trace them back to their original forms. The 
brief existence of the flower would render it a fit repre¬ 
sentative of the life of man. Literature abounds with 
metaphors and symbols of this general character. Thus 
of Corinne, that warm-hearted daughter of Italy, whose 
affections were as w r arm and pure as the sunlight of her 
