FLOWERS OF THOUGHT. 95 
And who that has once read, can ever forget the 
pleasing confusion it makes among the lovers in the 
wood 7 
It was in those days — age of happy dreams ! when 
armed knights rode forth in quest of adventures, com¬ 
bated with mighty giants, and destroyed enchanted 
castles by one blast of their loud bugle-horn, — battled 
with dragons, and met with beautiful and disconsolate 
maidens at the foot of almost every gray and weather¬ 
beaten cross, wherever three lonely roads met together, 
— when the cave of Merlin was visited by all who had 
courage enough to look into the future, and King 
Arthur’s Round Table was never without a gallant 
guest, — it was then that they begun to seek for signs, 
and spells, and charms, and tokens, and all the awful 
mysteries of divination, in the secret virtues of the 
flowers. But most of all to the petals of the Pansy 
did they turn their thoughts, and in its freaked flowers 
seek to learn, their destiny. If the petal they plucked 
was penciled with four lines, it signified hope ; if from 
the centre line started a branch, when the streaks 
numbered five, it was still hope, springing out of fear ; 
and when the lines were thickly branched, and leaned 
toward the left, they signified a life of trouble; but if 
