SENTIMENT OF FLOWERS. 
7 
join the procession, bear baskets of flowers, 
which they offer to the saints. The sweet 
scents of the rose, cassia, jessamine, orange, 
and tuberose, mingle with the odor of the 
burning incense, and almost overpower the 
senses.” 
And we have May day, though now alas! 
the festivities of that day are becoming less 
universally celebrated. Either the inhabi¬ 
tants of once “merrie England” are less 
light-hearted than in days of yore, or there 
is less sociality among us; and perhaps the 
coldness of the season has tended somewhat 
toward its desuetude. 
But we must now turn more immediate¬ 
ly to notice flowers in connexion with lan¬ 
guage, and we shall find that nearly all na¬ 
tions are acquainted with the language or 
sentiment of flowers. The custom of us¬ 
ing flowers as a means of conveying thoughts 
and sentiments is of Eastern origin, and of 
very remote antiquity; we find them as im¬ 
ages of some poetical idea, or as represent¬ 
ing a virtuous or vicious quality, frequently 
introduced in oriential writings, both sacred 
and profane. Some, consecrated to tender 
