148 THE POETRY OF FLOWERS 
LIVELY AND PURE AFFECTION. 
PINK. 
The primitive pink is simple red or white, and perfumed. We 
occasionally observe where 
-the wild pink crowns the garden wall, 
And with the flowers are intermingled stones 
Sparry and bright, rough scattering of the hills. 
Wordsworth. 
Cultivation has doubled the petals of this favourite flower, 
and procured for it an infinite variety of colouring', so that it is 
painted with a thousand shades, from the delicate rose-colour 
to the perfect white : and from a deep red to a brilliant scarlet. 
In some varieties we observe opposite colours placed together 
on the same flower: the pure white is tipped with crimson, 
and the rose-coloured is streaked with lively and brilliant red. 
We also see these beautiful flowers marbled, speckled, and, at 
other times, bisected in such a manner that the deceived eye 
leads us to imagine that the same cup contains a purple flower, 
and one of palest alabaster. Nearly as varied in form as in 
colour, the pink always preserves its delicious perfumes, and 
continually labours to shed its foreign costume, and renew its 
native attire. For though the hand of the gardener can double 
and triple, and variegate its dress, it cannot render its acquired 
qualities permanent. Thus nature has deposited in our hearts 
the germes of the most excellent sentiments. Art and society 
cultivate and develop these, embellishing, enfeebling, or exalt¬ 
ing them. A variety of causes uniting, are able to render their 
effects inconstant and changeable; but, in spite of the caprices, 
errors, and incomprehensible sports of the human heart, nature* 
always brings back affection to its primitive simplicity. 
There is an anecdote connected with the pink, which shows 
how far the mind way be led away and debased by the arts of 
flattery: — 
