the floral telegraph. 19 
Woe was on my heart, and I wished 
that I were a woman, that I might 
weep. I inclined my head on my 
hand, as I sate on the ruin, and gra¬ 
dually felt a mysterious awe creep 
over me. 
Let no one outrage my feelings by 
saying that then I dozed or fell into 
a syncope, or that I experienced an 
optical illusion. The sun was still 
high in the heavens, shedding down 
a misty yet glorious light; the insects 
were still winding their myriads of 
little horns in the bushes around me ; 
in no one feature did Nature change 
her appearance, when this superna¬ 
tural dread came upon my spirits. 
