46 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
leafy roofs bore the first rough tracings of the 
primitive home of man. The feudal castle raised 
its grim and grated portcullis to receive them, and 
the iron archers threw down their tight-strung bows 
to welcome their approach. They slept together 
in sheds where the hardy serf struggled against 
wrong, and laid many a night on the bleak hill¬ 
side, where the lonely shepherd tended his flock. 
They accompanied many brave hearts that went 
forth reluctantly to wage war against the invaders 
of their country, and as they conversed together 
they beguiled the listless cheerlessness of the way. 
Wherever they went old age coveted no other com¬ 
panionship, nor did they leave a grey head to sink 
down in sorrow to the grave. They gave to poverty 
content, to affliction resignation, and into the sad 
heart of pity they breathed hope. 
It was then that mankind began to find deep 
matter for meditation in the flowers ; that they no 
longer looked upon the blossoms as the mere har¬ 
bingers of the seasons, and beautiful ornamenters of 
the fields, but discovered that they were lettered 
over with the language of Love,—that Beauty 
bloomed where no human eye perceived it, in se¬ 
questered nooks and untrodden wilds, and Nature 
needed not the presence of man, to either look upon 
or praise her works. They believed that hidden 
spirits dwelt among the flowers of the woods, and 
