76 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
one was longest, they prophesied that Sunday 
would be their wedding-day ; eight denoted fickle¬ 
ness; nine, a changing heart; and eleven — the 
most ominous number of all — disappointment in 
love, and an early grave. They called it no end of 
endearing names ; such as Love - in - idleness, 
Cuddle-me-to-you,—-Kiss-me-at-the-garden-gate, 
Hearts’-ease,— Think-of-me,— Three-faces-under-a- 
liood, — Jump-up-and-kiss-me,— and many others 
equally expressive, which have yet to be culled out 
of the pages of our oldest poets ; and this flower, 
eyed like the bird of Juno, has ever been selected 
as the emblem of the noblest faculty with which 
mankind is gifted. After all its trivial appellatives 
are exhausted, it stands up, bold and solemn, the 
solitary flower of thought: the representative of that 
silent messenger which in a moment is wafted over 
wide seas, and to far-off foreign shores; that can 
recall faces, and forms, and sights, and sounds, at 
w ill,_daring even to soar on the wings of a Milton 
into the presence of the Highest, and to picture the 
halo of that blinding glory, before which the ranged 
ranks of Heaven “ veil their faces with their wings.” 
Plunging again fearlessly downward in a moment, 
bidding unfathomable seas open, and fiery volcanoes 
bare their nethermost depths, while, with feailess 
eye, it surveys those vast realms where the fallen 
angels writhe in the sweat of their great agony, 
