THE TULIP. 
63 
The descendants of Prince Shem, conveyed them to the Indus,— 
of Duke Ham, to the Nilotic Valley,—and of Earl Japhet, to the 
Peloponnesees. There they respectively flourished, and in due 
time, the gentle and ever varying breezes of adventure wafted a 
fruitful seed to every Island and Continent of the “ habitable globe.” 
But only within the great girdles of the temperate zones do they 
flourish in all their vigor and beauty, for the tropical and frozen 
regions are incongenial to their growth. 
Among the Orientals, where flowers constitute a language for the 
communication of hearts, the Tulip is employed as the emblem by 
which a lover makes a declaration of love. In our written lan¬ 
guage, the same word in different relations, expresses different 
ideas. So with Tulips. The rich, variegated flower, glowing with 
carnation, and humed with dew, is received as a declaration of 
love,— 
“ Forever thine, whate’er this world hetide, 
In youth, and age, thine own, forever thine.” 
A. A. Watts. 
while the Yellow Tulip is an emblem of hopeless, love —of love 
unrequited—of love, conscious of no sympathizing response, and 
whose plaint is— 
u He comes not—sends not—faithless one ! 
It is no dream—and I am desolate.” 
Byron. 
Nor are the Orientals the only people who employ Twolips to 
make a declaration of love, or to express the complainings of unre¬ 
quited passion. They can only claim pre-eminence because of 
priority of use; for Twolips constitute a universal instrument in 
affairs of love. True, with us, the Rose and the Lily have wonder- 
ous influence in the vocabulary of passion, when beauty assumes to 
be interpreter and umpire, yet these fail to convey the heart’s 
whole meaning, and Twolips are summoned to join the embassy 
and give emphasis to the message. 
