46 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
walls and 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 
companionship, 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 
sequestered 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 
