128 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
of our gardens is ill chosen as the emblem of a 
Declaration of Love ; nor is it at all necessary in 
the floral alphabet, when the Rosebud (a thousand 
times a more fitting representative) denotes a Con¬ 
fession of Love, and in both cases the sense and 
meaning are the same. Some have selected the 
Rosebud as the emblem of a girl,—the language of 
flowers needs neither girl, boy, nor infant; Love 
is ever young, and the flowers that denote age 
grow not in his garden. In our catalogue of the 
flowers of affection at the end of this volume, we 
have thrown out numberless weeds which have too 
long encumbered the flowers in the garden of Love. 
The Tulip, however, is just admissible, and, like 
many an indifferent word which has crept into our 
English dictionaries, must, like the fly in amber, 
retain its place, because we find it there. Scores 
of others, which have really no meaning in them, 
nor bear any resemblance to the qualities they 
have been chosen to represent, I have rejected with 
an unmerciful hand, and allowed them no place in 
my “ Poetical Language of Flowers.” 
