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LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
It was at first supposed that the Chinese 
were acquainted only with the single purple 
Aster that was sent to France : but they possess 
all the varieties which we admire, and display a 
taste in the arrangement of these star-formed 
flowers, which leaves the British florist far in 
the back-ground. Even our most curious ama¬ 
teurs have yet to learn what effect these plants 
are capable of producing by their gay corollas, 
when carefully distributed by the hand of taste. 
Figure to yourself for instance a bank sloping 
to a piece of water, covered with these gay 
flowers, so arranged as to rival the richest pat¬ 
terns of Persian carpets, or the most curious 
figures that can be devised by the artist in 
fillagree. Imagine them reflected in the water, 
and you will have a faint idea of the enchanting 
effect produced by these brilliant stars in the 
gardens of China. 
I once attempted this kind of decoration, of 
which a celebrated traveller had talked to me 
a great deal, but_failed to produce the full effect 
intended, owing to the lack of that profusion of 
flowers, that variety of shades of the same 
colour, and, above all, that admirable Chinese 
