26 
THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
year, on the eve of a happy marriage, was moved hy a 
tender pity, and approached to throw flowers on it. But 
an offering had preceded his. The nurse of the young 
girl, taking the veil and flowers which should have 
adorned her on her wedding day, put them in a little 
basket; then, having placed it beside the tomb on a 
plant of acanthus, she covered it with a broad tile. The 
next spring the acanthus leaves had surrounded the 
basket; but, stopped by the edges of the tile, they bent 
back and rounded gracefully towards their extremities. 
Callimachus, surprised at this rural decoration, which 
seemed the work of the weeping Graces, made of it the 
capital of the Corinthian column. 
BUG LOSS (Ancliusa officinalis .) Falsehood. 
La Bruyere, the most spirituel of French moralists, 
said, “ If women were naturally what they become by 
art, if they should lose in a moment all the freshness of 
their complexion, if their faces were as glowing or as 
leady as they make them by the rouge and the paint 
which they use, they would be inconsolable.” This 
truth appears incontestable; and yet, from north to 
south, from east to west, among savage or polished na¬ 
tions, this strange taste for painting is universal. Du- 
perron relates how a young savage, wishing to attract his 
attention, took a bit of coal and went to pound it* in a 
corner, then, having rubbed her cheeks with it, returned 
with a triumphant air, as if this had rendered the efl'ect 
