CHAPTER VII 
The Meaning of the Flower 
“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance;—and there 
is pansies, that’s for thoughts.” 
Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5. 
The earliest nations had a flower language; they left 
traces of it in the flower-writing and flower symbols on 
the tombs and monuments of ancient Egypt and Assyria. 
We can only dimly guess at the meaning of these flower 
drawings, but we can understand the flower symbols of 
another people, the Greeks, who were so passionately 
fond of flowers that they turned naturally to them when¬ 
ever they had some deep feeling to express. In the soft 
airs of that ancient country, lovers hung the doorways of 
their sweethearts’ homes with garlands; when someone 
inside the house was ill, their friends knew of it by the 
blackthorn and laurel which lay across the lintel. In 
fetes and festivals the young men crowned themselves 
with flowers; blossoms brightened the city gates in times 
of rejoicing. 
Perhaps you have eaten Thanksgiving dinner at your 
uncle’s house, or watched the Christmas turkey carved 
at your grandfather’s table; when the plum pudding came 
on and the cider was passed, you would have been sur- 
