THE MEANING OE THE EEOWER 
53 
prised, no doubt, if your father and uncle and grand¬ 
father had placed wreaths of roses on their heads! Yet 
that is what the fathers and grandfathers of Greek boys 
and girls did when they feasted in the homes of their 
friends, and everybody thought it a very pleasant cus¬ 
tom. In the Grecian games, too, the winning athletes 
were crowned with laurel leaves; those were proud moth¬ 
ers who saw their strong sons, wrestlers, runners, throw¬ 
ers, come forward and bend their heads to receive the 
victor’s wreath. 
Oak leaves were twined to weave the patriot’s crown, 
bay leaves for the poet, and myrtle was the crown of 
beauty. The highest honor for which a Roman soldier 
longed was the civic crown of oak leaves, because it 
proved to all men that he had braved death in the ser¬ 
vice of his country. 
Every nation has its favorite flower; India has her 
lotus, Japan her chrysanthemum. The Hindus believe 
that their God, Brahma, was born a tiny baby in the 
bosom of a lotus, and so they hold the lotus sacred. The 
Parsians celebrate every year a “feast of roses,” lasting 
as long as the roses bloom. You know the flower of 
France, do you not, the fleur-de-lis? When Napoleon 
was emperor, he ripped the lilies from the royal robes 
and in their stead caused golden bees to be embroidered, 
but when Napoleon’s majesty had passed, the fleur-de-lis 
