INTRODUCTION. 
23 
“ Numerous examples might be adduced to prove 
that, in the power of exciting past recollections, the 
sight of a flower has often a more magic effect than 
even the favourite melodies of our youth. I myself 
know a young lady who, though entirely free from 
nervous weakness, could never look at a carnation 
without bursting into tears, because she was pluck¬ 
ing a flower of that kind at the moment when she 
was informed of her mother’s death. The sight of 
the periwinkle always produced pleasingly painful 
feelings in Rousseau’s mind; and Bougainville’s 
South Sea Islander, on being taken to the Botanic 
Garden in Paris, knelt before an Otaheitean plant, 
and kissed it as fondly as he would have kissed the 
lips of a beloved mistress. It would be impossible 
to describe the many delightful ideas and recollec¬ 
tions for which, during my solitary journeys, I have 
been indebted to the chronicle of Flora.” 
A flower-garden may be compared to a pano¬ 
rama of hieroglyphics, displaying not the miserable 
worldly wisdom of mortals, inscribed in dead cha¬ 
racters, but the maxims of immortal philosophy, 
exhibited in living forms with all their peculiar 
varieties. Fancy traces a symbolic resemblance 
