

182 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 
filigree. 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 
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