Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1870-12-01
The Symbolism of Flowers.

When Goethe represents Margaret a.
plucking the star-fiower and crying, as its
last leaf falls, HE loves me !" and Fans,
as saying, "Let this flower. language be
thy heavenly oracle y be traced all our
drawing-room fortune-telling with flowers
to its true source in divination. At the
earliest age OF the world the human heart
felt flowers to be the natural symbols OF
gentle affections and noble aspirations.
Their
"Uselessness, divinest
OF use the finest"
has redeemed religions and graces from
the darkest phases of superstition before
they taught Leigh Hunt "the end OF use +"
Transmitted from earlier, adopted by later
religions passing from pagan temples to
be cultivated in convent walls-the COM
mon flowers of our gardens have
reached us as an imperishable trust
bequeathed by the first limitations
of o Supreme Love to TIA mind of man.
These floral optimists have preached their
evangel of hope through the winter of su-
perstitious fear; and the terrors pictured
by priestcraft have been covered over by
their soft and irresistible invasion of every
church festival, their smiling sympathy
with the bride, their power to wreathe with
beauty the coffin and the grave. 1t is re-
markable how little of i'll has ever been
believed of them, whereas every animal
has been somewhat regarded as devil.
Except few names given with humor
rather than malevolence, as DEVILS apron
and DEVILS leaf (duOur setdn, as the nettle
is called by the natives of Timor), and a
few similar names, there are few which
have ever suggested diabolism. Chick
weed, pigwort, pickpocket, snap-dragon,
JacK-ln-the-pulpit, and the like, are at
worst grotesque; and as general thing
poisonous fiowers-as aconite, called VOLTS
bane, monk 's-hood. etc,-have been re-
garded from the optimistic point of view.
The fatal thanginnut of Madagascar is be-
lieved to be divine plant, given to be a
test of the rightfulness or wrongfulness OF
an accusation. 1t was not with antlpathy
that the Egyptians regarded the frail
anemone as a symbol of sickness. 1t is
notable that the most sacred flowers have
been rather weeds and parasites than flow
ers, and it is possible that they shared
some OF the sanctlty with which idiots are
invested in Russian villages. l doubt not
that il we could cross-examine some broth.
or of the stone age rs to his preference for
John's-wort, he would express himself as
nearly as possible in the language of a
passage written by Hawthorne amidst
his conflicts with the squash-bugs in
his garden. "Why is il, l wonder,
asks Hawthorne, SHAT Nature has pro-
vided such hos: OF enemies for every
useful esculent, while the weeds are suffer
ed to grow unmolested, and are provided
with such tenacity oflite and such methods
OF propagation that the gardener must
maintain continual struggle, or they will
hopelessly overwheim him. What hidden
virtue is III these things, that it is granted
| to SOW themselves with the wind, ana to
graphic the earth with this immitigable
stubborness, and to flourish in spite of OBJ
staces, and never to suffer blight beneath
any sun OF shade but always to L. lock their
enemies with tie same wicked luxuriance
There is sort of sacredness about them.
Perhaps if we could penetrate Natures Sc.
crets We should find that what we call
weeds are more essential to the ell-beine
of the world than the most precious fruit
or graia From "The Sacred Flora, by
VI. d. Conway, in Harper's Magazine Jo'
December.