Morning journal and courier., 1891-08-07
F.neifuI Note. About Flowers.

Edith NJ. Thomas in the Atlantic Monthly.l - In popular aeceptation, the soul of the flower resides in its perfume. But certain loveliest fiower-souls sometimes exercise repellences for individuals of the human family. There have been those even who could not endure the fragrance of the rose. To my knowledge, one observer finds in the scent of lilacs an unpleasant reminder of the odor of escaping gas. Another makes no distinction between the breath of mignonette and the smell of fresh corn meal. To me the scent of the thistle is identical with that of the humble bee sprawling luxuriously among its purple filaments; and the first time the delicate, feathery flowers of the beach plum were brought me, surely their odor was the same I had noted in downy chicks and nestling birdsl
 Beside the qualification which flowers pro- vide for the sense of sight and the sense of smell, there is another and quite distinct pleasure, which is conveyed in the contact of flower; as in a subtle spray of ilacs brushing against your face, the dab bling touches of the snowball, the tender coolness of the apple blossoms dashed with rain, the refined sleekness of the lily, which gave an old-time poet countenance in describing his lady's hand; so smooth, so white, so soft it was, ''as if it had worn a lily for glove" Further tactile differ entiation is to be found in the warm, vital and airy touch of the rose (so unlike the quality of the lily petal, in the viscid sul- triness of the poppy and the petunia, in the tissuey thinness and dryness of the larkspur blossom
 If flowers might but speak,-as the in tent and listening looks of certain flowers almost suggest they might,-or if one might but speak to a flower, calling it by name, and it would recognize the voice, like pet bird, how such a touch of con- scious intelligence would further endear the precious vanishersl Yet 1 sympathiZe with the lady who told me that she left metropolitan orchid show somewhat abruptly because too closely followed by the elfin eyes and mischievous innuendoes of these curious lovely exotics. Nor is it difficult to understand the haunted feeling of reproach experienced by my little neigh bor a child who had stolen some roguish pansies, and who was heard to cry out as she threw them away, "There! will you stop calling me 'thief'f' Some plants are born sorcerers, and require no Medea to | release their potencies. Such, to my fan | y, | faced milk-white blossom and its -ed- bleeding root. Such is the Indian pipe | (monotropa), ever & moonlight spirit, with | not & drop of green blood in its veins. \ Also of this necromantic order is the man. drake, and have spent many a fascinated | quarter of an hour over woodside knoll where this plant appeared in all its stages
 of vernal development; first, pale green
 waxen cones just pushing through the
 mold next, with the appearing of the
 round flower bud, little musing acolytes | with bowed shaven head and mantles drawn tightly over their shoulders: and last, the deeply notched leaf, now loosened from the stem about which it had beer
 folded, diminutive mandarins, with theil
 umbrellas half or fully spread to the warm
 sun. I have, however, at times known tho
 most familiar, homely and serviceabls
 plants to exercise spells of the enchanter
 One summer, having my study in an old house through whose broken window en.
 tered weak, pallid. yard long spray oi grapevine, it seemed to me, as sat by my little table st work, this branch stroyt
 with sll it's feeble powers to reach me and petition for support. I even fancied 6
 slight oscillation moved it (when there wa:
 no stir of the air). and that if 1 would pa
 tiently hold out to it my little finger the 1 vine branch might in a few hours clasp il
 with grateful tendrils- Had it done so,
 who knows whether its spell might ever
 have been reversed, and I released from
 durancei