The Virginia enterprise., 1900-01-05

Wide and large that. Kingdom spreads,
Wheresoever golden heads
Cluster round Kriss kringle's tree,
Grave with awe and mystery.
Still Gods Angels find the way
10 our earth on Christmas Day;
Still the seeker and the sought
Each to each are safely brought,
And-a truce to passions wild
Here's the Kingdom of the Chila.
Margaret Sangster i'll WOmans Home
Companion.
HOME OF THE HOLLT-FOLK-
LORE CONCERNING IT.
Holly is i'll every way Il beautiful.
charming, unique plant, and certainly
one of the most notably fine evergreens
that come yearly to cheer Christmas, per
haps the most glorious of them all. Al
though it does not grow large in this
country, it makes immense hedges and
splendid trees i'll England. Famous
hedges are OH record that were stout
walls of holly twenty feet high and thick
in proportion, mocking equally the wealth
er, beasts, or men trying to break
through it, glittering with its spined and
vanished leaves and brilliant all over
with it's natural coral. Many holly trees
in England and Scotland attain stature
of forty feet, and verging on fifty, with
trunks three or four feet in diameter; and
if we may trust Pliny he knew holly in
Tusculum, the trunk of which was little
short Of twelve feet in diameter, with
such i, spread of branches that Iii ~
says the one tree looked like small
wood; and he refers to holly in Rome
that had brass plate affixed to it, affirm
ing it to be older thon Rome itself, or
over 800 years, and three others he men:
o,,.1
standing in Pliny's time.
The plant is as hardy as it always is,
majestic in manner and size, if such an
expression may be used of tree 1t will
grow in almost any kind of situation or
soil in which it can fix Il root. Cold
spouty clay and till, poor, hot. sandy, or
boggy, to all it takes kindly, as if saying,
spoil me of life who can; and it can dis
pense with Il considerable share Of light
on occasion, thriving we'll under the drip
pings and shadows of large trees, where
some other evergreens barely survive at
all. AS for it's appearance, common as it
Is, 1T is never common, any more than
men are common because they are multi
tudinous; for one almost may say that
every spray of holly is an individual, un-
like any other and notably characteristic,
owing to it's capriciously twisting leaves;
and as for the look Of the plant as Il
whole, it plays, SO to speak, character
part in the theater of the vegetable crea
ton, and an exquisite as we'll as original
the new branches, it's charming winter
fruit of coral berries shining from the
unique and glistening foliage which no.in.
sect attacks, infexible, angular, spiny,
and willful leaves, having Il decided char
acter not easily described, but including
a dash Of imperturbable humor.
Its appearance earned it, from ancient
ho II jSfI Of hnJp rntr 64nH
as typical Of the mission of Jesus, the
prickle Of the leaf, the bitterness of the
bark, and the blood-red berry being con-
ceived to be images of his sufferings. 1t
is on record that the early Christians at
Rome adorned their houses with holly at
Christmas; but so did the Druids dress
with it their dwellings during winter in
some kind OF recognition of the sylvan
spirits, and likely from this custom it
tions. 1t has sacred uses among the Par
sees, who have a legend, moreover, that
the sun never throws any shadow from
the holly.
In folklore it bears part curious for
it's masculine quality, appearing indeed in
the carols as merry-men-evergreen
bearing the crown fierce and jolly
so the old carols say-in contrast with
the ivy which is a maiden evergreen;
made to do homage to the ivy as the
stronger. But in general the holly stands
for strength, prudence. foresight, cool
ness in the symbolisms of folklore, which
explains its presence in the refrain of
Amiens' song in LAS You Like It."
Heigh ho! sing heigh no! unto the green
Holly;
Most Ials FRIENDSHIP {n,5i is feignins' most loving
Then heigh no! the Holly! This life is most
jolly!
1t is curious in connection with this
masculine and defiant tone attaching to
the holly in the peoplefancies, that being
used for divination in romance, touching
marriage hopes, nevertheless only certain
leaves, high on the plant, which are de-
void of prickles, are used, and, curiously,
these are called the ''she holly" These
INST be gathered OH Friday at midnight
in three-cornered handkerchief. From
the setting out in search of them till the
next day at dawn not word must be
utterly breaks the charm and turns all
the enterprise to nothing. Being brought
hOme nine leaves must be chosen, tied
up in the handkerchief with nine knots.
and SO placed under the pillow. Then
will the happy dreamer behold in vision
the future husband or wife.
Only those special leaves called the
she holly can be used, for it is curious
that in folklore only the feminine is the
divining element: Ivy. which has the
female role. is in particular the plant
of soothsaying virtue, and when the hol-
ly is to be used for divining the use is
confined to certain leaves that present
some excuse for feminine name. Wom-
Ell rule in the supernatural. How to con-
slider the fact may be difficult, how to
deal with it may be still more difficult:
but certainly it is curious to find it so in
SenlOusly reproduced in the folklore of
our most splendid Christmas evergreen
WHEN A LADY is LADY.
Probably no other term in the English
language is more continually misnsed
than that of 'lady." In the mouths Of
the masses it has so long ceased to mean
anything but female of the human spe-
cles, that we are no longer surprised to
hear of scrub ladies and cook ladies, or
that lady was arrested for theft or
drunkenness. A few still use the word
with discrimination, but even among
them there exists wide difference of
opinion as to what constitutes lady, and
a curious light was thrown OH the uues-
tlon the other day when woman wit
ness, III New York law case, testified
that in her opinion no woman who paints
or powders, or wears loud clothes or
is a lady.
To most of us this definition of what
constitutes lady seems rather, bald.
Clothes do not make the man, according
to the adage, but they go long way to.
wards ma king the woman, and by prefer
ence all of us would choose that our lady
should wear refinement of garb-a har-
mony OF outward color, a delicacy of ma
terial and a beauty. Of fit-that would
symbolic her inward graces, but taste
is a gift of the gods to the elect, and not
all possess it. All of us have known
women of the most charming manners,
the highest breeding and culture-ladies
in every sense Of the word--yet who had
no more idea of what to wear than q
Hottentot, and who habitually arrayed
themselves in colors that screamed at the
beholder and announced themselves from
afar. y " ~ > - - %:f 5<..:sSl .s5 &,
81 Any sweeping structure against the use