erial, are not so easy to describe. Some summer
flowers found in every garden--the double stocks (gilli-flowers) blend
their varied shades finely with the glittering coreopsis, the sombre
mourning-bride, and the violet cerulean Canterbury bells.

In winter, with ample resources, one can produce masterpieces. What
think you of callas--their frozen calm kindled by the ruddy flush of
azaleas, and their superb stateliness opposed by the flexile vivacity of
the feathery willow acacia? The same white lilies, or their deliciously
sweet July representatives, are contrasted well with scarlet geranium,
vivid and glowing, or with the flames of the cactus, and toned down by
the bluish lavender of the wistaria. This makes a bouquet eminently
suited for church--its colors forming Ruskin's sacred chord, and
typifying the union of purity, love, and faith.

Flowers on the altar are most appropriate and significant, but strict
attention should be paid to their symbolism. For the communion-table
there are lilies of the valley, and in its season, the rosy snow of the
blooming fruit-trees. Nor must the passion-flower be forgotten--and
against its mystic darkness set the china pink clusters of the oleander.
If they are not procurable, substitute great half-opened rose-buds,
deepest pink and cream-color, and add the broken stars of the
stephanotis. This last, twined among the glossiest and darkest leaves of
the rhododendron, forms a fitting crown for the gray hairs of the dead,
passing away in fullness of years and of honors.

Chrysanthemums brought by November, and half-faded, as it were, in the
waning light, are most meet offerings for the departing year to lay at
the holy shrine.

Thus much for _spiritual_ flowers. Others there are in contrast,
_material_ merely, hearty, substantial, and robust. I take singularly to
all such, calumniated as _vulgar_. And why not keep a corner in our
souls for the common and every-day, as for the elegant and rare?

There is a noon of sharp, bustling matter-of-fact, as well as a morn of
high, noble aspiration, and an eve of hushed and solemn reverie. It is
in the noon, too, that our active life takes place; why not enjoy
ourselves then, as only it is possible? So why not allow certain lower
faculties of our nature to delight in what are called the grosser
flowers? Why not cultivate their acquaintance, as we would that of
motherly, kind, portly, and phlegmatic old ladies, rustling in their
silks and sati