over, in each flower an unchanging address all its own--an
unvaried salutation proffered ever to the world at large? Why is a
passion wafted through a nosegay? What purifies the air around a lily?
And why are bridal robes rich with orange blooms?

Surely poetry and tradition have but here divined certain truths,
omnipotent behind a veil, and recognized their symbols in these chosen
blossoms?

But if the flowers are truly types, how should they be interpreted?

There are hints laid in their very structure and outer semblance, hints
afforded also by art and romance from time immemorial; and all these,
suggestions of the hidden wisdom, must be gathered patiently and wrought
out to a fuller clearness, through careful attention to the intuitions
of one's own awakened imagination.

But what expression can be found for the _soul_ of a flower--for the
evanescent odor that floats upon us only with the dimmest mists of
meaning?

In a novel of a few years since, a people dwelling in Mid Africa are
described as skilled in the acts of a singular civilization, and
especial mention is made of an instrument analogous to an organ, but
which evoked perfumes instead of musical sounds. A curious idea, but
possibly giving the nearest representation to be made of the effect of
odor: by its help, then, by regarding flowers as instruments whose
fragrant utterances might be as well conveyed in music, we may be able
to translate aright the effluence that stirs beyond the reach of speech.

Let us now try to distinguish, if only for a pleasant pastime, some few
favorite strains in those wonderful, _unheard_ melodies with which our
gardens ring.

Hear first the roses. The beautiful blush rose, opening fresh and rosy
on a dewy June morning, echoes gleefully the birds' 'secret jargoning.'

The saffron tea-rose is an exotic of exotics, and the daintiest of fine
ladies bears it in her jewelled fingers to the opera, and there imbues
it with the languid ecstasy of an Italian melody. The aroma, floating
round those creamy buds, vibrates to the impassioned agony of artistic
luxury--to the pleasurable pain that dies away in rippling undulations
of the tones.

But the red rose is dyed deep with simpler passion. War notes are hers,
but not trumpet tongued, as they pour from out the fiery cactus. No; it
is as if a woman's heart thrilled through the red rose to sadden the
reveille for country and for God!--an irrepressible undertone of
mourning surgi