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22

EMBLEMS.

(Continued from page 458.)

RETURNING to the subject of vegetable emblems, we may mention the seed of a plant as affording another interesting example of two distinct meanings being attached to the same object. For while the apostle uses a seed to typify the resurrection of man, it no less beautifully illustrates what great things may arise from minute beginnings. Were it not a matter of every-day observation, who could conceive it possible that the delicate kernel which lies concealed within the stone of a cherry, plum, or damascene, a prison-cell so fast that for the most attenuate fibre to escape seems hopeless,—who could conceive it possible that that delicate little thing is capable of growing into a large tree, to be covered in due time with leaves and fruit! However trite and common-place the subject may appear, a fine analogy is nevertheless here presented to our contemplation; holding equally good, too, whether we meditate on the correspondence between the growth of an oak-tree from the acorn, and the acquisition of fame and wealth by an individual who was poor and inconspicuous in his early days; or whether we regard the analogy of a thistle's or a deadly-nightshade's origin in a seed almost invisible, with the disgrace and ruin that often result from yielding to one small temptation. It affords a fine lesson, too, in its teaching that if we would possess moral and intellectual flowers, we must sow the seeds of such flowers; and that if in the earlier days of our path through life we prefer to plant the germs of useless or noxious weeds, we can blame no one but ourselves for the result,-life, as regards its happiness or discomfort, being in great measure made so by every one for himself. Applied to a specific phase of life, the married state,the latter branch of the analogy is quite as faithful, for matrimony is no 'lottery,' any more than a wedding is necessarily a marriage: the real marriage is antecedent to the ceremony at the altar, which is a mere external and confirmatory compact for the world to witness. The new betrothal there throws sunshine on the preliminary union which it confirms, but it is incapable of creating such a union of itself. Marriage is no lottery,' because a single hour's interior thought will invariably lift the veil from before the future, and show an unmistakeable perspective to those who will look into it with open eyes; for no one can be so utterly unconscious of what his native tastes and sympathies require as not to perceive how far they are likely to be responded to. Whatever fruits may be gathered in that future are therefore of a date far earlier

than the wedding-day; and the character of that future, whether it be happiness or the reverse, is consequently the free and acknowledged preference. Its flowers or its sharp thorns are equally of our own wilful planting.

Perhaps the most exalted application of the beautiful fact that the noblest as well as the humblest of trees have their origin in an embryo scarcely visible, is shown in the illustration drawn from it by our Saviour, when he cites the grain of mustard-seed to exemplify the development of heaven in the heart of man. For while the unfolding of a plant into its mature beauty is one of the most imperceptible of progressive operations, the steps in that progress follow in the completest order. There is first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.' What the plant was that He pointed to will never be known: the speculations of those who have attempted to identify it are sufficient to prove the hopelessness of the undertaking. Fortunately this is quite immaterial, for the doctrine has the whole vegetable kingdom for its witness.

In their marvellous vitality, enduring as it does for ages, seeds present another emblem of exceeding beauty. For what can more appropriately typify a determined and irrepressible purpose, though circumstances may hinder its accomplishment for a time, than seeds which still retain their vegetative power though buried in the earth for centuries? Grains of wheat that have been imprisoned in a mummy case for three thousand years will grow when they are planted. Instances of vitality fully as indomitable are indeed among the most familiar of the facts which flock in upon the philosophical observer of Nature.

How pathetically again is our recognition of the analogy of particular trees and flowers with the abstractions of the mind exhibited in the selection of flowers to strew or plant on graves! The child's short grassy mound has its fringe of daisies;—white roses are strewn upon the maiden's. The flowers called everlastings are sacred to the tombs of all, and under their collective name of amaranth are perpetually referred to by the poets as the floral emblem of immortality,a lovely use for which their changeless beauty renders them most elegantly suitable. Large quantities of the beautiful species called

a Thus in Milton

'Immortal Amaranth, a flower which once
In Paradise, fast by the tree of life,
Began to bloom; but soon for man's offence
To Heaven removed, where first it grew.'

Paradise Lost, III.

·gnaphalium orientale are grown near Paris for making wreaths and chaplets, which are much used to decorate the tombs in the celebrated cemetery of Père la Chaise. Dyed of various colours they are also imported into this country for winter nosegays. The asphodel is replete with classical associations of equal charm, though generally more mournful." The cypress and the yew tree, partly from their melancholy aspect, partly from their unfading green, which is symbolical of immortality, are chosen in a kindred spirit, as the most appropriate of all trees for planting in churchyards; while the weeping willow is Nature's own pet emblem of the mourner, and is therefore selected to droop immediately above the tomb. The association of the cypress and the yew tree with mourning is very ancient. While, however, Christians select these trees as emblems of immortality, the ancients planted them, together with the elm, beside their tombs, because they appeared to bear no fruit. What a commentary on their need of revelation!

In all of these usages we have further illustrations of different emblematic meanings being attached to the same object, and yet with perfect propriety, when the philosophy of their application is investigated. Without intending a special reference to the emblems last alluded to, perhaps the explanation of the ready way in which almost every object furnishes a duality of emblems, the one cheerful, the other sad, may be found in that deep moral of life which shows perpetually that the mournful is inseparable from the joyous. For as in all natural har

a For example

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'By the streams that ever flow,
By the fragrant winds that blow
O'er the Elysian flowers;
By those happy souls that dwell
In yellow meads of asphodel,
Or amaranthine bowers.'

POPE.-Ode for St. Cecilia's Day.

'And say, if yet, in some dim, far-off world,

If yet, in some pale mead of asphodel,
We two shall meet again !'

F. HEMANS.-Antique Greek Lament.

Introduced also by Milton as one of the flowers of Adam and Eve's first couch, after eating of the forbidden tree

'Flowers were the couch,Pansies, and violets, and asphodel,

And hyacinth.'

See also Pope's Pastoral- Daphne.'

Paradise Lost, IX.

monies-the flow of the river, the whispering of trees in the moonlight, the sound of the wind as it bends the reeds, and of the reeds as they answer, the ripple of the sea on the beach,―nay, even in the cheerful singing of the birds,-there is an undertone of sadness; so is there a soul of melancholy underlying all the things and events of earth. As the shadow which beauty lets fall is dark-as the echo of even glad sounds is like a sigh,-SO by the side of our dearest affections and brightest hopes and best enjoyments ever walks a veiled presence,— dimly revealed to most men in the course of years by their experience; but which, when seen by the young and happy, is perceived only through the deep spirituality of their own natures, and by their high capacity for reading truth.' Of such natures, however, there are not many. These are things which no one can contravene, because the consciousness of them lies in our inmost being. The perception of them has no affinity with the affectations of the mere sentimentalist, for they are intimately associated with the recognition of all those other high and elevating truths which, however promotive they may be of mournfulness in regard to their first appeal to us, subsequently bring home to our hearts a deep and enduring cheerfulness. Truths educed from the quiet contemplation of nature and of real life must ever be cheerful, though they may have tears upon them, just as in the eventide of the year, when the leaves are dropping all around us, and the sunbeams fall cold and languidly, a sensation of deep pleasurableness still rises up within us, to brighten everything and show that there is a silver lining to every cloud.' Though the heart may not unfrequently detect a sigh in its intercourse with life, yet when educated aright it may always recognise a smile. But the latter to the creature of mere sentiment is a ‘lost ideal,' and hence the true lover of the inner lineaments of thought, and of their eternal transcript in external nature, not only enjoys the positive delight inevitable to the attitude of his mind, but knows nothing of the fancied misery which incessantly afflicts the other. A mere sentimentalist can never be a poet, in the genuine meaning of the word, for cheerfulness is an integral element of all true poetry; and though the poet may occasionally say of himself—

'As tints fall down upon October leaves,

Brilliant and many-hued, yet touched with sadness,

So are the summer fancies of my mind

Chequer'd with thoughts more wintry;'

yet spring and summer are so intimately blended with his nature, that they invariably return to him. That is but a sickly tree which is not verdant for the chief part of the year. The dual meaning, then, of

everything that presents itself to us as of emblematic nature, may be traced home, we think, to this inner consciousness of the mind that everything has its undertone of sadness and its livelier one of cheerfulness. Accustomed, wherever it sees sunlight, to see shadow likewise, and vice versâ, it seeks intuitively to recognise the same deep truth in everything it takes cognizance of, whether in the world of physical things or of the affections, or in the conjunction of the two. According to its mood at the time of observation is its quickness in discerning the one or the other aspect, but it is never unaware that there is a second lying hid.

It is from associations and analogies such as we have pointed out, that the language of flowers' has arisen, for in addition to the analogies resulting from the similar organization of plants and animals, emblems of all the virtues, vices, and diversities of disposition which belong to individual man, may be discerned in plants, together with emblems of the various moral and intellectual conditions to which he is subject. The language of flowers, as given in several of the little popular works on the subject, must, however, be received with caution, as the compilers have often imposed arbitrary ideas in their haste to complete their lists. Still much of it is eminently correct and beautiful. No one, for instance, can fail to recognise the propriety of regarding grass as the emblem of utility, the white violet as that of modesty," and the chamomile plant as that of energy and patience in adversity. With equal good taste and truthfulness to analogy the hydrangea is made the emblem of a vain boaster; the nettle of cruelty; the balsam of impatience;d the almond tree of indiscretion; the mulberry of prudence;f the spring crocus of youthful gladness; the restharrow of obstacles in the way of doing good; the woodbine of devoted affection; the cowslip of pensiveness; a 'C'est l' emblème d'un cœur qui répand en secret Sur le malheur timide un modeste bienfait.'

Boisjolin.

For though the chamomile, the more it be trodden, the faster it spreads,
Yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears.'

Old author.

The hydrangea has ample flowers, but produces nothing valuable.

d Because its seed vessels burst and scatter the contents almost before they are

ripe.

e Because it blossoms so early in the spring that its flowers are generally robbed of all their beauty by the frost.

f Because it does not put forth its leaves till all danger of frost is over.

9 Because its tough, cord-like roots impede the turning over of the soil.
h' Cowslips wan that hang the pensive head.'
Milton.

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