in his hand, was drawn up to this planet, and has remained there to the present day. [Tailpiece] [Headpiece] CHAPTER XV. Plant Symbolism and Language. The antiquity of floral emblems probably dates from the time when the human heart first beat with the gentle emotions of affection or throbbed with the wild pulsations of love. Then it was that man sought to express through the instrumentality of flowers his love of purity and beauty, or to typify through their aid the ardour of his passionate desires; for the symbolism of flowers, it has been conjectured, was first conceived as a parable speaking to the eye and thence teaching the heart. Driven, in his struggle for existence, to learn the properties of plants in order to obtain wholesome food, man found that with the beauty of their form and colour they spoke lovingly to him. They could be touched, tasted, handled, planted, sown, and reaped: they were useful, easily converted into simple articles of clothing, or bent, twisted, and cut into weapons and tools. Flowers became a language to man very early, and according to their poisonous, soothing, or nutritious qualities, or on account of some peculiarities in their growth or shape which seemed to tell upon the mysteries of life, birth, and death, he gave them names which thenceforth became words and symbols to him of these phenomena. Glimpses of the ancient poetical plant symbolism have been found amid the ruins of temples, graven on the sides of rocks, and inscribed on the walls of mighty caves where the early nations of India, Assyria, Chaldæa, and Egypt knelt in adoration. The Chinese from time immemorial have known a comprehensive system of floral signs and emblems, and the Japanese have ever possessed a mode of communicating by symbolic flowers. Persian literature abounds in chaste and poetical allegories, which demonstrate the antiquity of floral symbolism in that far Eastern land: thus we are told that Sadi the poet, when a slave, presented to his tyrant master a Rose accompanied with this pathetic appeal:--“Do good to thy servant whilst thou hast the power, for the season of power is often as transient as the duration of this beautiful flower.” The beauty of the symbol melted the heart of his lord, and the slave obtained his liberty.