16. I have no time to enter into farther details; but through all this vast range of art, note this singular fact, that the wheat-ear, the vine, the fleur-de-lys, the poppy, and the jagged leaf of the acanthus-weed, or thistle, occupy the entire thoughts of the decorative workmen trained in classic schools, to the exclusion of the rose, true lily, and the other flowers of luxury. And that the deeply underlying reason of this is in the relation of weeds to corn, or of the adverse powers of nature to the beneficent ones, expressed for us readers of the Jewish scriptures, centrally in the verse, "thorns also, and thistles, shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field" ([Greek: chortos], grass or corn), and exquisitely symbolized throughout the fields of Europe by the presence of the purple 'corn-flag,' or gladiolus, and 'corn-rose' (Gerarde's name for Papaver Rhoeas), in the midst of carelessly tended corn; and in the traditions of the art of Europe by the springing of the acanthus round the basket of the canephora, strictly the basket _for bread_, the idea of bread {105} including all sacred things carried at the feasts of Demeter, Bacchus, and the Queen of the Air. And this springing of the thorny weeds round the basket of reed, distinctly taken up by the Byzantine Italians in the basketwork capital of the twelfth century, (which I have already illustrated at length in the 'Stones of Venice,') becomes the germ of all capitals whatsoever, in the great schools of Gothic, to the end of Gothic time, and also of all the capitals of the pure and noble Renaissance architecture of Angelico and Perugino, and all that was learned from them in the north, while the introduction of the rose, as a primal element of decoration, only takes place when the luxury of English decorated Gothic, the result of that licentious spirit in the lords which brought on the Wars of the Roses, indicates the approach of destruction to the feudal, artistic, and moral power of the northern nations. For which reason, and many others, I must yet delay the following out of our main subject, till I have answered the other question, which brought me to pause in the middle of this chapter, namely, 'What is a weed?' * * * * * {106} CHAPTER VI. THE PARABLE OF JOASH. 1. Some ten or twelve years ago, I bought--three times twelve are thirty-six--of a delightful little book by Mrs. Gatty, called 'Aunt Judy's Tales'--whereof to make presents to my little lady friends. I had, at that happy time, perhaps from four-and-twenty to six-and-thirty--I forget exactly how many--very particular little lady friends; and greatly wished Aunt Judy to be the thirty-seventh,--the kindest, wittiest, prettiest girl one had ever read of, at least in so entirely proper and orthodox literature.