I would beg the reader to constantly bear in mind this fact when studying the symbolism and mythology of Nature--that among the ancients every object, beginning with the serpent, typified _all that is_, or all Nature, and consequently the opposites of Death and Life, united in one, as also the male and female principle, darkness and light, sleep and waking, and, in fact, _all_ antagonisms. Even when, as in the case of the goat, the wild boar, or the Typhon serpent of the waters, destruction is more peculiarly implied, the fact that destruction is simply a preparation for fresh life was never forgotten. The destroying, undulating, wavy serpent of the waters was _also_ the type of life, and wound around the staff of Escalapius as a healing emblem, recalling the brazen serpent of Moses. In like manner the Tree of Life or of Knowledge was the tree also of Death, or of Good and of Evil, _arbor cogniti boni et mali_, and, according to the Rabbis, of sexual generation, from eating of which the first parents became self-conscious. Beans, which were symbols of impurity and peculiarly identified with evil (MENKE, _De Leguminibus Veterum_, Gottingen, 1814), were also typical of supporting life and of reviving spring and light. To see all reflected in each, and each in all, is, in fact, the key to all the mysteries of symbolism and the clue to the whole poetry of Nature. I propose in the following chapters to discuss the poetry and mystery of flowers, herbs, and other objects, and give not only their ancient signification, but also their more modern meaning, as set forth in song and in tradition. THE ROSE. 'I felix Rosa, mollibusque sertis Nostri cinge comas Apollinaris. Quas tu nectere candidas, sed olim, Sic te semper amet Venus, memento!' MARTIAL, Epig. 88, lib. 7. Among the most exquisite outbreathings of feeling in Nature we have the Rose. Many flowers are in certain senses more beautiful, but as, among women, she who charms is not always the most highly gifted with conventional attractions, so it is with the Queen of the Garden, whose proud simplicity is delicately blended with a familiar, friendly grace, which wins by the tenderest spell of association.