The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, August, 1864: Devoted To Literature And National PolicyVarious
History
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, August, 1864: Devoted To Literature And National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
Perhaps some are thus most meet for symbols of the dead; the stately,
frozen calla, which seems a fit trophy, bound with laurel leaves, to lay
upon a soldier's bier; and the snow-cold camelia, whose stony
sculpturing is the very emblem for those white features whence God has
drained away the life.
But, camelias warmed with color, fuchsias, abutilons, the cultivated
azalia (the wild one has a scent), asters, and a host of other loved and
lovely flowers--why are they deprived of language?
Perhaps they _have_ a fragrance, felt by subtler senses than we mortals
own. But, at least, if they must now appear as mute, we may yet hope
that in a more spiritual existence we shall behold their very doubles,
gifted with a novel charm, a captivating perfume, we cannot conceive of
here. For in the vast harmony of the universe one cannot believe there
can be any floral instruments whose strings are never to be awakened.
It _has_ been but the pastime of a half hour that we have given to the
flower odors, when an ever-widening field for speculation lies before
us. But imagination droops exhausted, baffled by the innumerable
enchanting riddles still to solve. And this must now suffice.
If it serve to excite any dormant thought in the more ingenious mind of
another--if it be able to call out the learned conceits of some scholar,
or the delicate symbolisms of some dreamer, it has done its work.
The hand that has thus far guided the pen, to dally with a subject all
the dearer because so generally disregarded, will now gladly yield it to
the control of a fresher fancy, a truer observation.
LOCOMOTION.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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