FRAGRANCE FROM AN OLD VOLUME

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20127, 21 April 1928, Page 16 (Supplement)

FRAGRANCE FROM AN OLD VOLUME

(By Doreen Dawsun In an old hook, yellow with ago, 1 recently recaptured the fragrance ol the Long Ago. when th? names of flowers were W"ven into the language of Love.. ThuW iinguage of simple hearts. Though the garland of symbolism has faded on the yellowed page, it still exhales the perfume of Romance. Mv old book tells me that in one peerie:,i blossom, the rose is a lover s litany. If there was a cloud in Love’s sky, the knight-errant sent his lady yellow roses. They pleaded for him, “Why waiieth love? ’ The proud lover laid his humble homage at the fee of his beloved when he brought her white roses, procln’ming her “full worthy of love.” And he who could but reiterate the magic phrase, “I lov c you,” said it time and again in roses of deepest red. The maid who loved, and who knew that she was loved, but by a swain who was timid and shy, did not outstep the bounds of old-world modesty if she wore a nosegay of primroses when next she met the bashful one, and thereby cm*Duraged him: “Do not be diffiBut there was warning, no !ess than levers’ pleading, in this ancient language of flowers. The maiden who wandered through, wood or meadow on her lover’s arm had fain to be content only to admire the delicate blue harebells in the grass. Never must she pluck them, since they signified “short-lived joy.” Ami fox-gloves, of the pretty fairy myth, were the deadly emblem of deceit! ”

Other wilri blossoms, however, had a happier symbolism. The fragrant, purple-flowering wild mint was the harbinger of “riches.” The tiny scarlet pimpernel brought “consolation.” And the golden gorse, for all its thorns, was the floral pledge of “eternal constanuv. ’'

Thus did the lovers of the Long Ago. after their own fashion, “say it in flowers. ’ ’