Floral Biography Or Chapters On Flowers | by Charlotte Elizabeth
Botany is doubtless a very delightful study ; but a botanical treatise is one of the last things that I should be found engaged in. Truth shall be told : my love of flowers—for each particular petal —is such, that no thirst after scientific knowledge could ever prevail with me to tear the beautiful objects in pieces. I love to see the bud bursting into maturity; I love to mark the deepening tints with which the beams of heaven paint the expanded flower; nay, with a melancholy sort of pleasure, I love to watch that progress towards decay, so endearingly bespeaking a fellowship in man's transient glory, which, even at its height, is but as " the flower of grass." I love to gaze upon these vegetable gems—to marvel and adore, that such relics of paradise are yet permitted to brighten a path where the iniquity of rebellious sinners has sown the thorn and the thistle, under the blighting curse of an offended God. Next after the blessed bible, a flower-garden is to me the most eloquent of books—a volume teeming with instruction, consolation, and reproof.
| Title | Floral Biography Or Chapters On Flowers |
| Author | Charlotte Elizabeth |
| Publisher | M. W. Dodd |
| Year | 1842 |
| Copyright | 1842, M. W. Dodd |
| Amazon | Floral biography; or, Chapters on flowers |
Chapter I. The Snow-Drop- But there is yet another, and somewhat fancifnl view, that I delight to take of these fair things, my course has lain through a busy and a chequered path; I have been subjected to many changes of plac...
- The Snow-Drop. Part 2
- Frederick concealed from his wife the extent of his sufferings, while she thus encouraged the flesh to lust against the Spirit; but she could not be ignorant of it; and that knowledge, as she describe...
- The Snow-Drop. Part 3
- As yet, no real peace had visited the soul of the mourner: the enemy was restrained, that he should no longer inflict on her the torture of his blasphemous suggestions: but grief, corroding grief, ate...
- Chapter II. The Furze-Bush
- 'Nothing venture, nothing have,' is one of the homely sayings against which sentence of banishment has been pronounced from the high places of what we are pleased to call refined society. When I scraw...
- The Furze-Bush. Part 2
- Mary was the name of this departed one, whose memory is precious to me. She was a humble cottager ; but remarkable for that intelligence which frequently, I may say universally, characterizes even the...
- The Furze-Bush. Part 3
- It was when struggling against my own unbelief, so cruelly encouraged by the groundless tales of wilful deceivers and willing dupes, that I was unexpectedly cheered, by the sudden recurrence of Mary t...
- Chapter III. The Shamrock
- Should any of my readers have amused themselves by conjecturing which, among the increasing variety of floral gems that herald the spring, would be brought forward as appropriate to the month of March...
- The Shamrock. Part 2
- I will not attempt to express what I felt, at this trait of exquisite tenderness and delicacy in a poor peasant boy : but I told him that the little shamrocks were far dearer to me, because they made ...
- The Shamrock. Part 3
- I have alluded to the strength of the boy's patriotism ; this always appeared extraordinary to me. Of geography he had not the slightest idea, neither could any peculiarity of language (for the Irish ...
- Chapter IV. The Heart's-Ease
- The winter of 1833-4—by courtesy a winter-will long be remembered by florists, as having afforded them an unlooked-for feast. Its approach was heralded by such awful prognostications, founded like tho...
- The Heart's-Ease. Continued
- The mid-day hour was devoted to a meal as frugal as his breakfast. ' Those late dinners,' he once said, * are thieves. They steal away one's time, and energy, and usefulness. I am naturally luxurious ...
- Chapter V. The Hawthorn
- The changeableness of earthly things has been always a favourite and a fruitful theme, alike with the worldly moralist and the more spiritual instructor. The mutations of vegetable life, in particular...
- The Hawthorn. Continued
- Sweet blossoms of May! year after year I marked them unfolding, and every opening bud told me a tale of hope and confidence. Returning still in their appointed season, they were never sought in vain. ...
- Chapter VI. The White Rose
- Brilliant month of June ! What an accumula tion of treasures are scattered over the face of the florist's domain by thy liberal hand. Or rather, since those figurative expressions steal away the ascri...
- The White Rose. Continued
- But I must return to the Irish baby, wrho lay in state, not after the fashion of this world's great ones, but to indulge the fond and superstitious feelings of his family: three generations of whom ha...
- Chapter VII. The Carnation
- There are many disadvantages in writing periodically on a given subject. Other engagements, combined which the treacherous spirit of procrastination, will lead us to defer the work, until the consciou...
- The Carnation. Continued
- ' Very poorly, indeed, lady,' she answered, without any movement; ' my poor bones ache so, that I can get no rest'. ' But your soul rests—does it not ?—in the love of the Lord Jesus'. ' It does—...
- Chapter VIII. The Evening Primrose
- ' The pale primrose' of early spring has found a laureate in the bard of every age, of every grade. The vernal landscape pictured to our mind's eye, would be incomplete without it. Who can fancy a gre...
- The Evening Primrose. Continued
- There are some minds so constituted, that they appear, intuitively, to fall into the very circumstances of those with whom they have to do ; insomuch that the pain or embarrassment of another will aff...
- Chapter IX. The Vine
- After a long struggle against the prevailing inclination, I have resolved to gratify it, even at the hazard of being brought in guilty of a flagrant departure from the verity of my title. Fruit does n...
- The Vine. Continued
- During this interview, Jack, the dumb boy, had been standing behind a chair, his eyes roving with strange delight from one to the other, fully comprehending the character of each, and bestowing on me ...
- Chapter X. The Heart's-Ease
- When viewed upon a grand scale, and from a commanding station, how beautiful are the tints of Autumn ! We look abroad, over hill and plain, interspread with grove and shrubbery, and the hedge-row that...
- Chap X. The Heart's-Ease. Continued
- About that time, he made a remark that impressed me deeply, and, I hope, abidingly. We attended the ministry of his beloved friend H., and on one occasion, adverting to certain criticisms that had bee...
- Chapter XI. The Lauristinus
- The memory of the just is blessed. Happy are they who comprehend how sinful mortal man may be just with God—who, in taking up the happy boast He is near that justifieth, who shall condemn me ? c...
- The Lauristinus. Continued
- God be praised, the plea was successful; and he has met, before the throne of the Lamb, some whose polluted garments were washed clean in His blood, through the ministrations of a blessed 'bread-shop,...
- Chapter XII. The Holly-Bush
- How cheerless an aspect would our gardens wear, in this dreary month of December, had not some plants been indued writh hardihood to retain their leaves, when the greater proportion was stripped bare ...
- The Holly-Bush. Continued
- Attached as I always was to the old custom of decorating our houses and churches with the holly-bough, it may be believed that the scene just sketched, left an impression not calculated to decrease my...
- Chapter XIII. The Christmas Rose
- 'A happy new year.'—From how many thousands of voices is that greeting heard ! I love to receive it even when friendships are so young, that it is the first occasion offered of exchanging the kindly s...
- The Christmas Rose. Continued
- What then remains ? Something which is not in the world's gift. We have a better and more enduring substance, capable of so filling every vacancy, that we should have nothing to repine at, if we would...
- Chapter XIV. The Purple Crocus
- To those who admit —and who can deny it ?—that flowers are a special and most unmerited gift to brighten the path which man's transgressions have darkened with sadness, and strewn with thorns, it is a...
- The Purple Crocus. Continued
- After this, we never met without a cordial greet ing; and on one occasion I saw him, when returning from a scene to me most precious. A poor Romanist who had, under the power of the gospel, declared i...
- Chapter XV. The Hyacinth
- Has any person ever seen a vulgar-looking flower ? It is customary, I know, to call weeds vulgar; but that is an idle distinction, not admissible by any florist, to say nothing of botanists ; because ...
- The Hyacinth. Part 2
- The Reader willingly wrote out his petition, for Doghery was a better scholar in his native Irish than in the English tongue ; and while he was so employed, the young man took up the book which the ot...
- The Hyacinth. Part 3
- Many a tear have I shed over the leaves of Doghery's little bible, as I marked the print of his soiled fingers in those pages which he loved to ponder upon. The Gospel and Epistles of St. John, and th...
- The Hyacinth. Part 4
- I should sorrow to see my beautiful hyacinth taken from its warm station, and placed abroad, on this chilly evening, to shrink before the biting frost, to bend beneath the blustering wind, and to brea...
- Chapter XVI. The Heart's-Ease
- There are some objects that all the world is agreed in admiring, or professing to admire. Those who have taste and feeling, experience exquisite delight in surveying such objects; and people who have ...
- >Chap XVI. The Heart's-Ease. Continued
- But there is a case, not unfrequently occurring, where individuals who have themselves been brought to Christ, see their hope, as respects some beloved connexion, apparently cut off, by a stroke that ...
- Chapter XVII. The Ranunculus
- ' You have been plundering from Hervey,' said a friend good-humouredly the other day, who traced, as he thought, a resemblance between these chapters and Hervey's Meditations, strong enough to warrant...
- The Ranunculus. Part 2
- Nor does it end here : whatever be the rod, the chastisement is ordered and over-ruled by a loving Father, that it may yield to his children who are exercised thereby, the peaceable fruit of righteous...
- The Ranunculus. Part 3
- Thus the Ranunculus leads me back to a period now distant, and shewing me the long, the guilty waste of precious days and years, waves not its beautiful head in vain. From a fascinating toy, it has be...
- Chapter XVIII. The Garden
- Beautiful at all times, and always refreshing, there are seasons when the garden wears a countenance of enhanced beauty, and wafts to the spirit a refreshment more welcome than at others. Such is the ...
- The Garden. Continued
- There stood forth one, who came to plead for his poor country; and he told a simple tale of what his own eyes had seen, his own experience verified, within a short space of time. He spoke of a mansion...
- Chapter XIX. The Jessamine
- That dear little modest flower, the Jessamine, with its milk-white blossoms half hid in the masses of cool refreshing green, used to adorn the most limited spot, in the shape of a garden, that ever I ...
- The Jessamine. Continued
- I placed some delicate Jessamine flowers in her coffin: and most delicious it was to gaze upon her placid countenance, with a vivid recollection of her bitter sufferings, and an equally vivid assuranc...
- Chapter XX. The Passion-Flower
- I have already mentioned that I was nearly deterred from taking up two or three subjects, by finding that Hervey had left me nothing to say respecting the particular flowers connected with them. I sha...
- The Passion-Flower. Part 2
- As I have before remarked, my floral associations are very arbitrary. They are sometimes founded on a resemblance, traced between the individual and the flower; but more frequently upon some incident ...
- The Passion-Flower. Part 3
- Accordingly I wrote as delicate and grateful a refusal as I could; and my heart danced so lightly in my bosom after it, that I trust there is no danger of my ever trying what sort of sensation a contr...
- Chapter XXI. The Lemon-Plant
- While engaged in writing these simple memorials, I have often been led to think on a friend, before whose eye the pages must frequently have brought scenes and characters no less familiar to her than ...
- The Lemon-Plant. Continued
- We once, when setting out on a long walk besides the river, started a subject on which our opinions considerably differed : it was something connected with the grand doctrine of redemption. My notions...
- Chapter XXII. The Pale Bell Of The Heath
- Among the most interesting of the many deep mysteries that invite inquiry, above, around, and within us, one, not the least attractive to me, has long been the communion, that an infant soul, or rathe...
- The Pale Bell Of The Heath. Part 2
- When I first saw the little one, who is now vividly present to my mind, she was closely nestled in her pillow, and T hardly caught a glimpse of the features on which day-light had shone only for three...
- The Pale Bell Of The Heath. Part 3
- I shall not again see the sweet infant bell of the heath rise up, without a tear for the gentle babe, through whose blue veins flowed blood not alien to me and mine, and whose lovely aspect frequently...
- Chapter XXIII. The Guernsey Lily
- The Guernsey Lily may not be known to all my readers; but those who have seen it will admit its claim to rank with the most beautiful of that elegant family. Rising in a slender stem of reddish hue, w...
- The Guernsey Lily. Part 2
- The room was perfectly bare, save an old chest, a broken chair, and a stool; an iron pot for potatoes, and a basin, and a plate. It was perfectly clean, nevertheless, and recently white-washed, which ...
- The Guernsey Lily. Part 3
- My companion was much struck with the old man; he talked long, and then prayed with him; and afterwards added his most unequivocal testimony to that of the many who had formerly visited him. It was my...
- Chapter XXIV. The Ivy
- Two winters of singular mildness had led me so far to forget the general characteristics of that dreary season, that when the customary blight fell, somewhat abruptly, on the vegetable world, it start...
- The Ivy. Part 2
- If such be the general experience of those most highly favoured in external things, what shall we say of such as, like the winter Ivy, stand exposed to the fiercest assaults of blight, and blast, and ...
- The Ivy. Part 3
- The Gospel—precious word! It is the power of Him who says, The Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted; to comfort all that mourn; t...
