The Hindoos believe that the Peepul tree of which the foliage trembles like that of the aspen, has a spirit in every leaf.
"Did you ever see a fairy's funeral, Madam?" said Blake, the artist. "Never Sir." "I have," continued that eccentric genius, "One night I was walking alone in my garden. There was great stillness amongst the branches and flowers and more than common sweetness in the air. I heard a low and pleasant sound, and knew not whence it came: at last I perceived the broad leaf of a flower move, and underneath I saw a procession of creatures the size and color of green and gray grasshoppers, bearing a body laid out on a rose leaf, which they buried with song, and then disappeared."
THE PINK.
The PINK (dianthus) is a very elegant flower. I have but a short story about it. The young Duke of Burgundy, grandson of Louis the Fifteenth, was brought up in the midst of flatterers as fulsome as those rebuked by Canute. The youthful prince was fond of cultivating pinks, and one of his courtiers, by substituting a floral changeling, persuaded him that one of those pinks planted by the royal hand had sprung up into bloom in a single night! One night, being unable to sleep, he wished to rise, but was told that it was midnight; he replied "Well then, I desire it to be morning."
The pink is one of the commonest of the flowers in English gardens. It is a great favorite all over Europe. The botanists have enumerated about 400 varieties of it.
THE PANSY OR HEARTS-EASE.
The PANSY (víola trîcolor) commonly called Hearts-ease, or Love-in- idleness, or Herb-Trinity (Flos Trinitarium), or Three-faces- under-a-hood, or Kit-run-about, is one of the richest and loveliest of flowers.
The late Mrs. Siddons, the great actress, was so fond of this flower that she thought she could never have enough of it. Besides round beds of it she used it as an edging to all the flower borders in her garden. She liked to plant a favorite flower in large masses of beauty. But such beauty must soon fatigue the eye with its sameness. A round bed of one sort of flowers only is like a nosegay composed of one sort of flowers or of flowers of the same hue. She was also particularly fond of evergreens because they gave her garden a pleasant aspect even in the winter.
"Do you hear him?"--(John Bunyan makes the guide enquire of Christiana while a shepherd boy is singing beside his sheep)--"I will dare to say this boy leads a merrier life, and wears more of the herb called hearts-ease in his bosom, than he that is clothed in silk and purple."
Shakespeare has connected this flower with a compliment to the maiden Queen of England.