"For envy there are the bramble and the aconite, which, to be sure, is more exactly assigned to calumny and scandal; and, again, the nettle, which, however, is also interpreted by Albertus Magnus as figuring courage and expelling fear.
"Greediness?" The Abbé paused to think. "Carnivorous plants, perhaps, as the fly-trap and the bog sundew."
"And why not the humbler cuscuta, the dodder, the cuttlefish of the vegetable kingdom, which shoots out the antennæ of its stems as fine as thread, attaching itself to other plants by tiny suckers and feeding greedily on their juices?" asked the Abbé Gévresin.
"Anger," the Abbé Plomb went on, "is symbolized by a shrub with pinkish flowers, a kind of bitter-sweet, as it is popularly called, and by Herb Basil, which ever since the Middle Ages has had the same character ascribed to it of cruelty and rage as to its namesake, the basilisk, in the animal world."
"Oh!" cried Madame Bavoil, "and we use it to season dishes and flavour certain sauces."
"That is a serious culinary error and a spiritual danger," said the priest, smiling. He then went on:—
"Anger may also be figured by the balsam, which especially symbolizes impatience by reason of the irritability of its seed-vessels, which fly at a touch and explode, sending them to some distance....
"Sloth finally has the whole tribe of poppies, which give sleep.
"As to the opposite virtues, the explanation they need is childish. For humility you have the bracken, the hyssop, the knotweed, and the violet, which, says Peter of Capua, is, by that same token, emblematical of Christ."
"And likewise, according to Saint Melito, of the Confessors; or, according to Saint Mechtildis, of widows," added the Abbé Gévresin.