Alas, children! the world is growing old. Not that dear old Mother Earth begins to show her six thousand (more or less) years, by stiff joints and clumsy movements, by clinging to her winter's rest and her warm coverlet of snow, forgetting to push up the blue-eyed violets in the spring, or neglecting to unpack the fresh green robes of the trees. No, indeed! The blessed mother spins around the sun as gayly as she did in her first year. She rises from her winter sleep fresh and young as ever. Every new violet is as exquisitely tinted, as sweetly scented, as its predecessors of a thousand years ago. Each new maple-leaf opens as delicate and lovely as the first one that ever came out of its tightly packed bud in the spring. Mother Nature never grows old.
But the human race changes in the same way that each one of us does. The race had its childhood when men and women played the games that are now left to you youngsters. We can even see the change in our own day. Some of us—who are not grandmothers, either—can remember when youth of fourteen and fifteen played many games which, nowadays, an unfortunate damsel of six years—ruffled, embroidered, and white gowned, with delicate shoes, and hips in the vice-like grasp of a modern sash—feels are altogether too young for her. I dare say I shall live to see the once-beloved dolls abandoned to babies; and I fear the next generation will find a Latin grammar in the cradle instead of a rattle-box, and baby cutting his teeth scientifically, with a surgical instrument, instead of on a rubber ring.
Well, well! What do you suppose our great-grandchildren will do?
We must not let these old-fashioned customs be forgotten, and I want to tell you the story of May-day. A curious tale is told of the beginning of the May-day celebration, which is of more venerable age than perhaps you know. You shall hear it, and then you can believe as much as you choose, as all the rest of the world takes the liberty of doing; for although the grave old Roman writers put it in their books for truth, it is very much doubted by our modern wiseheads, because it is so unreasonable, and so inelegant (as our dainty critic says). As though the world was always reasonable, forsooth! or undoubted historical facts did not sometimes lack the important quality of elegance!
However it may be, here is the story: Many hundred years ago,—about two hundred before Christ, in fact,—there lived in Rome a beautiful woman named Flora. Had she lived in these luxurious days, she would have enjoyed another name or two; but in those simple times she was plain Flora.
Being human, this lady had a great dread of being forgotten when she had left the world. So she devised a plan to keep her memory green. She made a will giving her large fortune to the city of Rome, on condition that a festival in her memory should be celebrated every year.
When the will came before the grave and reverend Roman senators, it caused serious talk. To decline so rich a gift was not to be thought of; yet to accept the condition they did not like, for it was a bold request in Madam Flora, who had, to say the least, done nothing worthy of celebrating. At last, according to the old story-tellers, a way out of the difficulty was found, as there generally is; and the city fathers decided to accept the terms, and make Flora worthy of the honor by placing her among their minor deities, of which there were no less than thirty thousand. She took her place as Goddess of Flowers, with a celebration about the first of May, to be called Floralia, after her.
This little story may be a fable; but now I shall tell you some facts. When the Romans came to Britain to live, many hundred years ago, they brought, of course, their own customs and festivals, among which was this one in memory of Flora. The heathen—our ancestors, you know—adopted them with delight, being in the childhood of their race. They became very popular; and when, some years later, a good priest, Gregory, came (from Rome also) to convert the natives, he wisely took advantage of their fondness for festivals, and not trying to suppress them, he simply altered them from heathen feasts to Christian games, by substituting the names of saints and martyrs for heathen gods and goddesses. Thus the Floralia became May-day celebration, and lost none of its popularity by the change. On the contrary, it was carried on all over England for ages, till its origin would have been lost but for a few pains-taking old writers, who "made notes" of everything.
The Floralia we care nothing for, but the May-day games have lasted nearly to our day, and some relics of it still survive in our young country. When you crown a May queen, or go with a May party, you are simply following a custom that the Romans began, and that our remote ancestors in England carried to such lengths, that not only ordinary people, but lords and ladies, and even king and queen, laid aside their state and went "a-Maying" early in the morning, to wash their faces in May dew, and bring home fresh boughs and flowers to deck the May-pole, which reared its flowery crown in every village.