Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FLOWERS. The bright mosaics, that with storied beauty, The floor of nature’s temple tesselate.?Horace Smith. A Passion for flowers, writes Mrs. Hemans, is, I really think, the only one which long sickness leaves untouched with its chilling influence. Often, during a weary illness, have I looked upon new books with perfect apathy, when, if a friend has sent me a few flowers, my heart has leapt up to their dreamy hues and odors, with a sudden sense of renovated childhood?which seems to me one of the mysteries of our being. To a cultivated taste, indeed, flowers ever present the rarest attractions, and the most fascinating charms. Many-tinted and many-voiced, they are associated with all that we share in the poetry and romance of life: ?-they deck the joyous days of childhood, shedding richest fragrance, and reflecting over its ascending pathway their ever-changing and gorgeous hues. Buds and blossoms form the tokens of gentle and endearing affection, they garnish alike the sanctuary of home and the sainted grave, Barren indeed were this world of ours, Denied the sweet smile of the beautiful flowers. Poets and artists have ever delighted to pourtray the charms of nature, under whatever phase or aspect she presents them?as much when decked in her silvery sheen, as when arrayed in the prismatic hues of the vernal spring?when the meadows are gemmed with butter-cups and daisies, and the glorious trees of the forest are bursting into new life and beauty. With one exception?that of love?no subject has, to a like extent, challenged the rich and quaint device of the votaries of the muse. How pleasant an hour might we wile away by citations of the pleasurable passages of the poets, who have luxuriated over the treasures of Flora ! The very n…