Part 26

SENSITIVE PLANT.... Chastity.

This singular plant is so named from its motions imitating the sensibility of animal life. It contracts itself in the evening and expands with the morning light, and shrinks from external violence, folding up its leaves at the mere approach of one’s hand. The Violet is the emblem of that retiring modesty which proceeds from reflection, but the Sensitive Plant is a perfect image of innocence and virgin modesty, the result of instinct.

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So dear to heaven is saintly chastity, That when a soul is found sincerely so, A thousand liveried angels lackey her, Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt.

Milton.

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Oh! she is colder than the mountain’s snow. To such a subtile purity she’s wrought, She’s prayed and fasted to a walking thought: She’s an enchanted feast, most fair to sight, And starves the appetite she does invite; Flies from the touch of sense, and if you dare To name but love she vanishes to air.

Crown.

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In thy fair brow there’s such a legend writ Of chastity, as blinds the adulterous eye: Not the mountain ice, Congealed to crystals, is so frosty chaste As thy victorious soul, which conquers man, And man’s proud tyrant-passion.

Dryden.

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Like the Mimosa shrinking from The blight of some familiar finger-- Like flowers which but in secret bloom, Where aye the sheltered shadows linger, And which beneath the hot noon-ray Would fold their leaves and fade away-- The flowers of Love in secret cherished, In loneliness and silence nourished, Shrink backward from the searching eye, Until the stem whereon they flourished, Their shrine, the human heart, has perished, Although themselves may never die.

J. G. Whittier.

THYME.... Activity.

Among the ancient Greeks, Thyme denoted the graceful elegance of the Attic style; because it covered Mount Hymettus, and gave an aromatic flavour to the honey made there. Those writers who had mastered the Attic style were said “to smell of Thyme.” Flies of all shapes, beetles of all hues, bright butterflies, and vigilant bees for ever surround the flower tufts of Thyme, and they thus seem to teem with life. Activity is a warlike virtue, and is ever associated with true courage. On this notion, the ladies of the days of chivalry embroidered on the scarfs which they presented to their knights the figure of a bee hovering about a sprig of Thyme.

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I am not old,--though years have cast Their shadows on my way; I am not old,--though youth has passed, On rapid wings away. For in my heart a fountain flows, And round it pleasant thoughts repose; And sympathies, and feelings high, Spring like stars on evening’s sky.

Park Benjamin.

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The thrifty Thyme a home can find, Where smiles the sun, and breathes the wind.

Mrs. Hale.

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Take the instant way; For honour travels in a strait so narrow, Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path; For emulation hath a thousand sons, That one by one pursue: if you give way, Or edge aside from the direct forthright, Like to an entered tide, they all rush by, And leave you hindmost.

Shakspeare.

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The keen spirit Seizes the prompt occasion,--makes the thought Start into instant action, and at once Plans and performs, resolves and executes.

Hannah More.