Floralia

“ It is by no means clear that at any time Robin Hood and his companions were constituent characters in the morris. There were, besides, May-games of a more simple nature, being merely dances round a May-pole, by the lads and lasses of the village, and the undoubted remains of the Roman Floralia. [167] We find also that other festivals and ceremonies had their morris, as Holy-Thursday; the Whitsun-ales; the bride-ales, or weddings, [168] and a sort of play or pageant called the lord of misrule. Sheriffs too had their morris dance. ”

“ Flẻttere, flẻtto, flẻssi, flẻsso, to bow, to bend, to yeeld to any force.
Flẻuma, as Flẻmma.
Flobotomía, as Flebotomía.
Florália, certaine set feasts that plants might blow kindely, and shed their blossoms.
Florẻntíssimo, most flowrishing.
Flórido, flowrishing, flowring.
Florígero, flowres-bearing.
Flório, a kind of bird, betweene which and the horse there is such an antipathy, that if the bird doe but whistle, the horse as astonied runneth away headlong.
Flosciáre, as Fioccáre. Also rauell as doth sleaue silke.
Flóscia séta, raueling or sleaue silke. ”

“ The expression of the eyes was a rub of pastel from a master's thumb; the whole head, stamped with a sort of showy suffering, had gained a fineness from what she had passed through. Yes, Flora was settled for life--nothing could hurt her further. I foresaw the particular praise she would mostly incur--she would be invariably "interesting." She would charm with her pathos more even than she had charmed with her pleasure. For herself above all she was fixed for ever, rescued from all change and ransomed from all doubt. ”

“ Flora's engagement to ride with young Fernwoodlee and the meet at Kilhenzie, were committed to oblivion, and were utterly forgotten, as she sat alone, full of thought, on the old mossgrown garden-seat, with the autumn leaves whirling round her.
Through the branches of the stripped trees on which the rooks were cawing, the sunlight fell aslant upon the copper gnomon of the ancient sun and moon dial, which occupied the centre of the quaint Scoto-French garden, and round the pedestal of which Quentin, to please her, during the last spring, had trained a creeping plant. ”

“ Every hour—yea, every minute—on his upward journey, he is greeted by new forms of vegetable life and must needs at the same time bid farewell to others that may not accompany him beyond their own proper zones. But, although Flora’s children are ever changing, they are always beautiful and it would be difficult for the botanist to say where they challenge the most admiration—in the hot plains of the Orinoco and the Meta or high up on the cheerless and inhospitable paramo. ”

“ Our cousin the curate no sooner saw the tropical stranger, and marked his impression upon Flora, than he felt the end. As the shaft struck his heart, his smile was sweeter, and his homage even more poetic and reverential. I doubt if Flora understood him or herself. She did not know, what he instinctively perceived, that she loved him less. But there are no degrees in love; when it is less than absolute and supreme, it is nothing. Our cousin and Flora were not formally engaged, but their betrothal was understood by all of us as a thing of course. ”

“ As her slumbers grew lighter, dreams of father, mother, and sister passed through various changes; the last of which was that Flora was puzzling the mocking-birds. She waked to the consciousness that some one was whistling in the room.
"Who is that!" exclaimed she; and the parrot replied with a tempest of imitations. Madame, hearing the noise, came in, saying: "How stupid I was not to cover the cage! She is so noisy! Her memory is wonderful. I don't think she'll ever forget a note of all the mélange dear Floracita took so much pains to teach her." ”

“ Lying down on her rock, she told over with the rapture of a devotee the divine excellencies of Flora Le Pettit; her radiance, her swinging, shining curls, the wings that spread from her fair arms, the light that gleamed on her bright brow and in her glancing eyes, but it was not Flora, but Loveday, who danced before her mind's eye in white raiment, and held the sorrows of the South in her eyes and the joy of youth on her lips. Flora was the excuse for that new Loveday, as the beloved is ever the excuse for the raptures transmuting the lover. ”

“ Instead of the pleasures, come the cares of this life."
"Cast your cares upon Him, for He careth for you," faintly murmured Lady Legrange.
"Ah, Flora, you were never like any one else; I always feel better when I am near you." Flora's brow contracted a little, as if she were in pain, and she turned her head away from the speaker.
"I wish that I could always have you beside me," continued Ada; "it would be such a comfort to have your wise, calm advice!"
"It is so much easier to give advice than to take it home to ourselves," said Flora, with something like a sigh. ”

“ You don't call visiting old women and sickly children, and questioning a prim class of tidy girls in a school-room, seeing anything of society? Have you no neighbours in your own rank of life within ten miles round?"
"Not many," replied Flora; "but a few. There's the clergyman--you have seen him--good old Mr. Ward--"
"Oh yes, I have seen him,--the bald-headed little man, with such a benevolent look and patronising smile, that I quite expected him to pat me on the head and say, 'There's a good little dear!'"
"Naughty little dear, I should say," laughed Flora. ”

“ The unexpected finding of a link connected with old times had a salutary effect on Flora's spirits. In the morning, she said that she had had pleasant dreams about Rosabella and Tulee, and that she didn't mean to be homesick any more. "It's very ungrateful," added she, "when my dear, good Mamita Lila does so much to make me happy."
"To help you keep your good resolution, I propose that we go to the Athenaeum," said Mrs. Delano, smiling. Flora had never been in a gallery of paintings, and she was as much pleased as a little child with a new picture-book. ”

“ Wastewater’s wide walls; the doctor, Flora weeping on David’s arm, Gay standing straight and alone, and the awestruck maids were all her little funeral train. It was Flora who seemed to feel the loss most, and with surprising force; she seemed broken and aged, and it was for Gabrielle to comfort her.
“I never supposed it would be so,” Flora repeated, over and over. “That I would be the last—that Will and Roger and Lily would all be gone before me!”
She would not stay in bed; Flora did not belong to the generation that can eat and read and idle comfortably under covers. ”

“ The only regret that Flora felt at leaving her home in Bartonville was that she would be obliged to part with her class of girls, whom she loved and who loved her. She comforted herself with the thought that she would have another, if possible, in Brinton. The girls she left behind always cherished the memory of their young teacher, and strove to imitate her gentle, earnest ways, and noble traits. Surely, the seed she had sown in their hearts would spring up, blossom, and bear fruit for the Master's kingdom. ”

“ No one here holds the mirrors, yet the head is bent and the eyes are turned as if some one stood by to catch the glance, and stretch a hand for the flowers; for whilst with her left Flora strives by an intricate and momentary play of the fingers, to keep fast the muslin that falls from her shoulder and the damask that slips from her form, with the other she presents a handful of roses, jessamines, and violets to an unseen lover. ”

“ The little creeping Cinque-foil, sketched with the Thistle, is common in most parts of the kingdom, enlivening the grass amongst which it creeps with its gay and prettily formed flowers of bright yellow.
We find the originals of our next group in the garden or conservatory. The Lobelia, or Cardinal-flower, as, from its scarlet attire, it is frequently termed, exhibits one of the most brilliant and intense colours of any among Flora's exquisite hues. It is positively dazzling, when intently looked upon, and baffles every attempt at imitation. ”

“ But as easily could that roaring cataract break the arch of the rainbow that glistens at its foot, as the torrent of eloquence to which she listened warp the settled judgment of the parent. She needed not to be persuaded that Sir Amery loved--she believed Flora to be worthy of the warmest affection which ever glowed in the heart of man; but no sentence which he uttered altered her conviction that he was one who, however gifted with earthly wisdom, was yet a stranger to the knowledge which alone can make man wise unto salvation. ”

“ She went into the woods and brought back an armful of maple leaves and, with Flora's melancholy assistance, fastened them against the walls and over the doors, hiding, to some extent, the frieze of fans and the yellow pennons of the Cause. She even took down the muslin curtains and washed and ironed them herself, and put them up again, crisp and dainty. The little room bloomed with her joy. When she sat down to "polish" her article she kept jumping up every few minutes to move a bowl of flowers, or put an extra book on the mantelpiece. ”

“ Grose herself for, the pleasure I could see her feel in my admiration and wonder as I sat at supper with four tall candles and with my pupil, in a high chair and a bib, brightly facing me, between them, over bread and milk. There were naturally things that in Flora’s presence could pass between us only as prodigious and gratified looks, obscure and roundabout allusions.
“And the little boy—does he look like her? Is he too so very remarkable?”
One wouldn’t flatter a child. ”

“ Flora, who was imaginative and poetical, had drawn in her mind so touching, a picture of the pale widow and her golden-haired cherubs, had rehearsed to herself so often the scene of the meeting, that she had worked herself into a state of eager impatience. Unable to settle steadily to anything, she fluttered from room to room, now altering the arrangement of the flowers with which she had adorned the widow's pretty boudoir, now bringing some elegant trifle of her own to add to the beauty of the effect. ”

“ It included theatrical performances and animal hunts in the circus, and vegetables were distributed to the people. The proceedings were characterized by excessive merriment and licentiousness. According to the legend, her worship was instituted by Titus Tatius, and her priest, the flamen Floralis, by Numa. In art Flora was represented as a beautiful maiden, bedecked with flowers (Ovid, Fasti, v. 183 ff.; Tacitus, Annals, ii. 49) .
The term “flora” is used in botany collectively for the plant-growth of a district; similarly “fauna” is used collectively for the animals. ”

“ What an age it is since we met!" cried Flora, as the visitor was ushered into the elegant apartment of Lady Legrange, and the cousins exchanged an affectionate embrace.
Has Flora also been altered by the plain gold ring, which often works wonders as strange as those wrought by an enchanter?
Flora is lovely as ever, her beauty enhanced by a womanly dignity which beseems the baronet's wife. But she too has lost the joyous brightness which rested on her gentle countenance when Ada first visited Wingsdale. An expression of thought, almost of melancholy, is there ”

“ The "botanist" finds beauty everywhere, even among the homeliest of Flora's hosts. But in the light of the "new botany," which recognizes the insect as the important affinity of the flower—the key to its various puzzling features of color, form, and fragrance—every commonest blossom which we thought we had "known" all our lives, and every homely weed scarce worth our knowing, now becomes a rebuke, and offers us a field of investigation as fresh and promising as is offered by the veriest rare exotic of the conservatory ”

“ Flora's unfinished embroidery still remained in the frame, with the needle in the last stitch of a blue forget-me-not. Over the mirror was a cluster of blush-roses she had made. On the wall was a spray of sea-moss she had pressed and surrounded with a garland of small shells. By the door was a vine she had transplanted from the woods; and under a tree opposite was a turf seat where she used to sit sketching the cottage, and Tulee, and Thistle, and baskets of wild-flowers she had gathered. ”

“ There is a Gothic flora which has its laws, its harmony, its reason to exist so to speak, like the natural flora; one finds it in the stringcourses, in the capitals, and especially in these florets of crownings, if visible, being often detached on the sky, whose contour, modelled, the pace, can spoil a monument or give him an attractive aspect. The variety of the florets of the XIII E century is infinite, because, although our buildings of this time are covered with it, one does not know two of them which were carved on the same model. ”

“ Flora, as my readers must long ago have discovered, was no heroine of romance, but a veritable human creature, subject to all the faults and weaknesses incidental to her sex. She wished to have her own way, and was ready to cry that she could not get it. Yet, had her advice been acted upon, she would have been spared a great deal of sorrow and mortification, which greatly embittered the first months of her sojourn in a foreign land.
Persons emigrating to Canada cannot be guilty of a greater blunder than that of taking out servants with them, which is sure to end in loss and disappointment ”

“ But what most enchanted Flora, was the antique costume of the Newhaven fish-women, as, seated upon their upturned baskets, they called the attention of the visitor to their various stores of fish.
Flora was never tired of looking at these sea-maids and matrons. Their primitive appearance, and quaint, old-fashioned dress, took her fancy greatly—with their short petticoats, their blue stockings and buckled shoes, their neat, striped linen-jackets, and queer little caps, just covering the top of their head, and coming down in long, straight mobs, over their ears ”