Wandering lonely as a cloud through London’s dusty bookshops back in the spring of ’88, I came across a lovely edition with a rose-strewn cover, full of cross-references to flowers and feelings, with verses to boot. Topics included Energy in Adversity, Immortality, and Secret Love. A keeper! For the Romantic that stubbornly persists in me, and in some of you, Gentle Readers . . . or not:

*1875 definitions from The Language of Flowers, London: T. Nelson and Sons.

“Satire is people as they are; romanticism, people as they would like to be; realism, people as they seem with their insides left out.”—Dawn Powell