MS Huntington Library: Yonge Letters
Dear Madam,
I am obliged by the kind manner in which you have received my suggestions1, and I must pursue the Lotus controversy a little further with the assistance of Liddell and Scott’s dictionary.
Λωτος, it says, is the name of several plants often wrongly confounded. The Egyptian Lotus or Lily of the Nile, white or blue blossoms at the time of the overflowing of the Nile, and of the Ganges, and thus both in Egyptian and Hindoo mythology became the emblem of fertility, and was used in the sacred rites. It is figured in Icones and is a decided Lily, but you will observe it could never have been eaten, as it is of the poisonous class Polyandria, and besides could never have been called a Tree. I believe it is through this that the Lily has become the emblem of the annunciation, though, of course, this association can not be mentioned in the packet. The botanical name is the Nymphæa Lotus.
There is besides a class of Lotus, with papilionaceous flowers, bean like seeds in pods, and trefoil leaves. The North African kind was a low thorny shrub ‘still purveyed at Tunis and Tripoli under the name of the jujube, and a favourite subject of Arab poetry.’2 This was the food of the Lotophagi, the fruit supposed to confer immortality, and must be your Lote-tree. One kind is said to have rose coloured blossoms which produce the Egyptian bean. I will write to my friend and ask her the colour of the Lotus she knew in the Greek islands. I have a vague idea she said it was pink, and I know it was papilionaceous. The butterfly form, emblematic of the soul is the very thing so the plant of immortality and Resurrection, and I hope our little Lotus Corniculatus derives its name from this source. It is not an Easter flower here, but I dare say the foreign sort may be. Your account of your researches interested me much. I thought at first you must have consulted those pretty German Almanacks where I have seen something of the kind. I hope you will not think the beautiful Dove orchis of South America too new to insert, it is exactly like a hovering Dove, and I believe the name is St Esprit, but I do not know its botanical name.3 I like your plan of the Garland of our Lady’s Flowers. Is your name or initial to be put to the papers?
pretty verses, for which I am much obliged, will not be in time for the Decr no, I hope to have room for them on New Year’s Day.
With many thanks
Yours sincerely
The E of the M P.