A florist at Haarlem enumerates 800 kinds of double-flowered
Hyacinths, besides about 400 varieties of the single kind. It is said
that there are altogether upwards of 2000 varieties of the Hyacinth.
The English are particularly fond of the Hyacinth. It is a domestic
flower--a sort of parlour pet. When in "close city pent" they transfer
the bulbs to glass vases (Hyacinth glasses) filled with water, and place
them in their windows in the winter.
An annual solemnity, called Hyacinthia, was held in Laconia in honor of
Hyacinthus and Apollo. It lasted three days. So eagerly was this
festival honored, that the soldiers of Laconia even when they had taken
the field against an enemy would return home to celebrate it.
THE NARCISSUS
Foolish Narcisse, that likes the watery shore
_Spenser_
With respect to the NARCISSUS, whose name in the floral vocabulary is
the synonyme of _egotism_, there is a story that must be familiar enough
to most of my readers. Narcissus was a beautiful youth. Teresias, the
Soothsayer, foretold that he should enjoy felicity until he beheld his
own face but that the first sight of that would be fatal to him. Every
kind of mirror was kept carefully out of his way. Echo was enamoured of
him, but he slighted her love, and she pined and withered away until she
had nothing left her but her voice, and even that could only repeat the
last syllables of other people's sentences.
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