reat Suffering, that peace bears to
passion, or that promise bears to prayer.

Soon the aspect of the flower changes. As though over the well-spring of
its eternal life hangs some ruthless power forcing it back into
darkness, before an hour has passed, we can see that its newly-found
vigor is fading away. The pulsing light at its heart grows fainter and
fainter--slowly the petals raise themselves, to drop wearily side by
side upon its bosom--and finally, its beauty vanished, its strength
exhausted, it hangs heavy and brown upon its stem, waiting for the touch
that alone can waken it again.

This rare botanical wonder, blooming one moment before admiring eyes,
and next lying dried and shrivelled in a tomb-like box, is not without
its legendary interest, though the odor of its oriental history has, by
this time, been nearly blown away by that sharp simoom of investigation,
which has already whirled so many pretty fables and theories into
oblivion.

The story of the flower, as given in 1856, by the late Dr. Deck, the
naturalist, is as follows:

While travelling on a professional tour in Upper Egypt, eight years
before, engaged in exploring for some lost emerald and copper mines, he
chanced to render medical service to an Arab attached to his party. In
gratitude, the child of the desert formally presented to him this
now-called 'Resurrection Flower,' at the same time enjoining upon him
never to part with it. Like the fabled gift of the Egyptian, it was
supposed to have 'magic in the web of it.' The doctor was solemnly
assured by the Arab, and others of his race, that it had been taken ten
years before from the breast of an Egyptian mummy, a high priestess, and
was deemed a great rarity; that it would never decay if properly cared
for; that its possession through life would tend to revive hope in
adversity, and, if buried with its owner, would ensure for him hereafter
all the enjoyments of the Seventh Heaven of Mahomet. When presented,
this flower was one of two hanging upon the same stem. Dr. Deck
carefully preserved one; the twin specimen he presented to Baron
Humboldt, who acknowledged it to be the greatest floral wonder he had
yet seen, and the only one of its kind he had met with in the course of
his extensive travels.

For years the doctor carried his treasure with him everywhere, prizing
it for its intrinsic qualities, and invariably awakening the deepest
interest whenever he chanced to display its wondrous powe