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Flora's Lexicon/Box

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4412659Flora's Lexicon — BoxCatharine Harbeson Waterman

AOX. Buxus. Class 21, Monœca. Order: Tetrandria. This tree is made symbolical of a Stoic, on account of the firmness of its wood, which, like the Stoics of old, cannot be warped. The box was formerly a favourite ornament for gardens, being planted in hedges and borders, which were trimmed into fantastical forms.

STOICISM. CONSTANCY.

O foolishness of men! that lend their ears
To those budge doctors of the stoic fur,
And fetch their precepts from the cynic tub,
Praising the lean and sallow abstinence.

Milton.


How goodly looks Cytorus, ever green,
With boxen groves.

Dryden.


Nor box, nor limes, without their use are made,
Smooth-grain’d and proper for the turner’s trade;
Which curious hands may carve, and seal
With ease invade.

Virgil.

I have won
Thy heart, my gentle girl! but it hath been
When that soft eye was on me; and the love
I told beneath the evening influence,
Shall be as constant as its gentle star.

Willis.


Why have I not this constancy of mind,
Who have so many griefs to try its force.

Addison.


Proud of her birth (for equals he had none),
The rest she scorn’d, but hated him alone;
His gifts, his constant courtship, nothing gain’d,
For she, the more he loved, the more disdain’d.

Dryden.