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The old man saw at a glance that something serious was
amiss. He plunged at once, with quick insight, into what he took to be
extraneous topics of conversation.
"I am glad you like my fig tree! It gives a distinctive tone to this
quiet courtyard, don't you think? I could not have wished for anything
more appropriate. Its shape, its associations, are alike pleasing. The
fig is a legendary tree; a volume could be written about the stories
and superstitions which have twined themselves around it. Some think it
was the Biblical Tree of Knowledge. Judas Iscariot, they say, hanged
himself on a fig tree. It came from the East-Bacchus brought it on his
journey as a gift to mortal men. How much we owe to those of the Greek
gods who were yet not wholly divine! The Romans, too, held it in
veneration. You have doubtless heard about the FICUS RUMINALIS, at hose
feet the cradle of Romulus and Remus was stranded? Among many nations
it became the outward symbol of generative forces. The Egyptians
consecrated the fig to Isis, that fecund Mother of Earth.


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