We tend to find solemnity discomfiting, and at times do our best to fill laden silences, alleviate gloom, and ease tension. We seek smiles at times when once they were rarely deployed. In psychological terms wherever there is an emotional bias, there will be a point of entry of the intellect in the brain, insensitive to knowledge. In other words, because of a prejudice a person’s comprehension will be obstructed. Healthy persons often contain a much simpler, more transparent, and more characteristic symbolism than those of neurotics, which owing to the greater strictness of the censorship and the more extensive reality distortion resulting therefrom, are frequently troubled and obscured, and are therefore more difficult to translate. A young lady, rather prudish and the reserved type disclosed in the course of conversation that she was engaged to be married, but that there were hindrances in the way of the marriage which threatened to postpone it. One day, she arranged the centre of a table with flowers for a birthday. She was at home and experienced a feeling of happiness. It was the expression of her wish to be married: the table, with the flowers in the centre, is symbolic of herself and her chastity. She represents her future wishes as fulfilled, inasmuch as she is already occupied with thoughts of the birth of a child; so the wedding has already taken place long ago. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8

We all have emotional biases, and this is why we think it unusual when someone we hold to be highly intelligent seems to be irrational on certain points. The centre of the table is an uncommon expression, which she admits; but here, of course, she cannot be questioned more directly. In order to get a true understand, the young lady has to be allowed to express her own thoughts without any suggestions about the symbols being made. In the course of the analysis her reserve gave way to a distinct interest in the interpretations, and a frankness which was made possible by the serious tone of the conversation. To my question as to what kind of flowers they had been, her first answer was “expensive flowers; one has to pay for them”; then she adds that they were lilies-of-the valley, violets, and pinks or carnations. The word lily represents in its popular sense, a symbol of chastity; she confirmed this, as purity occurred to her in association with lily. Valley is a common feminine symbol. The chance juxtaposition of the two symbols in the name of the flower is made to emphasize the preciousness of her virginity—expensive flowers; one has to pay for them—and expresses the expectation that her husband will know how to appreciate its value. The comment, expensive flowers, cetera, has, a different meaning in every one of the three different flower-symbols. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8

When we understand things we shall become more tolerant, more kind, more compassionate, because we shall realize that we are all on the pathway of evolution, not of the spirit, which is already perfect, but of the mind which so often is blindly groping in the dark. A venturesome explanation of the hidden meanings of the apparently quite asexual word violets by unconscious relation to the French viol. However, the association for this young lady has to do with the English word violate. The accidental phonetic similarity of the two words violet and violate is utilized to express in the language of flowers the violence of defloration (another word which makes use of flower-symbolism), and perhaps also to give expression to a masochistic tendency many young women feel they have endured when losing their virginity. An excellent example of the word bridges across which run the paths to the unconscious. “One has to pay for the” here means life, with which she has to pay for becoming a wife and a mother and that her husband must also pay for her taking her virtue by supporting her and his children. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8

This kind of reminds me of one of the topics we discussed in the past where another young lady dreamed she was throwing up all over herself and “wanted” to become pregnant by of harem of men, but feared she would ruin her figure and no longer be attractive to men. What that probably means, because virginity was so valued in the Victorian era, pregnant, or women who had lost their virginity, had a harder time finding husbands because everyone wanted a virgin due to the fact that in noble families you had to basically buy your bride with a dowry. Therefore, if a man was going to buy a bride, he wanted to be her first. And because it was hard to find rich men, if you were not a virgin, it made chances even harder. Now, back to the young lady in question. In association with pinks, which she then calls carnations, it could mean carnal. However, her association is colour, to which she adds that carnations are the flowers which her fiancé gives her frequently and in large quantities. At the end of the conversation she suddenly admits, spontaneously, that she has not told the truth; the word that occurred to her was not colour, but incarnation. Moreover, even the word colour is not a remote association; it was determined by meaning of carnation (exempli gratia flesh-colour)—that is, by the complex. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8

We will be helped over many a difficulty if we realize that an emotional bias does create a mental blind spot. Then if we learn to overlook the differences because we understand them, we shall no longer bring condemnation, or judgement, and our own lives will become enriched as they always must with new knowledge. This lack of honesty shows that the resistance here is at its greatest because the symbolism is here most transparent, and the struggle between libido and repression is most intense in connection wit this phallic theme. The remark that these pinks or carnation flower were often given her by her fiancé is, together with the double meaning of carnation, a still further indication of their phallic significance. The occasion of the present of flowers during the day is employed to express the thought of a sexual present and a return present. She gives her virginity and expects in return for it a rich love-life. However, the words “expensive flowers; one has to pay for them” many have a real, financial meaning, as we anticipated. The flower-symbolism thus comprises the virginal female, the male symbol, and reference to feeling violated by defloration. It is to be noted that sexual flower-symbolism, which, of course, is very widespread, symbolizes the human sexual organs by flowers, the sexual organs of plant; indeed, presents of flowers between lovers may perhaps have this unconscious significance. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8

Living is an art as well as a science. It is a thing of beauty as well as form; a thing of the heart as well as the intellect. It is a combination of all these that makes up the factor of a well-rounded life. The birthday for which she is making preparations probably signifies the birth of a child. She identifies herself with the bridegroom, and represents him preparing her for a birth (having coitus with her). It is as though the latent thoughts were to say: she fears he will not wait and might be rough and not even ask for her consent. Indeed, the word violate points to this. And so it illuminates that fact that brides may have feared a dowry because they thought their husbands might use force and not considered their feelings. Therefore, in Victorian times, weddings and courting may have been extremely stressful for women. Thus even the sadistic libidinal components find expression. In a deeper stratum of the dream the sentence I arrange, et cetera, probably has an auto-erotic, that is, an infantile significance. And again we come right back to the fundamental proposition that the problems we face are not external; they are within. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8

These issues are not some other person’s fault; neither are they necessarily our own fault. They are the fault of misunderstanding or confusion, from which enlightenment alone can free us. The young lady also has a knowledge—possibly only in her own mind—of her physical need; she sees herself flat like a table, so that she emphasizes all the more her virginity, the costliness of the centre (another time she calls it a centre-piece of flowers). Even the horizontal element of the table may contribute something to the symbol. Nothing is superfluous, every word is a symbol. Later on she brings a supplement to the situation: “I decorate the flowers with green crinkled paper.” She adds that it was fancy paper of the sort which is used to disguise ordinary flower-pots. She says also: “To hide untidy things, whatever was to be seen which was not pretty to the eye; there is a gap, a little space in the flowers. This paper looks like velvet or moss.” With decorate she associates decorum. The green colour is very prominent, and with this she associates hope, yet another reference to pregnancy. The identification with the man is not the dominant feature, but thoughts of shame and frankness express themselves. She makes herself beautiful for him; she admits physical defects, of which she is ashamed and which she wished to correct. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8

More than likely she feared he would not love her if he knew she was with child because in Victorian times so much emphasis was placed on women being below average weight, and wearing dresses which displayed their unusually thin waist. This is an expression of thoughts hardly known to her husband; thoughts which deal with the love of the senses and its organs; she is prepared for a birthday, exempli gratia she has coitus; the fear of defloration and perhaps the pleasurably toned pain find expression; she admits her physical defects and over-compensates them by means of an over-estimation of the value of her virginity. Her shame excuses the emerging sensuality by the fact that the aim of it all is the child. Even material considerations, which are foreign to the lover, find expression here. The affect of the simple conversation—the feeling of bliss—shows that here strong emotional complexes have found satisfaction. Abiding in the midst of ignorance, thinking themselves wise and learned, fools go aimlessly hither and thither, like the two ships clashing in the night. Therefore, no person should set oneself up as the great example, but humbly following the pathway of truth as one sees it, with a good-natured and flexible tolerance for oneself and others, learn to overlook all mistakes and feel one’s way through confusion back to the central flame from which everyone’s life is lighted. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8