For the chalice we may choose from among the flowers which goldsmiths take as their models: the white convolvulus, the frail campanula, and even the tulip, though, having some repute as connected with magic, that flower is in ill odour.

For the shape of the monstrance there is the sun-flower." "Yes," interrupted the Abbe Plomb, wiping his spectacles, "but these are fancies borrowed simply from superficial resemblance; it is modern symbolism, which is really not symbolism at all.

And is not this the case to a great extent with the various interpretations that you accept from Sister Emmerich?
She died in 1824." "What does that matter ?" said Durtal.

"Sister Emmerich was a primitive saint, a seer, whose body indeed lived in our day, but whose soul was far away; she dwelt more in the Middle Ages than in ours.

It might be said indeed that she was more ancient still, for, in fact, she was contemporary with Christ, whose life she follows step by step through her pages.
"Hence her ideas of symbolism cannot be set aside.