A Lost Lady

There are numerous references to roses in the story. When the reader is first introduced to Mrs. Forrester, she is arranging blush roses in a glass bowl. This color of roses symbolizes Mrs. Forrester herself, as the wild pink roses that grow on the Forresters’ land are evocative of her untamed personality. Niel picks wild roses for Mrs. Forrester in the early morning, roses that are “opened, their petals were stained with that burning rose-colour which is always gone by noon—a dye made of sunlight and morning and moisture, so intense that it cannot possibly last […] must fade, like ecstasy” (48). He sees them as beautiful and defenseless, like Mrs. Forrester. His own innocence is compared to the morning freshness of the bucolic scene and the wild roses. When Niel finds Frank Ellinger in Mrs. Forrester’s bedroom with her, he runs away and flings the roses into a ditch, abandoning his youthful idealism along with the bouquet. His admiration of Mrs. Forrester had been the bloom on his existence, like the bloom on the roses, now despoiled.

After his accident prevented him from pursuing his work with the railroad, Captain Forrester “devoted a great deal of time to growing roses” (17). Captain Forrester is as devoted to his roses as he is to his wife and the land itself. All three are sources of beauty in his life.

After he has been away for two years, Niel returns to visit the Forresters and finds Captain Forrester sitting in his rose garden. As he leaves, Captain Forrester is “watching the sunset glory on his roses” (64). He is content to watch the sunset of his life, communing with nature among the symbols of the beauty that filled his life.

After the captain’s death, Adolph Blum brings a box of yellow roses for Mrs. Forrester, though he can scarcely afford them. This symbolizes the great respect and gratitude Adolph still felt toward the Forresters, who were kind to him despite the difference in their social status. Adolph knows how much the Forresters cherished roses. When Mrs. Forrester sees them, she breaks down, the only time Niel sees her do so on the day of the funeral, because the roses remind her of her husband. Even when she moves away and remarries, Mrs. Forrester continues to ensure that roses are placed on Captain Forrester’s grave, symbolizing her enduring love for him.

Mrs. Forrester impresses Niel by wearing jewels, especially her dangling earrings; she is the only woman Niel knows who wears earrings. Captain Forrester loves giving his wife jewels, as it publicly demonstrates his love for her and displays their wealth:

“Her husband had archaic ideas about jewels; a man bought them for his wife in acknowledgment of things he could not gracefully utter. They must be costly; they must show that he was able to buy them, and that she was worthy to wear them” (29).

For Niel, Mrs. Forrester’s jewels also symbolize her sparkling personality, how she lights up a room in a way that no other woman he has ever known can do. She is the shining jewel in a drab place.

At the dinner Niel attends at Mrs. Forrester’s request, she is wearing her dangling earrings. This time, however, the jewels seem gaudy and false, a sign that Mrs. Forrester is trying to bring sophistication to a common scene, an attempt that falls flat. Niel feels that Mrs. Forrester is trying to throw “pearls before swine,” or gentility before the crass town boys.

Captain Forrester has a sun dial in his garden, sent by his friend Mr. Dalzell. The stone that composes the sun dial was taken from the Garden of the Gods in Utah, symbolizing the towering, godlike figure that Captain Forrester once was, which is how his friend remembers him. After his stroke, and after Niel has been away for two years, Captain Forrester takes to sitting in his garden a great deal, staring at the sun dial. The townspeople think him childlike and debilitated, while Mrs. Forrester worries that he wishes to see time itself consumed, that he is looking forward to the end of his life. They all misunderstand the sun dial’s significance to Captain Forrester.

For Captain Forrester, watching time pass around the sun dial symbolizes his reflection upon the accomplishments of his life, now that he has entered its sunset and his strength, wealth, and influence have declined. When Niel tells Captain Forrester that he met a man who had been a mine owner when the Burlington railroad was being built, Niel had asked if the man knew Captain Forrester. The man replied that he remembered a man named Forrester who had had a beautiful wife. Upon hearing this story, Captain Forrester says, “‘You must tell her,’ […] stroking the warm surface of his sun-dial” (68). By touching the sun dial, he connects himself to memories of the past, when he was well-known and influential men admired his wife, envied him for having her.

Captain Forrester prefers his sun dial to a watch, which links him to natural cycles rather than technology. This combined with the way he sits and watches the sun dial symbolizes his power and standing as a builder of the West, like a divine sentinel watching over the lives of mortal men.