6o A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



cheek too roughly, which the sun strengthens but does not 

 scorch, which the shower refreshes but the tempest spares. 

 Such a genial home we must find, or make, for our Roses, 

 wherein we may see them in a serene and placid loveliness, 

 what time their unprotected sisters are withering beneath 

 burning suns, and may admire their ample and glossy 

 foliage when, in exposed and unfenced ground, the furious 

 wind seems almost to blow out the very sap from the shim- 

 mering shivering leaves. Transitory, almost ephemeral, is 

 "a Rose's brief bright life of joy," 



TO podop uKfJid^eL fiaiou xpot^ov ; 



and there comes a broiling day towards the end of June, 

 when the Rose, unshaded, is burnt to tinder, and the petals 

 of that magnificent Charles Lefebvre, which was intended 

 for next day's show, crumble as we touch, and are as the 

 parsley which accompanies the hot rissole. Or there comes 

 a gusty day, and lo ! that lovely bloom of Cecile de 

 Chabrillant, perfect just now in tint and symmetry, is 

 chafed, discoloured, deformed, for want of a guardian 

 screen. I know that in the one case something may be 

 done by the use of those fiorumbras and metallic hats of 

 which I shall have more to say when I speak of Roses for 



