I08 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



handiwork, deformed by fault and flaw. Did you ever 

 meet a gardener, who, however fair his ground, was ab- 

 solutely content and pleased ^ Did you never hear " O si 

 angulus ille ! " from the lord of many fields .'' Is there not 

 always a tree to be felled or a bed to be turfed .'' Does not 

 somebody's chimney, or somebody's ploughed field, persist 

 in obtruding its ugliness .'' Is there not ever some grand 

 mistake to be remedied next summer .'' Alas ! the florist 

 never is, but always to be, blessed with a perfect garden ; 

 and to him, as to all mankind, perfect happiness is that 

 ''gay to-morrow of the mind, which never comes." 



These imperfections and mistakes, of course, arise in our 

 gardens mainly from our own ignorance or indolence ; and 

 as sterility, feebleness, and premature decay, are caused not 

 by tree, plant, weather, soil, but by wrong treatment, 

 position, neglect ; so all unsightly combinations, poverty or 

 excess of objects brought together, rigidity, monotony, un- 

 gracefulness, originate not from the materials at our dis- 

 posal, but from the manner in which we dispose them. And 

 in this matter of ai^rangemcnt we are at the present day 

 conspicuously weak. Never was the gardener so rich in 

 resources. Our collectors, hazarding their lives, and losing 

 them in their work of love, have gained us treasures from 



