CONCERNING ROSE-SHOWS. 209 



having agreed to reassemble when our financial prospects 

 were more clearly developed, we parted. 



And I thought, as I went rushing down the Northern 

 Line, what a joyous, genial day It had been. Personally 

 unknown to my coadjutors, we had been from the moment 

 our hands met as the friends of many years. So It Is ever 

 with men who love flowers at heart. Assimilated by the 

 same pursuits and interests, hopes and fears, successes and 

 disappointments — above all, by the same thankful, trustful 

 recognition of His majesty and mercy Who placed man in 

 a garden to dress it — these men need no formal introduc- 

 tions, no study of character to make them friends. They 

 have a thousand subjects in common, on which they rejoice 

 to compare their mutual experiences and to conjoin their 

 praise. Were It my deplorable destiny to keep a toll-bar 

 on some bleak, melancholy waste, and were I permitted to 

 choose In alleviation a companion, of whom I was to know 

 only that he had one special enthusiasm, I should certainly 

 select a florist. Authors would be too clever for me. Artists 

 would have nothing to paint. Sportsmen I have always 

 loved ; but that brook, which they will jump so often at 

 night, does get such an amazing breadth — that stone wall 



such a fearful height — that rocketing pheasant so Invisible — 



o 



