44 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



to grow everywhere for our food, sends also for 

 our delectation things pleasant to the eye — in Ice- 

 land (I wish to confess honorably that I am still 

 filching from Boitard), so fertile in vegetation that 

 in some parts the natives are compelled to feed 

 their horses, sheep, and oxen on dried fish, we find 

 the Rosa rubiginosa, with its pale, solitary, cup- 

 shaped flowers ; and in Lapland, blooming almost 

 under the snows of that severe climate, the natives, 

 seeking mosses and lichens for their reindeer, find 

 the Rosas majalis and rubella, the former of which, 

 brilliant in color and of a sweet perfume, enlivens 

 the dreariness of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. 

 And I come home now, eagerly as a carrier- 

 pigeon to his native dovecot, to our own Rose- 

 gardens — eagerly, because here, and here only, 

 can our Queen be found in the full splendor of her 

 royal beauty. The Roses of all lands are here, 

 but so changed, so strengthened by climate, diet, 

 and care, so refined by intermarriage with other 

 noble families, that they would no more be recog- 

 nized by their kinsfolk at home than Cinderella at 

 the ball by her sisters. The fairy, Cultivation, has 

 touched them with her wand, and the pale, puny 

 kitchen-girl steps out of her dingy gingham a 

 princess, in velvet and precious point, like some 

 glowing butterfly from his drab cocoon ; or as 



