AT A ROSE-SHOW. 28 1 



But our further acquaintance has convinced me 

 that he has a reHsh for melancholy. I watched 

 him once, when I knew, but he did not, that he 

 had won a first prize, to see what effect success 

 would have upon him. He came slowly to his 

 Roses, and read the announcement with an ex- 

 pression of profound despair, just as though it had 

 been a telegram informing him that the bank, in 

 which he had placed his all, proposed a dividend 

 of fourpence in the pound. 



Warned by these rare examples against anger, 

 avarice, and despond, assured that the horses 

 which rear, bite, kick, and sulk, are seldom win- 

 ners of the race, let the young exhibitor now ac- 

 quaint himself with his colleagues generally, and 

 let him learn from them, as from men who have 

 not lived in vain amid the beauties and the boun- 

 ties of a garden, contentment, generosity, perse- 

 verance, hope. They will tell him that the lessons 

 of defeat will most certainly teach him to conquer, 

 if he will only learn them patiently, noting his 

 failures and making every effort to overcome them. 

 Fighting for the prize, he resembles in one point, 

 and one only I trust, the prize-fighter — when 

 judgment, temper, self-mastery are lost, the battle 

 is lost also. They will tell him not only how to 

 win his laurels, but how to wear them gracefully; 



