CHAPTER VI 

 LILY-KIN AND ROSE-KIN 



" Let us change the subject, and talk about lilies and roses." 

 E. Buxton. 



FROM time out of mind there has been a close 

 companionship between the lily and the rose. 

 They have bloomed together in all gardens of 

 delight, from Mother Eve's, where the rose was 

 "without thorn," to grandmamma's, where they 

 lived with single pinks, and gillyflowers, prince's- 

 feather, and love lies-bleeding, behind prim hedges 

 of clipped box. They have been together in her- 

 aldry, where the Rose of England and the Lily of 

 France were blazoned on the same Plantagenet 

 shields and banners, together in mediaeval art, 

 where they have bloomed side by side at the feet 

 of the Virgin, and together in the love-poetry of 

 all times and lands from the Hebrew "Song of 

 Songs" to Tennyson's "Maud." 



But botany breaks up this immemorial fellow- 

 ship and puts them far asunder. It tells us, in- 

 deed, that they have nothing in common. 



116 



