FEBRUARY 31 



triumph is assured. I challenge you to 

 show me the grandest bell-flower born of 

 tropic suns that can compare in its attri- 

 butes of perfect grace with our English 

 snowdrop. I mean the large old single 

 snowdrop I will have nothing to do with 

 the double, as a snowdrop. The snowdrop 

 is in itself a lesson of form and colour 

 from the straight, long oval of the tube, out 

 of which spring three sweet oval lobes, to 

 the delicate pencilling in Nature's loveliest 

 green of the threefold inner cup. And you 

 will observe there is no over-luxuriant 

 fulness, all is severely, tenderly restrained, 

 as are the lines of a Greek statue. And 

 then the colour! it is pure as fresh-fallen 

 snow upon an alpine peak. The hanging 

 of the bell, too, is a wonder of firm lightness, 

 so light that with a breath it swings, so 

 strong it will upbear the snow-drift. One 

 lovely detail must not be forgotten : this 

 is the folding inwards of the lobes along 

 each outer edge, giving a peculiar grace 

 which hard lines here could never have. 

 But an attempt to describe the snowdrop 

 must fail; I know of no words simple 



