Daffodils 



Queen is not to be despised, but she must play second fiddle 

 when this anglicised Dutchman tunes up and plays his best. 



Another naturalised Mynheer is Whitewell. I have 

 always admired it since the day I first saw it among its 

 sisters and its cousins and its aunts, more numerous than 

 those of that First Lord who could be reckoned by dozens, 

 Whitewell's went into hundreds, and yet among them all 

 this fine cream and soft buff-orange thing kept on catching 

 my eye. I was in Holland, and for the first time in my 

 life in that part of the country which is the real Holland 

 for a flower-lover. I had the good fortune to be there 

 with Mr. Joseph Jacob, and therefore under his wing, and 

 for his sake found a kindly welcome in many a quiet, out- 

 of-the-world nook where the making of new garden plants 

 was going on. Pleasant as are my memories of those 

 sunny or showery April days, none please me more than 

 the mornings in Mr. Polman Moy's holy of holies, where 

 the pick of his last season or two's seedlings are gathered 

 together under mystic numbers. Mr. Jacob was choosing 

 some of these to go to England to keep up the reputation 

 of Whitewell Rectory for the good things that are always 

 to be seen in Spring in the long, straight beds of his garden. 



He was good enough to pretend he valued my advice 

 in this selection, and extol as he might the charms of others, 

 I always declared I preferred this X over a thing like a 

 fish's tail, No. 1234, and so many notches, or whatever 

 other hieroglyphics then guarded the identity of the future 

 Whitewell. I loved the set of its perianth, three ears for- 

 ward and three back. Not show form, perhaps, but so 

 good to look at, and the forwards casting such delicious 

 shadows on the backwards in the sunlight. 



129 I 



