Flowers and Gardens 



petal ? l Yet such is actually the case. 

 And once, when I went into the market 

 to ask for single Hollyhocks, the gar- 

 dener, civil as he was, seemed absolutely 

 taken by surprise. " Single Hollyhocks! 

 No, sir, I wouldn't keep such things ! " 



The common Garden Anemone is an- 

 other case in point : never was the effect 

 of central organs better seen than in the 

 single flower, where the stamens cluster 

 so exquisitely around and into that black 

 bee-like crown. Now the Anemone has 

 some peculiar charm which excites in me 

 an almost indescribable rapture, and that 

 crown is as it were the very culmination 

 of the whole. And I cannot but think 

 that here, if not in the Hollyhock, the 

 double flower which the gardeners so 

 much prefer will be absolutely painful, 

 from its inferiority, to any man of right 

 feeling, who has the means of obtaining 

 the single one. Now the effect of such 

 false principles fully carried out may be 

 seen in the taste of the common people. 

 They will generally, under any circum- 

 stances, prefer the highly cultivated flower 



1 Unmeaning, that is, in comparison with what it re- 

 places. The blossoms of the double Hollyhock have a 

 full, noble form, but one can never heartily enjoy them 

 from a sense of what is missing. 



150 



