On Gardeners' Flowers 



rather say, that their most distinctive ex- 

 cellence lies in another direction. 



The more natural flowers exhibit gene- 

 rally a self-imposed restraint, and reser- 

 vation of power : they seem making no 

 effort to be beautiful. The highly cul- 

 tivated flower will often impress us too 

 much with this idea that it is doing its 

 utmost, and that it could not well be 

 larger, nor fuller, nor its colours in the 

 least more showy. 1 Consequently, in the 

 largest Auriculas, Wallflowers, Azaleas, 

 Petunias, we feel a certain laxity, as if 

 the form were almost breaking from its 

 bounds. By keeping too much, then, to 

 these garden flowers, you will be tempted 

 to lose sight of the value of narrowness 

 in shape, and of modest severity in colour- 

 ing, and be continually wishing, as the 

 gardener generally does, to see everything 

 carried on from fuller to fuller, and so to 

 the perfect consummation of fulness in the 

 double blossom. 



We may say that the gardener's taste 

 bears a certain analogy to that of Rubens. 



1 Just as in looking at the Farnese Hercules you say, 

 " What a noble figure ! Could any one imagine a frame 

 more muscular than this?" But no such thought ever 

 enters your head whilst you contemplate the superb 

 proportions of the Theseus (Hercules?) of the Elgin 

 marbles. 



157 



