28 IDLEHURST : 



find six square inches of Turner vignette obliterate 

 a half-acre of palette-knife energies from last year's 

 Academy, or a bit of old ballad refrain abolish an 

 epic glorious in special type and a limited edition of 

 signed and numbered copies. 



Nothing is sacred to the florist ; but by help of 

 cottage gardens and the obscure amateur some certain 

 beauties have escaped him : damask roses, white 

 thorn, queen lilies survive his dealings and the 

 epidemics induced by his in-breeding and fantastic 

 selection. In my double border I conserve something 

 of the unimproved, the unrectified (as the fulip- 

 breeders say) Flora. Elsewhere I have plots for 

 the last certificated hybrid and the seedling with 

 three crosses to its name, for I desire to prove all 

 things; but in my grass walk I hold fast the good 

 of twenty generations, Chaucer's posy, Spenser's 

 odours, Shakespere's tinctures, a harmonious com- 

 pany of blossoms, unvexed by the upstarts of the 

 age, the cosmopolitan canaille, aliens from Cathaya, 

 or that whole World which is New. It is no small 

 instruction to idle round the quarters, even at this 

 naked opening of the year, when headstone labels 

 so largely represent the dormant life ; to pace from 

 the solitary primrose to the home of Primula 

 Himalaica, from cabbage-roses to the Teas of '95 ; 



