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64 



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ttbe ifraatant IRote Book 



Not long ago fashion decreed the dahlia out of date. 

 Retire the dahlia. Now fashion proclaims the dahlia all the 

 rage. Enter again the dahlia in myriad forms. And the real ^ 

 joke on Dame Nature is in the fact that the dahlia was 

 by no means ancient enough to have been relegated to the 

 kitchen garden when the fiat went forth, being then among 

 the very recent importations which had been brought in to 

 grace our gardens only a bare Ufetime before it was exiled 

 as antiquated. Small blame that it now threatens to 

 take ample vengeance in popularity for its years of unjust! 

 retirement. | . , f r^ 



» ' "And, e'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy, 

 The heart, distrusting, asks if this be joy." 



One cannot look at the flowers of long ago without 

 thinking of poor, imhappy, demented Ophelia. How gently 

 she would have strayed through our garden of the past, 

 where she would have found many of the flowers that went 

 to form her nosegay. "There's rosemary, that's for remem 

 brance ; Pray you, love, remember ; and there is pansies 

 for thoughts. . . . There's fennel for you and columbines ; 

 there's rue for you and here's some for me. " And grandam ^ 

 you see is old enough to have remembrances and human / 

 enough to have long since planted her little space of rue / 



Dr remem- y j 

 5ies, that's / / 



liimhinf^s? f 



which the dear soul knew as Ophelia did before her, meant / 

 repentance. So for her tender little sins she planted a tender I 

 little bed of repentance 



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