i-^ 



THE MASQUERAX)ER 



AS in the case of the poppy, so with the hollyhock, the 

 learned tell us that it was brought to Europe from 

 the East : but what the learned do not tell us, — ^what 

 indeed the learned may be said malevolently to conceal — 

 is the ground upon which its mere introduction from the 

 East, and the far East at that, should have entitled it to be 

 1 1 called the "holy-hoc" or "holy-mallow," for the one-time 



romance that it was brought from Palestine seems justly 

 I \y^, discredited. For several centuries it has been the habit and 

 fashion of civilisation to consider the East quite the reverse 

 of holy, and the farther East, the more unsanctified it was. 

 Kipling has framed this thought in a crisp if inelegant way 

 when he sings the appeal of the unholy East in the plea to 



" Ship me somewheres east of Suez, 

 Where the best is like the worst, — 

 Where there aren't no Ten Commandments, 

 And a man can raise a thirst." 



But nevertheless and notwithstanding all of this, the 

 bald fact remains that the mallow of India, when brought to 



85 



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II \ t 



