CHAPTEK XXXVI 



LIFE AND FRIENDSHIP AT KEW 



A visitor to Kew about this period would have found the 

 Director always busy, though never hustling. Entering the 

 house from Kew Green, to which it turned an old-world front 

 of brick half covered with ivy, the visitor would be shown 

 along a passage hung with old engravings to the Director's 

 studies, two simple rooms lined with books. In the wide south 

 window that filled up most of the farther end and looked out 

 upon a green lawn backed with trees, stood a table and micro- 

 scope. On the right stretched tables and a long desk covered 

 with letters and reports, perhaps a pot of strange flowers and 

 several coloured drawings of rare plants. Over the mantel- 

 piece hung a medallion of Sir John Franklin and a portrait of 

 Darwin, and on the walls various portraits of botanical worthies, 

 including his father and Lindley, as well as some of the beloved 

 Wedgwood portrait medallions framed. 



Somehow he would generally be able to steal time from his 

 long day to show his visitor something of the beauty and the 

 scientific worth of the Gardens, for he was proud of both. He 

 was eager to stir interest in Kew for its own sake ; well-in- 

 formed public opinion would resist its possible starvation by 

 a penny-wise Government. 



When he sallied forth, it would not be in the conventional 

 silk hat and black coat always worn by Bentham and Oliver 

 in the Gardens. Much travel had confirmed his liking for 

 comfortable clothes ; he appeared in the freedom and ease of 



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