friends interwoven with one's tastes, preferences and 

 character, and constitutes a sort of unwritten but 

 withal manifest autobiography. Show me your gar- 

 den, provided it be your own, and I will tell you 

 what you are like. Alfred Austin. 



^e JLote of f lottery 



" Who loves a garden still his Eden keeps ; 

 Perennial pleasures plants and wholesome harvests 

 reaps." 



You have heard it said (and I believe there is 

 more than fancy even in that saying, but let it pass 

 for a fanciful one) that flowers only flourish rightly 

 in the garden of some one who loves them. I know 

 you would like that to be true ; you would think it 

 a pleasant magic if you could flush your flowers into 

 brighter bloom by a kind look upon them ; nay, 

 more, if your look had the power, not only to cheer, 

 but to guard; if you could bid the black blight 

 turn away, and the knotted caterpillar spare if you 

 could bid the dew fall upon them in the drought, 

 and say to the south wind in frost "Come, thou 

 South, and breathe upon my garden that the spices 

 of it may flow out!" John Rus kin. 



As I work among my flowers, I find myself 

 talking to them, reasoning and remonstrating with 

 them, and adoring them as if they were human beings. 



Cetia Thaxter. 



" Thou bearest flowers within Thy hand, 

 Thou wearest on Thy breast 



A flower ; now tell me which of these 

 Thy flowers Thou lovest best; 



Which wilt Thou gather to Thy heart 

 Beloved above the rest ? " 



