66 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



his old home, but the flowers and their fragrance, 

 still the same as ever, will call up all the past. 

 There is the corner where the first violets were 

 always found ; there is the rosebush from which 

 a flower may once have been gathered of which 

 the poor faded petals still remain ; there is the 

 lavender, which supplied the oaken presses where 

 the house-linen was always kept. And, apart 

 from all such fond and foolish private memories, 

 there are all the associations with which literature 

 has consecrated the old garden-flowers. Pelargo- 

 niums, calceolarias, verbenas, and the rest of the 

 new-comers have but few friends, but not an old 

 flower but is " loaded with a thought," as Emer- 

 son says of the asters on the slopes at Concord. 

 Roses, lilies, violets, primroses, and daffodils, have 

 been written about over and over again, and the 

 words of great poets rise unbidden to the memory 

 at sight of them. And then certain flowers will 

 recall an entire scene, and Marguerite asks her 

 fate from the large white daisy whose name she 

 bears, or Corisande, in her garden of every perfume, 

 gathers but not for herself her choicest rose. 



