316 Old Time Gardens 



Poor Anne ! she died before she had time to be- 

 come any one's grandmother. I hope her successor in 

 matrimony, our forbear, cherished her little seedlings 

 and rejoiced in the Lemon and Almond trees, though 

 Anne herself was so speedily forgotten. She is, 

 however, avenged by Time; for she is remembered 

 better than the wife who took her place, through her 

 simple flower-loving words. 



I am surprised at this aspersion on the Marigold 

 as- to its smell, for all the traditions of this flower 

 show it to have been a great favorite in kitchen gar- 

 dens ; and I have found that elderly folk are very 

 apt to like its scent. My father loved the flower 

 and the fragrance, and liked to have a bowl of Mari- 

 golds stand beside him on his library table. It was 

 constantly carried to church as a " Sabbath-day posy," 

 and its petals used as flavoring in soups and stews. 

 Charles Lamb said it poisoned them. Canon Ella- 

 combe writes that it has been banished in England 

 to the gardens of cottages and old farm-houses ; it 

 had a waning popularity in America, but was never 

 wholly despised. 



How Edward Fitzgerald loved the African Mar- 

 igold ! " Its grand color is so comfortable to us 

 Spanish-like Paddies," he writes to Fanny Kemble 

 in letters punctuated with little references to his 

 garden flowers : letters so cheerful, too, with capi- 

 tals ; " I love the old way of Capitals for Names," 

 he says and so do I ; letters bearing two sur- 

 prises, namely, the infrequent references to Omar 

 Khayyam ; and the fact that Nasturtiums, not Roses, 

 were his favorite flower. 



