34 ORCHID HYBRIDS. 



which is the protector, the elevating motor of your 

 nation's sincerity. Laugh at me if you like; there is 

 nothing in this world that can wound this my heart to 

 death. Call your doctor, your medicus a more noble 

 aiming man. I do not gainsay it, though he does not 

 control his subjects like we do ours. But there is no 

 more religious training a human being can be subjected 

 to than the care of plants, of those beings closest to a 

 person's affection. Why do you celebrate your infant's 

 birthday by decorating with flowers? Why do you select 

 a bud to lay to the bosom of your beloved? Why do 

 you value higher than gold and myrrh the wreath picked 

 by that picture of innocence, the child of your moun- 

 tains? Why do you put a myrtle sprig into your bride's 

 locks? Why do you make the heart of your husband 

 bright with hope when he finds a spray of only the 

 most homely of flowers on his desk? Why do you place 

 before the window of your invalid friend a pot with 

 violet or snowdrop to cheer his wretched days? And 

 why? oh! why do you press a bunch of tear- wetted 

 flowers into the hand of the one whose features you are 

 about to look at for the last time? Are not we gardeners 

 the caretakers, the nurses, the doctors of those objects, 

 those subjects? Do not we enable you to enjoy their 

 cheering presence every day of your life? Is it not we 

 who take up, improve and perfect those plants and 

 flowers? Where is the home that can do without the 

 products of our work, our skill, our art? Take a man 

 from the depth of wretchedness; a woman, the dirtiest 

 hoodlum woman, from whom you buy a buttonhole 

 when forcing your way through the crowd on Thread- 

 needle Street: you can touch them with the emblem of 

 life, a flower. I have worked in your houses. I have 

 studied in your colleges. Rich I was; poor I became. 



