FEBRUARY 31 



shiny flowers in my books, with many, many 

 light-hearted pansies, and with plenty of frag- 

 rant leaves. On some nights I will have 

 only perennials ; on some days I turn from all 

 old friends and care only for those marked 

 " novelties " ; but these are the restless days in 

 which I have gotten into the strange electric 

 currents that threaten the old, evolved peace 

 in which happiness dwells. The pencil-marks 

 shame me when the ill mood has passed, and 

 my heart has again found anchorage in the still 

 waters beside which the flowers of my youth 

 are growing. Sometimes, in sheer despair of 

 making a list to which I can ever hope to 

 write "the end," I decide to proceed in the 

 orthodox, alphabetical manner. I did so 

 yesterday, and I got no farther than the word 

 Adlumia. 



So it stands on the seedsmen's lists. I hope 

 I need not again write down a Latin or a 

 Latinised name. They have their uses, and 

 " express the plant's standing in the scientific 

 world, as its common name reveals its relation 

 to humanity." There is always a bit of the 

 life of the plant itself in its common name, its 

 home, its private story, its affiliation with rock 



