JULY 147 



needed William Morris to tell it that red 

 geraniums were invented solely to show that 

 even a flower could be hideous, and, for myself, 

 I need no warning but the shudder of my own 

 soul to tell me that the flare of cannas is little 

 short of an immorality. There is one other 

 flower from which I shrink as from a blow, 

 and that is the scarlet sage salvia a flaunt- 

 ing braggart! It is as impossible to evade 

 its insistence as it is to avoid the sound of 

 a megaphone. It is the visible demon of a 

 flaunting commercialism, the very type of all 

 those things from which a sensitive soul must 

 draw back. As the Blessed Damozel leans out 

 from the gold bar of heaven, it is easy to fancy 

 the seven lilies lying along her arm. As our 

 thoughts are lifted higher, it is with no irrever- 

 ence that we think of Mary as the rose of 

 womanhood. In the green pastures and be- 

 side the still waters of the Psalmist, and in the 

 hymns of the Middle Ages, many and many 

 a blossom lifts up its head and exhales the very 

 breath of the Celestial Country, but I do not 

 think it could enter the mind of any man to 

 think of finding salvias there. 



If the paper garden needed space in January 



