1 88 A WHITE-PAPER GARDEN 



green, with calyx and leaves of a most effective 

 woolliness there is small wonder that the 

 hollyhock is ever the painter's flower. None 

 composes better, and none, it seems to me, 

 gives a more comfortable sense of home. Yet 

 it does not care overmuch for culture, growing 

 quite contentedly in deserted corners. Indeed 

 the finest display of any flower I ever saw was 

 in the yard of an abandoned stone tenement 

 house in an old mill-town. Perhaps they had 

 had things their own way for a dozen years ; 

 perhaps for twenty. Certainly they had made 

 the most of their liberty, and the yard was a 

 condensed flame. With the snapdragons and 

 the larkspurs and the phlox the mere thought 

 of the hollyhock is a joy to the heart of every 

 garden-bred child. 



And every child should be garden-bred, and 

 no child should be cheated out of his heritage 

 to garden joys by any pretext whatever. 

 Nothing can make up to him what he loses if 

 he loses that : nothing is of any value compared 

 with the treasures enjoyed and laid up in the 

 long hours spent in that one companionship 

 which can never harm nor pall. In after years, 

 in alien places, next to the thought of our 



