208 A WHITE-PAPER GARDEN 



fine backgrounds if the space given be large. 

 It should be very large indeed to find room 

 for the ubiquitous golden glow ! The old- 

 fashioned sunflower was a most honest soul. 

 It was not his fault that certain soulful verse- 

 makers a generation ago cried its praise in the 

 market-place with such zeal that a weary world 

 begged for peace, and it should not be blamed 

 for their lack of discretion. Its corona of 

 cheerful ray-flowers and its broad tanned face 

 long ago became an integral part of September. 

 To us now also belong by right some prim 

 yellow dahlias, and the whole great world of 

 goldenrod. I was not surprised to read that 

 with the grasses and sedges it was the fav- 

 ourite plant of Thoreau, or to hear him say 

 that they "expressed all the ripeness of the 

 season and shed their mellow lustre over the 

 fields as if now the declining sun had be- 

 queathed its hues to them. It is the floral 

 solstice a little after midsummer, when the 

 particles of golden light, the sun dust, have, 

 as it were, fallen like seeds on the earth and 

 produced these blossoms." On every hillside 

 and in every valley stand countless asters, 

 coreopsis, tansies, goldenrods and the whole 



