104 HIGH LIFE, 



counts for very little among the mass of lush green which 

 surrounds and conceals it. On the other hand, in our 

 museums and conservatories we sedulously pick out the 

 rarest and most beautiful of these rare and beautiful 

 species, and we isolate them completely from their 

 natural surroundings. The consequence is that the un- 

 travelled mind regards the tropics mentally as a sort of 

 perpetual replica of the hot-houses at Kew, superimposed 

 on the best of Mr. Bull's orchid shows. As a matter of 

 fact, people who know the hot world well can tell you 

 that the average tropical woodland is much more like the 

 dark shade of Box Hill or the deepest glades of the 

 Black Forest. For really fine floral display in the mass, 

 all at once, you must go, not to Ceylon, Sumatra, 

 Jamaica, but to the far north of Canada, the Bernese 

 Oberland, the moors of Inverness-shire, the North Cape 

 of Norway. Flowers are loveliest where the climate is 

 coldest ; forests are greenest, most luxuriant, least 

 blossoming, where the conditions of life are richest, 

 warmest, fiercest. In one word, High Life is always 

 poor but beautiful. 



