CHAPTER VII 



^^ THE AFTERNOON OF THE YEAR 



JL HE rose, though a queen, is a friendly queen ; but 

 about her rival, the lily, there is always an atmosphere of 

 isolation. Lilies do not reign like the roses, they live 

 apart. There is some indefinable enchantment which 

 puts the whole lily tribe in an altitude so far above other 

 flowers that they are more than regal. How conscious 

 one was in childhood of this strange sweet aloofness of 

 the lilies ! One could pick a basketful of roses, but I do 

 not think any child would voluntarily pick lilies. It 

 would seem like sacrilege. 



The rose sleeps in her beauty, but the lily seems un- 

 aware of her own exceeding loveliness. The rose is never 

 so glorious as in cultivation and fares sumptuously, with 

 every care lavished on her, but, given rich food instead of 

 the sharp drainage and leaf mould to which she is accus- 

 tomed, the lily withdraws her gracious presence. The 

 purity of the lily is not only in her outward form, but it 

 is characteristic of the food she requires. No members 

 of the lily family tolerate manure, artificial or otherwise. 

 The lily is at her fairest in the waste places of the earth, 

 where human eyes rarely see her in her beauty. Think of 

 the splendour of Lilium regale in her native haunts where 

 her discoverer, the late Mr. E. H. Wilson, found her, in 

 that little-known, wild territory which separates China 

 proper from mysterious Thibet. In narrow valleys 

 bordering on the roof of the world, in a region dominated 

 by lofty peaks crowned with eternal snows, subjected to 

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