!86 STARLIGHT AND SUNSHINE. 



sciousness are betrayed in every petal ! What a delight to the 

 eye, what a perfect compendium to the disciple of " art for art 

 alone"! Its bewildering complexity of flowing lines, its infinite 

 modulations of form and light and shade and color, each curling, 

 moulded petal in itself an epitome of art, with its half-tones, its 

 single key-note of pure color, and its line of reflected sheen at 

 the curling edge, where the borrowed hue tells of the sky or 

 cloud, or, perhaps, of some neighboring sunny bloom. See the 

 shadows of petal on petal transmitted through the sunlit glow 

 of the overhanging corolla, while all below is painted with com- 

 plex light and shade, each shaded petal nursing the shadow of 

 itself within its chalice, each shadowed cup, again, lit up with 

 reflected light from within, and carrying around its edge that 

 wondrous gamut of pearly grays which have been the despair of 

 art. Yes, yes, I grant it all ; it is ravishing. Paint me the rose, 

 O Art, and thenceforth hesitate at nothing ! 



Verily may I conclude with Goethe, " Some flowers are lovely 

 only to the eye, others are lovely to the heart." Others, again, 

 are lovely to the soul, and it is the wild garden alone that leads 

 us into the clouds. 







