XII 



Friendly Flowers 



No gardener can be happy, nor can a garden be 

 successful, while flowers are handled unsympathe- 

 tically, regarded as no more than so much coloured 

 material or pigment for the creation of a picture. 

 The Philistine and the Ungodly will scoff at any 

 assertion that flowers have souls, and yet until it 

 is admitted there can be no real or lasting suc- 

 cess in the garden, and certainly happiness will 

 wither there. 



Darwin no more invented or discovered the 

 Theory of Evolution than Buffon did, he made it 

 popular and impressed it on the general imagina- 

 tion : and yet, so obstinately do old prejudices 

 and conceits linger and hold currency, that the 

 plain person who wishes to make an assertion of 

 faith that smacks of Pantheism, and shows a 

 reverence for dumb creation, must defend himself 

 with authority and quote. Therefore, let me take 

 refuge behind inverted commas (without acknow- 

 ledgment) : 



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