of it as compared with the beautiful large Jack- 

 manni varieties, rich in color, and bold in design, 

 whether I should be sufficiently complimentary 

 if I apostrophized it " a footly little thing." 



In this chapter I seem to have been talking 

 almost more about woman than about the gar- 

 den ; but after all woman is indissolubly mixed up 

 with the garden, which she usually directs as she 

 does most other things, and in the end we must 

 acknowledge that she is either the rose or the vior 

 let of society if not of the garden. A great and 

 clever man once summed up to me in two words 

 the culmination of his experience as to the treat- 

 ment of woman : " Thwart her," he said. The 

 prescription may or may not be a good and cha- 

 stening one. It would in any case have to be 

 administered with great tact and much gilding. 

 I do not, however, wish to discuss it, as it is not 

 in my line, though I must plead guilty to think- 

 ing sometimes with another great man that 

 " woman is an unreasoning being who pokes the 

 fire from the top." 



Metaphorically this is quite true, for the simple 

 reason that woman is swayed much more by senti- 



28 



