CHAPTER XIV 



THE ROSE GARDEN 



NOT every one who loves roses and fain would grow a few 

 has a garden for them exclusively, nor even any plot of 

 ground that might properly be termed a garden at all. 

 Happily, some roses will grow almost anywhere, and one need not 

 put trust in riches to secure them, for, beyond all other flowers, 

 the rose rewards her devoted, faithful lovers, however humble, 

 rather than the indifferent spendthrift, with her smiles. "He who 

 would have beautiful roses," wrote Dean Hole than whom who 

 should speak with greater authority ? "must love them well and 

 always. To win he must woo, as Jacob wooed Laban's daughter, 

 though drought and frost consume. He must have not only the 

 glowing admiration, the enthusiasm, and the passion, but the 

 thoughtfulness, the reverence, the watchfulness of love. With no 

 ephemeral caprice, like the fair young knight's who loves and 

 who rides away when his sudden fire is gone from the cold white 

 ashes, the cavalier of the rose has Semper fidelis upon his crest 

 and shield." Which is a pretty way of saying that a devoted 

 cottager may easily have more beautiful roses than the indifferent 

 millionaire. Indeed, many of the most wonderful roses exhibited 

 at the shows in English cities are grown by workingmen. The 

 head-waiter in a famous London hotel grows roses in his suburban 

 dooryard that would put to the blush the best products of many 

 American money kings, whose vaunted executive ability relegates 

 to unimpassioned eye-servers the complete control of their gardens. 

 It is granted at the outset that a cool, moist climate is the principal 



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