136 MAY 



account of the disfavour which has fallen upon 

 scarlet geraniums, yellow calceolarias, and blue 

 lobelias. People tired of these, not because they 

 lacked brilliancy or beauty, but because everybody 

 had them, and because they only flowered for a few 

 weeks in late summer and autumn, and left naked, 

 brown beds for all our solace during the rest of the 

 year. 'La vertu est une triste chose, car elle ne 

 laisse point de souvenirs,' and so it was with bed- 

 ding out. It may be that generations yet unborn 

 may revert to it, and prize it for its associations 

 with the Victorian age, hallowed by memories of the 

 introduction of battues, crinolines, croquet, dtners h 

 la Russe, and other cherished institutions. Mean- 

 while, we part from it without a sigh; our only 

 wish is that it would disappear a little faster. 



It was only a few weeks ago that I stood, for the 

 first time, on a lovely spring morning, in the cele- 

 brated Italian garden of Diane de Poitiers at Che- 

 nonceaux. Never was there a more dreary rectangle ! 

 So far from being a place of flowers, it seemed to be 

 a space from which every blossoming thing had been 

 laboriously expunged. True, that in a couple of 

 months there would be a fine blaze of red, blue, and 

 yellow ; but what memories could that fleeting dis- 



