NEWS OF SPRING 



almost break, that there is abundance of peaches, and you ad- 

 dress him in a language which he completely ignores ; and he 

 will not answer you, for his sole hobby is plum-trees. Do not 

 even speak to him of your plum-trees, for he is fond of only 

 a certain kind and laughs and sneers at the mention of any 

 others ; he takes you to his tree and cautiously gathers this ex- 

 quisite plum, divides it, gives you one half, keeps the other 

 himself and exclaims, ^How delicious! Do you like it? Is 

 it not heavenly? You cannot find its equal anywhere;' and 

 then his nostrils dilate, and he can hardly contain his joy and 

 pride under an appearance of modesty. What a wonderful 

 person, never enough praised and admired, whose name will 

 be handed down to future ages ! Let me look at his mien and 

 shape, while he is still in the land of the living, that I may 

 study the features and the countenance of a man who, alone 

 among mortals, is the happy possessor of such a plum." 



Well, La Bruyere is wrong. We readily forgive him 

 his mistake, for the sake of the pleasant window which he, 

 alone among the authors of his time, opens upon the unex- 

 pected gardens of the seventeenth century. The fact none the 

 less remains that it is to his somewhat bigoted florist, to his 

 somewhat frenzied horticulturist that we owe our exquisite 



[i68] 



