CHAPTER IX 

 FLOWERS OF LIGHT 



There is gold for you. — Cymbeline. 



AS I have said many times I am not fond of gardens 

 /\ or borders devoted to one colour; but if ever I were 

 J- jL tempted to make one it would be yellow in all the 

 frank and pleasant tones from cream and buff and the bright 

 butter yellows through apricot to the tawny ochreous 

 shades, reaching now and then to flame. Not all blue 

 flowers may be safely used in each other's company and 

 but few pinks unless they are of the same scale; but all 

 yellow flowers, like the light of which they seem to be 

 fashioned, blend and combine or flash back at each other 

 with never a jar to the most sensitive eye. They are the 

 sunshine of the garden, and it is a pleasant fact that yel- 

 low flowers are more plentiful than any others and that 

 from the time of the delicate radiances of spring to the 

 flaring up of autumn's beacons their illumination is un- 

 dimmed. 



I like yellow flowers grown in full sunshine. They seem 

 to gather glow from the great luminary and seldom bleach 

 or shrivel before its warmth as do so many blue and scarlet 

 flowers. As a matter of fact, the brightest yellow flowers 



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