30 MORE POT-POURRI 



directly after flowering, as well as cutting back later in 

 the year if they make too much growth. 



I "wonder the claret -coloured Vine is so seldom 

 planted. The foliage is handsome and effective, and the 

 little bunches of black grapes are interesting, and remind 

 one of the ornaments in early Gothic churches. The 

 stunted bunches are quite different in shape from those 

 of ordinary grapes. They grow well up a pole, and 

 make a good rough arch. Pancretiums are excellent 

 greenhouse plants and well worth growing, especially P. 

 fragrans. But in a small garden and greenhouse all 

 these bulbs and plants want remembering and looking 

 after, in order to get a good succession, and the head of 

 the garden must help the gardener, as it is absolutely 

 impossible, with the number of things requiring his 

 constant attention, that he should remember them all 

 himself. 



September 11th. — What a week of excitement this has 

 been, even for those without near relations in that far- 

 away Nile Valley ! Never in all my life do I remem- 

 ber what might be called the aggressive, grasping, 

 ruling spirit of the typical John Bull to have been 

 so united and so universal. War, and the pity of it, and 

 the question why it has to be, which was so strong a 

 feeling and which had such large numbers of supporters 

 in the old Crimean day and even in the Indian Mutiny 

 time, seems now simply non-existent. Is this gain or is 

 it loss ? Is it progress or is it retrogression ? A most 

 curious and, to me, poetic description, showing the 

 conservativeness of the East, and how certain effects 

 suggesting certain word-paintings were the same in the 

 time of David as to-day, struck me very forcibly when I 

 read it in yesterday's 'Spectator,' and I record it here. 

 That a figure of speech which has long puzzled some- 

 what ignorant Bible commentators should be explained, 



