204 MORE POT-POURRI 



someone had given me the hint when I was young. 

 However, if it does improve taste, and if it does raise the 

 price of pretty things, surely one's sympathies in such 

 matters are rather with those who have to sell the things 

 they value than with those who can afford to buy 

 them. My one object, both in this book and the last, 

 is to give everyone — so far as I can — anything I know 

 or have learnt in a long life. And in writing the first 

 book, under the impression that it would be an abso- 

 lute failure, I used to console myself by saying : 

 ' WeU, if it helps ten people just a little, that makes 

 it worth while.' 



Old Sir Thomas Browne, in his quaint and self- 

 opinionative way, puts pretty strongly what I feel : ' It 

 is an honorable object to see the reasons of other men 

 wear our Liveries, and their borrowed understandings do 

 homage to the bounty of ours ; it is the cheapest way of 

 beneficence, and, like the natural charity of the Sun, 

 illuminates another without obscuring itself. To be 

 reserved and caitiff in this part of goodness is the 

 sordidest piece of covetousness, and more contemptible 

 than pecuniary Avarice.' 



February 2nd. — I have been reading lately two fasci- 

 nating books on natural history by George D. Leslie, the 

 painter — one is called ' Letters to Marco' and the other 

 'Riverside Letters' — descriptions of his own home on 

 the river. The little illustrations have a great deal of 

 artistic individuality, and are to me, though slight, very 

 superior to the ordinary photographic reproductions. 

 His description of cultivating the difficult 'Iris Susiana' 

 is so good that I think I will copy it : 



'As ill-luck would have it, I missed the first burst into 

 bloom of an Iris Susiana, to which I had been looking 

 forward with great eagerness. This Iris is very difficult 

 to manage in our fickle climate. It is six years since it 



